So Many Books; So little Time

Calvin Coolidge

Calvin Coolidge

by Zachary Kent

c. 1988

This work brings out a lot of the personality of “Silent Cal” who wasn’t so silent after all but was incredibly shy. He was a listener and a thinker and not a talker nor a brilliant conversationalist. He preferred to say what he meant and be done. He had a very dry sense of humor but a quick wit. When one lady gushed that she had enjoyed his speech so much that she had stood up during the entire thing, he replied, “so did I.”

Calvin Coolidge became president upon the death of Warren G. Harding and was sworn in by his father–the only president to have been so. He was a shy Vermonter who lost his mother and sister at a young age. He was humble as well as shy and wanted only “to be of some use in this world.” He practiced law but also served as Lieutenant Governor and Governor of Massachusetts before becoming Vice-President and President.

Coolidge handled the Teapot Dome scandal and Prohibition and reorganized the FBI. There is speculation that he refused to run for re-election because he knew the stock market was going to crash but in all likelihood, he was emotionally bankrupt from the loss of his son Calvin Jr.

Silent Cal died as he lived–of a silent heart attack in his bathroom while shaving. He was president by accident or luck and served our nation at what was possibly the most prosperous time in our country’s history–or at least the time when people felt life was the best.

This is a decent work with lots of pictures. Longish chapters but the text moves along nicely. It makes you want to dig deeper into the life of this quiet and virtually unknown president.

Warren G. Harding

Warren G. Harding

by Linda R. Wade

c. 1989

This Encyclopedia of Presidents’ offering is much better than the last one. This still presents a positive perspective of the president but as he is shown positively, the scandal that rocks his memory, The Teapot Dome, is at least mentioned and while it is acknowledged that it involved his friends, the author does state that there is no evidence that the president himself knew what was going on.

Born Warren Gamaliel Bancroft Winnipeg Harding, he was primarily a newpaperman before becoming a politician. He was a teacher briefly and always interested in politics but only entered the political arena at the behest of friends like many of the presidents. As president, Harding had an incredibly diverse cabinet though most of the decisions that were made in his administration seem to have been made around the poker table involving his friends, some on the cabinet and others not, and out of his knowing.

Harding came to the presidency after World War I, during a time when the United States needed to close out that part of its history. His inauguration was the first to have the president ride in an automobile, the first to be held on a specially built portico at the Capitol, and possibly the only one to not have an inaugural ball. Harding was the president to ask for and preside at the burial of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetary. Incredible photos of the event are included in the book.

Harding is one of our presidents who died in office and one of the few who died of natural causes–in his case, probably pneumonia and exhaustion. No doubt he saw the coming arrests and convictions of his friends but he didn’t live to see it or to be a part of it. Wade does a nice job of covering a lifetime complete with scandal but without spending undue time on it.

Woodrow Wilson

Woodrow Wilson

by Alice Osinski

c. 1989

This is the most favorable biography of this president I have ever read. There has been much controversy over this man’s second marriage and second term of his presidency and this book skips it all with the exception of one line indicating that Edith Wison and an advisor handled his affairs after his stroke. In all honesty, I’m not sure that to skip over such controversy in a biography of a man in such an important time as he and the reader live, is a good thing. It may lead readers to believe that there is no recourse for a time when the president is unable to function, when, in fact, that is one of the things the founding fathers made perfectly clear in the Constitution. I also believe that to virtually deny any constroversy over the man when, in fact, much controversy still exists in academic quarters is unfair to both sides of the issue.

This is, therefore a very positive book. It shares the life of Woodrow Wilson in a very positive way and leaves the reader feeling good about him. And, like most if not all human beings, there is much good to be said about Woodrow Wilson. He was a highly intelligent man and was driven to reach goals and make a difference in America and the world. He set his sights high and with the help of his family, he reached his goals.

This just feels like a white wash job somehow. I don’t want it to be. I honestly like the fact that much of the negative about Wilson isn’t spread like mud in a modern-day political campaign but this almost comes over the other way–as a campaign ad for the man. This is honestly, the first book in this series that I have had negative feelings about and that upsets me. I have read one other biography of Wison and it was one in which he was basically hung out to dry as a horrible president and as a not much better human being. There has to be a place in history where the “real” Wilson is portrayed as he was–loved and respected by enough people to be President of Princeton and elected to two terms as President of the United States but not so whitewashed that he comes out as being able to walk on water.

