Product Description

Perfect for book reports or summer reading, DK's acclaimed Biography series tackles two of history's most inspiring and colorful figures: Princess Diana and Eleanor Roosevelt.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #219489 in Books
• Published on: 2006-02-20
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 128 pages

Customer Reviews

A wonderful illustrated biography on Eleanor Roosevelt, the First Lady of the World
I doubt that Eleanor Roosevelt will be as well remember and beloved in the 21st century as she was in the 20th, which is a shame because she is the one who created the new role model of the First Lady that the likes of Hilary Clinton are trying to build on. As the longest serving First Lady (1933 to 1945), she promoted the New Deal of her husband President Franklin D. Roosevelt, as well as Civil Right. After FDR's death, Eleanor was a leader in forming the United Nations and chaired the committee that drafted and approved the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. President Harry S Truman called her "The First Lady of the World," a honor that she clearly deserved for her work to end discrimination and promote civil rights, spreading goodwill wherever she traveled.

In this DK Biography by Kem Knapp Sawyer, young readers will learn how Eleanor Roosevelt was born into a world of privilege where women were taught not to be outspoken, and ended up becoming a spokesperson for the rights of women and minorities. As a photographic story of a life, "Eleanor Roosevelt" supplements the biography with over 100 photographs, artworks, and artifacts. I do not know if young readers will be able to appreciate this, but Sawyer does an excellent job on the early part of Eleanor's life before she meets her future husband (and cousin) Franklin. These early chapters look at how her family had encouraged her to spent time with those less fortunate, and has a fascinating section on how Eleanor was uncomfortable in visiting her cousin Alice, daughter of her Uncle Ted (as in Theodore Roosevelt), who was in so many ways everything Eleanor was not, but also much of what she would become.

Then we get to one of the oddest love triangles in American political history, when Franklin weds Eleanor over the strong objections of his domineering mother (I swear they echo this on purpose on "Gilmore Girls," with Emily, Richard and his mother, especially since Richard is played by Edward Hermann who played Franklin in the "Eleanor & Franklin" mini-series opposite Jane Alexander). That leads to FDR's political aspirations and the shock of his being crippled by polio. While that did not derail his political career, which would lead him to the Governor's mansion in Albany and then the White House, what it did change was Eleanor's role in that life, as she became her husband's eyes and ears. More importantly, as Sawyer points out, Eleanor found that she cared deeply about the issues facing America and that she enjoyed confronting them head-on.

The second half of the book covers the rest of Eleanor's life, but with an emphasis on what she did to change the world for the better. Sawyer does an excellent job of showing how the little girl who was considered an "ugly duckling" and who had little confidence in herself, became a force to be reckoned with on not only the national stage but in the world arena as well. Hilary Clinton might become president and she is already a U.S. senator, but I am not sure that she is as close to doing as much good in her life as Eleanor Roosevelt did in her. You talk about what she did with working on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and when she resigned her membership in the Daughters of the American Revolution for refusing to allow Marian Anderson to sing at Constitution Hall and then arranging for her to sing instead on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, and MOST politicians are already going to come up short.

Throughout the book you will find definition boxes (e.g., "sanitarium," "disarmament") and sidebars (e.g.,the Salk Vaccine, the Stock Market Crash), that provide additional information to understand Eleanor's life and times. When you get to the back of the book you will find a timeline of Events in the Life of Eleanor Roosevelt, an excellent Bibliography of books that would serve a college student well, a Works Cited list, and an Index. Even more helpful is a list of Organizations of Interest that you can access both in person and on line. Sawyer continues this in her Author's Note, which she lists several human rights organizations that work to achieve the goals to which Eleanor Roosevelt aspired. The other initial titles in the DK Biography series are devoted to Albert Einstein, Anne Frank (also by Sawyer), Helen Keller, John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Jr., Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, and Princess Diana, and I think the fact that Eleanor got a volume before her husband Franklin is another nice testament to her importance given everything that he meant to this country.