Thompson is a freelance writer who writes primarily in the education field. In this essay, she heralds Keller's autobiography as a work that is exemplary on three counts: its fascinating subject, its beautiful prose, and its thought-provoking nature.

A book is a strange object. It is inanimate, of course, but not permanently so. Anyone who reads with passion knows that the moment a book is read, it ceases to be an inanimate "thing" and becomes instead an animated source of fascination, pleasure, and/or knowledge. Had Dr. Frankenstein not been so insanely obsessed with bringing the human form back to life, he might have satisfied his creative and procreative urges by reading books.

The paradox is that the book cannot come alive until it is read, so it has no ability of its own to entice a reader to open it. Someone must speak for a book...