Sorry, this one isn’t one I would recommend for a presidential study for teens.

William Howard Taft

William Howard Taft

by Jane Clark Casey

c. 1989

Another book from the Encyclopedia of Presidents series. This one is different from the others in many respects. For one thing, it has many more chapters. While the others have from 6-9 chapters, this one has 13. For another, most of them have one chapter per time period of the President’s life such as one chapter for his childhood and one for the Presidency. This one is cut up into small chapters of about 5 pages each. Another difference is that this book doesn’t present the President in a consistantly positive light. It acknowledges his weaknesses and explains them in the historical contexts.

President Taft followed Theodore Roosevelt into office. He admired Roosevelt and wished he could be like him but his personality was very different from Roosevelt’s. Taft was a natural born Supreme Court Justice and, in fact, that was what he felt led to do. His family, primarily his wife, pushed him into political office even though it meant his salary was subsidized by his brother in order for him to survive. In the end, after losing a second term bid, Taft was appointed to the position of Chief Justice of the Supreme Court where he made some changes in how the Court was run. We are left with the feeling that Taft should have taken the first opportunity to be on the Court instead of the last.

An interesting book. Because of the short chapters, it is highly readable for a wider audience than the previous Presidents books. Lots of pictures add to the story. A wonderful first biography of Taft for any age.

Lizard Music

Lizard Music

by D. Manus Pinkwater

c. 1976

In case you haven’t guessed from the title of this book, this is not a serious work. D. Manus Pinkwater seriously worked on it, but if you take what is written in the book seriously, you need serious help.

I have a saying after reading several of Pinkwater’s books (his name is actually Daniel Manus Pinkwater and he has published under Daniel, Manus and D. Manus at least)–It’s A Pinkwater. That means all bets are off, nothing in it is what you think it’s going to be and you can bet it will (a) include chickens, (b) be completely impossible, and (c) be fun to read.

Lizard Music is the story of Victor, an enterprising eleven year old boy whose parents need some time away. They leave Victor and his sister who is seventeen a thousand notes and enough money and food to live for two weeks, then they go to Colorado. (Don’t try to logic this–It’s a Pinkwater.) The day after the parents leave, Leslie (being possibly the only typical person in the book) takes off for Cape Cod with friends after dividing the money with Victor, assumably to buy his silence.

Victor enjoys watching Walter Cronkite on the news. Unfortunately, he’s also on vacation so our boy ends up watching Roger Mudd who is almost as good. He then spends the rest of his evening creating a model plane, watching the tube, eating TV dinners and staying up to watch the late news and the late movie. It’s what happens after the late movie that brings us our title–lizards appear playing music.

After a couple of days, Victor takes the bus to the next town and begins exploring. While he’s there, he meets the Chicken Man (whose name changes frequently throughout the book for no apparent reason other than this is a Pinkwater) who does a routine with Claudia, the hen he keeps under his hat.

Over the next several days the Chicken Man appears in Victor’s life several times and so do the lizards. In fact lizards and the Chicken Man start popping up everywhere. And so Victor agrees to go on an overnight trip to somewhere with the Chicken Man to solve the mystery. With Claudia as navigator, the two set out on the lake (a really big one) in search of the lizards mysterious invisible floating island.

Don’t worry. It all works out just fine in the end. This book is just fun to read. My guess is that either Pinkwater hasn’t grown up yet or he was a very imaginative child or both. Not for the child who wants serious reading and not necessarily an easy book to locate. My public library has one but it took me quite some time of haunting resale bookstores and library book sales to locate one for my library. It’s a shame, too. This book should be reprinted.  

The Long Way to a New Land

The Long Way to a New Land

by Joan Sandin

c. 1981

Here is the story of a family who can not make it in Sweden but has relatives in America who invite them to come over. So, they sell what little they have for just enough to buy tickets, pack the most necessary things, make trunks to travel with and leave Sweden for the United States.

This is a very early chapter book with very few words on each page and good illustrations. The story is told in brilliant detail but not with a lot of big words. This would be a good jumping off place for family history to be delved into. The mother packs quilts, china, and each child may bring one toy. The father brings the Bible. Some families may still have the trunks used to travel and others may have quilts and dishes that came over from “the old country.” Even if the child doesn’t live with these items, they may be able to be visited giving the child a sense of heritage.

