Young Helen Keller was imprisoned by her circumstances. She could neither see nor hear. She could feel with her hands, but without sight or hearing, how could she know what it was she was feeling?

One day her teacher Ann Sullivan took Helen down a familiar path to the wellhouse. Someone was drawing water there. Ann let the water run over one of Helen's hands and in sign language spelled into the other, WATER. Suddenly something happened within Helen. Something dramatic. Something lifechanging. It was only a fiveletter word, but for Helen Keller it was a gigantic breakthrough. She now had a name for a familiar experiencewater. If this experience had a name, other familiar objects and sensations must have names as well. It was as if she had suddenly burst forth from a closely guarded prison…