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Summary
Summary
Traces the life of Franklin Delano Roosevelt from his birth in 1882 through his youth, early political career, and presidency to his death in Warm Springs, Georgia, in 1945.
Author Notes
Russell Freedman was born in San Francisco, California on October 11, 1929. He received a bachelor's degree in English from the University of California, Berkeley in 1951. After college, he served in the U.S. Counter Intelligence Corps during the Korean War. After his military service, he became a reporter and editor with the Associated Press. In 1956, he took a position at the advertising agency J. Walter Thompson in New York, where he did publicity writing for television. In 1965, he became a full-time writer.
His first book, Teenagers Who Made History, was published in 1961. He went on to publish more than 60 nonfiction titles for young readers including Immigrant Kids, Cowboys of the Old West, Indian Chiefs, Martha Graham: A Dancer's Life, Confucius: The Golden Rule, Because They Marched: The People's Campaign for Voting Rights That Changed America, Vietnam: A History of the War, and The Sinking of the Vasa. He received the Newbery Medal for Lincoln: A Photobiography and three Newbery Honors for Eleanor Roosevelt: A Life of Discovery, The Wright Brothers: How They Invented the Airplane, and The Voice That Challenged a Nation: Marian Anderson and the Struggle for Equal Rights. He also received the Regina Medal, the May Hill Arbuthnot Lecture Award, the Orbis Pictus Award, the Sibert Medal, a Sibert Honor, the Laura Ingalls Wilder Medal, and the National Humanities Medal. He died on March 16, 2018 at the age of 88.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (5)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Newbery Medalist Freedman ( Lincoln: A Photobiography ) breathes new life into the subject of our 32nd president. FDR (1882-1945) emerges in all his complexity: Freedman succinctly presents the privileged student ``content to squeak by'' on a ``gentleman's C''; the suitor defying his mother; the polio victim whose suffering taught him compassion for the common man; and, of course, the statesman and leader who shepherded the U.S. through the Depression and WW II. Liberal use of judicious quotations vivifies every discussion. The 125 photographs and prints are equally well-chosen--requisite images of the FDR era are included along with the more unusual, and nearly all are stirring. Fortunately, this fine biography does not apologize for FDR's failings. He is specifically castigated for his failure to save European Jews from Hitler; his ``romance'' with Lucy Mercer is also mentioned, as well as its profound effect on Eleanor (who is admiringly captured throughout). Young readers will need help interpreting some of the terminology here (``trickle-down'' economics, for example), but Freedman's heartening pace and equable tone will stimulate the reader to seek that help. Ages 9-up. (Oct.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Horn Book Review
Photographs. This finely crafted, well-researched book uses photographs and text to portray F. D. R. as an active, athletic young man from a privileged background who later won political office in spite of the paralysis of polio and led the United States out of the Great Depression and through World War II. Bibliography, index. From HORN BOOK 1990, (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Booklist Review
Gr. 5-9. "The man who could not walk became the leader of a country paralyzed by uncertainty and despair"--that's the inherent drama in Freedman's immensely enjoyable photo biography. The focus is on both Roosevelt's personal crisis and that of the nation he led from the Depression to victory. Freedman doesn't exploit Roosevelt's disability--in fact, he emphasizes the jaunty, exuberant public figure ("Roosevelt loved to be first"), but the text and archival photographs reveal the astonishing reversals of his life and times. In early family pictures he's a rich, pampered child in a smiling storybook world. A photo of the glowingly handsome Harvard man is captioned, "a little studying, a little riding, a few party calls." Marriage, children, success in career and politics followed. Next came polio and paralysis and the daily experience that the "stern doctrine of self-reliance" can take you only so far. And then the presidency--for more than three terms; FDR took over at the worst of times and changed drastically the way ordinary people relate to government. Photos show him paying close attention to the unemployed as well as to Churchill and world leaders. As in his Newbery Award-winning photo biography, Lincoln [BKL D 15 87], Freedman is candid about the president's failures and about criticism and controversy, both then and now. Inevitably, much is left out: the allusions to Eleanor are so fascinating that you want more; it's clear why Freedman has saved her story for a book of her own. Though Freedman discusses good books about FDR, older readers will want source notes in order to explore further. Nevertheless, this will have wide appeal beyond the projected audience. It's the photo essay at its best: serious, uncondescending, drawing you in with the ease of a magazine article. Booktalk it to young people across the curriculum, and to their grandparents. ~--Hazel Rochman
School Library Journal Review
Gr 5-8 --As in Lincoln: A Photobiography (Clarion, 1987), Freedman has taken a larger-than-life historical figure about whom innumerable volumes have been written and has retold the story of one man's life in the context of his times. The carefully researched, highly readable text and extremely effective coordination of black-and-white photographs chronicle Roosevelt's priviledged youth, his early influences, and his maturation. Drawing on first-hand observations of his family, friends, and enemies, as well as Roosevelt's own diary entries, Freedman formulates a composite picture of a complex, enigmatic individual and a consummate politician. Roosevelt's public career is given further significance because of the cataclysmic events of the Depression and the tumultuous war years during his presidency. As controversial as many of his programs and policies were or have come to be, no one could ever call to question his dedication, his initiative, or the energy he brought to the job. His all too human shortcomings are just as clearly delineated. Even students with little or no background in American history will find this an intriguing and inspirational human portrait.-- Luann Toth, School Library Journal (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
The author of a splendid, Newbery Award-winning Lincoln (1987) uses a similar approach to smother monumental figure. The result is a carefully researched biography, extended by a wealth (125) of well-chosen b&w photos and presented with clarity and precision. Roosevelt is a substantially more difficult subject than Lincoln: his most significant years spanned two historical cataclysms (the Depression and WW II); he is still (as Freedman makes clear) quite controversial; his complex, ambivalent personality was even more enigmatic than Lincoln's; and the abundance of material available about him presents a formidable challenge to any biographer. Perhaps as a result, Roosevelt's story here serum less compelling, his porsonality less vividly realized than Lincolin's. Still, this is a valuable achievement, easily the best biography of its subject available at this level. Bibliographical essay; index; illus. with photos. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
