Book Review

Title: Words in My Hands: A Teacher, a Deaf-Blind Man, an Unforgettable Journey
Author:  Diane Chambers
Publisher: Ellexa Press, Conifer, CO, 2005
Paper:  ISBN: 9760967-0-6
Cost:  $15.95, 263 pages 
Reviewer:  Yevgeniy Tethukhin
      An entirely new world opened to me when I got to know the people portrayed in this book, the world where willpower prevails over the physical possibility (or rather impossibility), the world of super challenges and the world in which people never say die. 
	Sometimes (or perhaps very often) there happen to be moments in everybody’s life when a person seems to come to his limits, when he/she seems to be ruined by desperate failures and frustrations. And if this person, in addition to his mental troubles, is physically disadvantaged, then there comes the time for a choice, for weighing all pros and cons, for considering all good and bad sides in the endeavor to find a possible equilibrium for further existence. And sometimes it may happen so that the negative part of the life can prevail and can come dominating over you and would demand an immediate choice from you so urgently, that you can hardly breathe, that you seem completely disoriented and lost…And here would come such characters, such people , such heroes as pictured  in this book, and they will give you a warm welcoming hand through the darkness of desperation and would cast a majestic light onto your life road. And you will suddenly understand where to go and what to do as you are enlightened by their desire to live, to enjoy life no matter how hard it can be. 
	These are the thoughts that came to me when I read this book, as I read it not with my eyes, but with my heart. I do not see the words and decipher their meaning. I see the real life, I feel the burning heart beating extending its influence far beyond the limits of words. And I feel the same that Burt–the main hero felt, I am groping in darkness together with him when he is trying to get through his physical disability, I am growing with him, and I begin to breathe new air–the air of real freedom and independence, which makes me see what was hidden from me as I saw things as they appear before my eyes but I could not see things which were secretly hidden in hearts and minds of people.
Yevgeniy Tetyukhin, Kandidat of Philology Sciences, is an Associate Professor of Linguistics at North Kazakhstan State University and an international wheelchair racer, and two-time Paralympian. He may be contacted at yevgeniy.tetyukhin@gmail.com