Little was born in 1932 in Formosa, now known as Taiwan, to parents who were physicians and missionaries serving there with the United Church of Canada. Soon afterward, doctors detected scars over both her corneas, the "windows" that cover the eyes. Though she could see--she responded to light as an infant--her eyesight was significantly impaired, and she was diagnosed as legally blind. Her pupils were also off-center, so she had trouble focusing on one object for more than a brief moment. Later, schoolchildren would taunt her by calling her "cross-eyed."
A Determined Student
Fortunately, Little's family was very supportive. Her parents read to her frequently, and as she gained limited vision, they taught her to read on her own. "Reading became my greatest joy," she wrote in her autobiography Little by Little: A Writer's Education. By 1939, Little's family had moved to Toronto, Canada. There, she first attended a class for students with vision problems. By fourth grade, however, she transferred into a regular class and no longer received specialized treatment--large-print books, for example, or oversized lettering on the chalkboard. As a result, she struggled with many everyday tasks. "If I wanted to read what was written on the board," she recalled in Little by Little, "I would have to stand up so that my face was only inches away from the writing.
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