louis braille was born near paris, France,in 1809.when he was a little boy,louis loved to play with his father's tools. one day,when he was four,he was playing with his father's tools when a sharp tool went into his left eye. an infection started in his left eye and went to the other eye. he was unlucky. a few weeks later, louis was blind.
when louis was ten, his parents took him to a school for blind children in paris. louis lived at the school. he was a good student and looked forward to the day when he could read. the school had some books that blind people could read. these books had letters that stood out . he had to feel each letter with his fingers. there was one sentence on each page. just one past of a book weighed 20 pounds. a whole book weighed 400 pounds! by age eleven , louis had read all fourteen books in the school . he want to read more , but there were no more books. so every evening, he tried to find a way for blind people to be able to read books. one day,captain charles barbier, a french soldier , come to speak at the school. barbier had invented night-writing. this system used dots for the letters of the alphabet. soldier could feel the dots with their fingers and read with no light. barbier thought night-writing could also help blind people.