FANNY CROSBY
The blind girl’s song
By Lucille Travis
Christian Focus. 175 pages. £5.99
ISBN 978 1 781 911 631
How did she memorise so much? Blind from just a few weeks old, Fanny Crosby was taught by her grandmother to ‘see’ and remember the world around her and to thank God for everything she enjoyed.
Fanny’s incredible memory helped her to cope with normal life and to satisfy her thirst for knowledge. ‘It was like there were shelves in her mind, neatly stored with each thing she learned’, so that she could take it off the shelf when she needed it. She memorised much of Scripture and loved to turn everyday events into poems to delight her friends. Her frustration that she was unable to learn like other children changed to delight when she was given a place at a school for the blind in her teens.
I was pleasantly surprised to discover that I had grown up knowing 20 of Fanny Crosby’s many hymns, most less frequently heard now, but ‘To God be the glory’ and ‘Blessed assurance’ are still very much known and loved.
Moving account
Lucille Travis specialises in writing books for young readers. I am not sure whether young people will immediately relate to the very different lifestyle of 19th-century America, but they will relate to the moving account of how Fanny Crosby dealt with her blindness and hopefully be drawn by the simple devotion to God expressed in her poems.
The book closes with helpful questions to consider and an article by a blind teenager which will assist in making the story relevant to today’s young people. I would recommend this well-crafted book and am challenged to develop my own memory!