Other lessons that could come would be to discover as much about the country of origin or for a large group of children, this could be a jumping off point to examine the differences between Sweden and the United States and for them to try to find a place in the United States that most matches Sweden then find where most Swedes went when they settled in the United States. A study of Ellis Island, immigration laws, and settlement areas could come out of just what is mentioned in the story of this one family moving from Sweden to America.

This is a great book to introduce history and geography to young children.

Theodore Roosevelt

Theodore Roosevelt

by Zachary Kent

c. 1988

This is a great biography of one of the most famous presidents of our time. It is very well balanced and shows his bad points as well as his good ones. It explains without bias what Theodore Roosevelt believed, why his party was called the Bull Moose Party, and why he lost two presidential elections in a row.

Theodore Roosevelt is probably best remembered for naming the Teddy Bear and this is also explained in this book. His military service is covered from both his side and the side of the opposition to him leaving Washington to go to war. Both his marriages are handled in a very private but honest way. Quotes and pictures of the president line the book and add to the book. Also included are pictures of his family and friends as well as political enemies. Lots of information to be gleaned in just a few short chapters.

All the books in the Encyclopedia of Presidents series are good but this is one of the best.

Tar Beach

Tar Beach

by Faith Ringgold

c. 1991

This is a concept piece that is best understood by reading the back story at the end of the book.

Faith Ringgold grew up in Harlem. The Tar Beach is the rooftop of a building where the families would gather to eat, play cards and where our main character believes herself to fly from all over the city in order to “claim” things for her family like buildings and bridges and union cards. This book, written from a concept quilt story done by Ringgold and hanging in the Guggenheim Museum, is about a child’s desire to change the ugliness of her world. It’s about race and family loyalty and hot summer nights and daydreams of changing the world.

This is a great book to read to children and then to read again to teens along with the back story. My fifteen-year-old really enjoyed the back story to the book which we generally don’t read but did with this one. Beautiful pictures, some taken directly from the quilt story flow throughout the book as quilt borders and story enhancements.

A must read and re-read for all ages.

I Have A Sister; My Sister Is Deaf

I Have a Sister; My Sister is Deaf

by Jeanne Whitehouse Peterson

c. 1977

This is an excellent perspective piece about what it’s like to live with a deaf sibling. In truth, it could be used to get a perspective on what it’s like to live with any sort of a disabled sibling.

Growing up with brothers and sisters is hard enough, especially when the siblings look alike. Children tend to assume that one sibling will act like another and if they don’t know them well, may mistake one for another. When a disability is put in the mix, resentment can and often does occur. Some parents have combatted that by putting their child with a disability in a different school than the “normal” children.

This family did not do that. They put the two girls, who look profoundly alike, in the same school. The sister telling this story has a good feel for both herself and for her sister. Times are not always easy and they should not be assumed to be. Someone once said that family was the most horrible thing to do to a child–they are forced to live with people they did not choose and sometimes people with which they have very little in common and they are expected to get along with them. In the case of a family with a disabled child, this is more than doubled and tripled.

This book goes a long way to teaching children what it’s like to live with a disability. This can be used to help the normal children in the family how to deal with children outside their family while still appreciating their disabled sibling and also for children outside of that family to understand that children are children no matter how their siblings act.

This is a book that should be read and re-read many times to children everywhere.

William McKinley

William McKinley

by Zachary Kent

c. 1988

In this volume of the Encyclopedia of Presidents, we meet William McKinley–the last president of the 19th Century and the first president of the 20th Century as well as the third president to be assassinated.

In this book, Zachary Kent portrays McKinley as a loving, Christian who is so very devoted to his wife, he would stop what he was doing each day to wave a handkerchef at her. Ida McKinley lost her health after the death of their two daughters in seperate incidences. Thereafter she suffered from a seizure disorder but McKinley stayed by her side even breaking social protocol and showed her exceptional care for the rest of his life.

And despite Ida McKinley’s poor health, the McKinley’s traveled extensively. McKinley served in the Civil War, was the victim of Gerrymandering (and still won), and was recruited for various offices in his political career. Both his wife and his mother attended his first inaugural as president of the United States.

This is a great biography for young people in that it shows what a true marriage is suppose to be about. William McKinley was a kindly, loving man who didn’t believe anyone could not like him which caused him to be too lax in security which caused his death. In death, he asked for prayer and the hymn Nearer My God to Thee and died peacefully though in great pain from gangrene. There are many great virtues to be gleaned from this book.