Jean Little

My first roommate from University posted on Facebook last night that Jean Little had passed away.

Jean Little wrote “Mine for Keeps“, a wonderful story about a girl with cerebral palsy who after 5 years in a boarding school for handicapped children, rejoins her family and is enrolled in a regular school with her siblings.

I’ve had “Mine for Keeps” on my shelf since I was a little girl. After all these years, it is one of the few books I kept when we moved across the country.

My mom won the book, a First Edition, for a public speaking competition when she was in Grade 8.

Jean Little was legally blind, since birth, so it was fascinating when I was child, before computers were common, that someone would be able to write a novel without sight! One day in elementary school, Jean Little came to speak to us!

If I remember correctly, she had a friend or assistant with her, and she had a seeing eye dog. She spoke to us about being an author, and even entertained all of our questions about what life was like as a blind person.

I brought that book my Mom had won, and that she had given to me to read, and Jean Little signed it for me!!

It always touched me so much that this author of this great book had signed it for me. That girl with cerebral palsy in the book always stuck with me too, although it wasn’t until I heard that Jean died last night and I started rereading the book, that I remembered that story belonged to this book.

Thanks Mom for sharing this wonderful book with me. And thanks for our touching our lives Jean Little!

More about Jean Little:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Little