Follow My Leader

A young boy blinded in an accident learns to overcome his disability with the help of a seeing eye dog.

Jimmy and the guys were playing around. Mike decides to light a giant firecracker. Jimmy yells for him not to and, reacting instinctively to the voice, Mike throws the firecracker at Jimmy. Jimmy ends up totally blind and feels helpless and isolated from his old friends. While he's knocking around, literally, with his red and white cane, his mother puts him on a list for a seeing-eye dog. He's never really wanted a dog at all and what good is a dog when he can't see to run and play with one?

Though he doesn't know it yet, life takes a turn for the better and he is accepted to the program. The first step is traveling to the school and meeting Leader, his "new eyes". He is still bitter till one of the other students says yeah it's bad getting blinded but how would you feel going through life knowing you blinded someone else? So we get a look at how Mike is feeling after the accident, too. Can they ever be friends again?

Along with Jimmy we learn how to use a cane, how to count money, cross streets, match clothes and navigate. You learn to slowly get out in the world again. And then you and Jimmy are matched with Leader and the world really opens up around you as you go through the seeing-eye dog training course and develop an appreciation for the amazing difference a dog partner makes in handling the challenges. The world has possibilities again and Jimmy learns to love Leader.

After reading this book I started donating to the seeing-eye dog schools while still in grade school because I was so impressed with how a dog could basically give a blind person their independence back. They also have a great program for kids/families that lets you raise and begin the training of the puppies for the school.

You get the answers to a lot of questions you probably never even thought of; like how do you cut up your food, how do you eat when you can't see your plate and how do you keep from walking into walls? I still use some of the things I learned from this book: how to count change in the dark, how to analyze traffic flow when visibility is poor, and how to match clothes if you're colorblind.