Product Description

Teedie was not exactly the stuff of greatness: he was small for his size. Delicate. Nervous. Timid. By the time he was ten years old, he had a frail body and weak eyes. He was deviled by asthma, tormented by bullies. His favorite place to be was at home. Some might think that because of these things, Teedie was destined for a ho-hum life. But they would be wrong. For teeedie had a strong mind, as well as endless curiosity and determination. Is that all? No. Teedie also had ideas of his own--lots of them. It wasn't long before the world knew him as Theodore Roosevelt, the youngest president of the United States.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #440866 in Books
• Published on: 2009-04-20
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 32 pages

From Booklist
Young readers familiar with the burly, hale Teddy Roosevelt who lived for adventure will likely be surprised to learn that as a lad he was a sickly, nearsighted asthmatic. Yet this privileged city kid, bully-prey, decided early on never to let his frailties govern his ambitions. Brown uses copious quotations to good measure as he flits through Roosevelt’s young life. (The quotes are unsourced, though a bibliography is appended, including Roosevelt’s autobiography.) Roosevelt’s words help impart the man’s predilection for sternly poetic hyperbole: to get fit, “he paddled ‘in the hottest sun, over the roughest water, in the smallest boat.’” The artwork is what one expects from Brown—vignettes of scratchy pen-work that capture humor and drama with equal ease—and show Teddy’s progression from a wispy twig into a big stick. While this account may not possess the laser-beam focus of Brown’s recent compact histories Let It Begin Here and All Stations Distress (both 2008), it does have a more kid-friendly hook in the young man whose determination trumped his boyhood shortcomings. Grades 1-3. --Ian Chipman

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Customer Reviews

You're going to simply fall in love with Teedie, the "undersize boy" who became a "larger-than-life man!"
Teedie was a puny kid and about the only thing he had going for him . . . well, I'll have to think a while to figure out even one thing. He was a sickly asthmatic boy who couldn't even attend school and had to have tutors come to his home to give him lessons. The Roosevelts were a very wealthy family and could afford to do things like take their children on foreign vacations and best of all, take them to spend their summers in the country. Teedie, his brother and two sisters enjoyed their time in the country, but even being in the fresh air couldn't help him nor would the "Roosevelts' wealth." Ah, that thing Teedie had going for him was determination and a "strong mind." That would take him far in life.

His father and mother would worry about him and they even tried experimenting with fanciful cures such as having Teedie "gulp coffee or puff on a cigar." He exhibited insatiable curiosity and his father indulged him and let him grow in his own way. His frailty was a concern and his father encouraged physical fitness, something he readily embraced despite his physical limitations. Teedie's body, in the years to come, began to become strong. His tenacity was unmatched. Teddy "claimed he was just average." Would Teddy Roosevelt ever attain the expectations he had for himself in his mind?

This story and the artwork blended together superbly to make the young Teddy Roosevelt come to life. I suspect it was not an easy accomplishment because most people think of him as a Rough Rider and would never think or nor believe he was a sickly child. In the back of the book there is an illustration of Teddy with a brief timeline biography, an author's note with additional biographical information and a bibliography. You're going to simply fall in love with Teedie, the "undersize boy" who became a "larger-than-life man!"