Maggie by My Side

by Beverly Butler

The author describes her experiences at Pilot Dogs, a facility in Ohio where she trained with a guide dog.

Genres: Nonfiction, Animals

Hardcover

First published February 1, 1988

About the author

Also known as
Beverly K. Olsen
Was married to Theodore Victor Olsen

Beverly was a native of Milwaukee, Wisconsin and a long time resident of Rhinelander. Beverly had planned to be an artist, but an impending blindness impelled her to learn typing in order to rejoin her high school class. For practice, she began typing remembered stories which led to her inventing stories.
In 1954, she graduated cum laude from Mount Mary College in Milwaukee where she wrote her first young novel, Song of the Voyager which later won Dodd Mead's
Seventeenth Summer Literary Competition. Beverly earned her M.A. Degree from Marquette University in 1961 and she returned to Mount Mary in 1962 to teach writing there until 1974. Beverly moved to Sun Prairie before marrying fellow Wisconsin author, Theodore Victor (T.V.) Olsen, and moving to Rhinelander in 1976. T V Olsen died in 1993 and she continued to live
in Rhinelander till her death in 2007 at the age of 75. She is survived by her niece and nephews. Her novel "Light a Single Candle" was based on her own experiences with blindness. The sequel was "Gift of Gold". She used her other senses and her brilliant imagination to create her vivid stories which are still enjoyed by her loyal readers today.

Sources
http://www.memorialsolutions.com/site...
http://underalilacbush.blogspot.in/20...
http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid...

Reviews

[Katelyn]

This was my favorite book when I was in elementary school. I think I read it every year.

[Orinoco Womble (tidy bag and all)]

Having read her two novels about a blind girl who becomes a teacher of special needs students in the past, I expected better writing than I found here. It was a light, fast read but very surface. I read Light a Single Candle and Gift of Gold several times in my school days, but this seemed to have been written by a completely different person. Butler had a definite agenda and put it forth; when she was done, she stopped.

[Nancy]

This was a very quick read. I picked it up after reading Light A Single Candle which is fiction. This is nonfiction and the story of Beverly Butler training and getting a new guide dog. She gives interesting background as well as good stories to illustrate her experience.

[Morgan]

Amazing

[Charlotte]

Read this because Light a Single Candle is such a favorite book of mine....recommended only to hardcore Light a Single Candle fans and those who long to know more about the training of guide dogs and guide dog owners!