Bully for You, Teddy Roosevelt!

Fritz, Jean. Bully for You, Teddy Roosevelt! G.P. Putnam's, 1991. 127pp. Lexile 980.

“What did Theodore Roosevelt want to do? Everything.  And all at once if possible.  Plunging headlong into life, he refused to waste a single minute. Among other things, he studied birds, shot lions, roped steer, fought a war, wrote books, and discovered the source of a mystery river in South America.”  So opens this lively biography of a man who became President of the United States.  Written in Jean Fritz’s typically colorful style, the story combines a good sense of his character and his accomplishments, mostly before becoming President, with striking details--as New York City police commissioner, he wore bright pink shirts with a black silk cummerbund that had long tassels. Quotes, anecdotes, and vivid prose make this an exceptionally readable biography of one of our more unusual Presidents. 

Reading Std #6: Assess how point of view or purpose shapes the content and style of a text.  Clearly Fritz finds Roosevelt an interesting subject.  Have students consider whether she is biased in his favor or against him, or is even-handed in her treatment, requiring them to point to specifics in the text.

Eleanor Roosevelt: A Life of Discovery

Freedman, Russell. Eleanor Roosevelt: A Life of Discovery. 1993. 334 pp. Lexile 1100.

Eleanor Roosevelt is known for saying, “"You must do the thing you think you cannot do.”  This excellent biography, a Newbery Honor book, illustrates how she put this adage into action in her own life, which was filled with courage and public service.  Freedman looks at the span of Roosevelt’s life, covering personal aspects but emphasizing on her many accomplishments.  He gives an even-handed view of her sometimes troubled marriage, a marriage that led to her international influence as she traveled around the world during and after World War II working for peace and social justice.  Excellent black-and-white photographs enhance the text, with an additional fifteen pages of photos at the end.  Back matter includes a list of sites to visit, a bibliographic essay, and an index.  A pleasure to read.

Reading Std #6: Assess how point of view or purpose shapes the content and style of a text.  Freedman seems to present his information with a neutral tone.  Have students look closely to see if they can detect a point of view that the author is advancing, citing specific passages in the text.

Bull's-Eye: A Photobiography of Annie Oakley

Macy, Sue.  Bull's-Eye: A Photobiography of Annie Oakley. 2001. 64pp. Lexile 1150.

With a figure as legendary as Annie Oakley, who was a superstar in her time, a biographer has to be careful to distinguish fact from legend—and point out when it’s impossible to be sure.  Macy does this well, especially about the different versions of Oakley’s childhood and the rumors that newspapers printed throughout her career. She addresses the issue in her Author’s Note, titled “Getting the Details Right.” The narrative focus is on Oakley's remarkable skill and international career but it also covers her personal life including her long marriage to fellow sharpshooter Frank Butler.  Historic photographs and other illustrations, printed in sepia, give a wonderful sense of the woman and of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show.   Resources include a timeline; a list of books, videos, websites and places to visit; and an index.
   
Writing Std #8: Gather relevant information from multiple print and digital sources, assess the credibility and accuracy of each source, and integrate the information.  Use this short biography as a model of assessing the credibility and accuracy of sources.  Have students read the Author’s Note about getting details right and look through the text for examples of how she handles information that is hard to assess for accuracy.  Have them note her specific wording for such examples.

Onward: A Photobiography of African-American Polar Explorer Matthew Henson

 

Johnson, Dolores. Onward: A Photobiography of African-American Polar Explorer Matthew Henson. 2006. 64pp. Lexile 1070.

Although African-Americans had no chance to lead major explorations in the nineteenth century and beginning of the twentieth century, Matthew Henson was one of the first, and possibly the very first, Americans to reach the North Pole.  The son of sharecroppers, Henson went to see at age thirteen, where the ship's captain schooled him in reading, writing, geography, history, and navigation.  When he was 21, Henson was hired by naval officer Robert Peary to accompany him, at first as a manservant, on a government mission to Nicaragua and then to Greenland, where Peary first began to reach the North Pole.  Smooth writing and fascinating historical photographs tell of their multiple attempts to reach the Pole, often living with Inuits during the expeditions.  Henson, who learned the Inuit language and survival techniques, became instrumental in the expeditions including the final successful one.  But as a black man, he was given very little pay and only honored late in his life.  This photobiography fits into studies of explorers and of black history but also lends itself to independent reading.  Timeline, bibliography, index.

Reading Std #2: Determine central ideas or themes and analyze their development; summarize key supporting details and ideas.  One of the central themes in this book is that of racial prejudice.  Have students compare the contributions of Matthew Henson and Robert Peary to the expeditions, and their much different rewards for their work, in exploring this theme.

Rachel Carson: A Twentieth-Century Life

Levine, Ellen. Rachel Carson: A Twentieth-Century Life. 2007. Lexile 1060.

Rachel Carson's ground-breaking book, Silent Spring, was published 50 years ago, in September, 1962.  It had been serialized a few months earlier in The New Yorker and soon became a best-seller.  This biography, an entry in the "Twentieth-Century Life" series, skillfully blends Carson's personal and professional lives, building to Silent Spring and its impact.  Themes about the value of nature and the importance of persistence infuse the book. Carson, who was born in 1907, attended a women's college in Pittsburgh where she was torn between majoring in writing or science.  She chose science but much of her career entailed writing about science at the federal Fish and Wildlife Service and through the books and articles that made her famous.  She was known for combining lyrical writing with meticulous, extensive research.  Many quotes from her voluminous correspondence and her books demonstrate why she gained such a wide audience.  In her personal life, Carson was reserved but had a wide group of close friends and a sense of adventure. Occasional black-and-white photos show her over the years.  Her story remains relevant because she sounded the alarm about pollution and other ecological problems we still face.  End notes, bibliography, websites, index.

Reading Std #2: Determine central ideas or themes and analyze their development; summarize key supporting details and ideas.  One theme to consider is how sexism affected Carson's career and other aspects of her life, which the author touches on repeatedly.   Her doctors knew Carson had breast cancer, which eventually killed her, but delayed telling her. According to the author, it was not uncommon to "protect" women from bad medical news and tell it to their husbands, but since Carson was single, no one was told.

This Land Was Made for You and Me: The Life and Songs of Woody Guthrie

Partridge, Elizabeth. This Land Was Made for You and Me: The Life and Songs of Woody Guthrie. 2002. 217pp. Lexile 1020.

This thoughtful biography of a complicated man highlights Guthrie’s talents as a folksinger and songwriter, and his commitment to political causes.  At the same time, the author discusses Guthrie’s personal problems, such as the ways he let down his wives and children.  Hardship and pain occurred throughout his life: his sister and one of his daughters died in fires.  His mother had undiagnosed Huntington’s disease, which affected Guthrie as well and ended his career.  Partridge sets Guthrie’s life in the social and political context of the 1930s through 1960s.  Multiple photographs, reproductions of Guthrie’s own witty drawings, and excerpts of lyrics enrich the text.  This is listed in Common Core's Appendix B.  It was the winner of the Boston Globe/Horn Book Award for Nonfiction and one of five National Book Award for Young People nominees.

Reading Std #7:  Integrate and evaluate content presented in diverse media and formats, visually and quantitatively, and in words. Compare the Partridge biography with the much-lauded 1976 film about Guthrie, Bound for Glory (PG rated).

Vincent Van Gogh: Portrait of an Artist

Greenberg, Jan, and Sandra Jordan. Vincent Van Gogh: Portrait of an Artist. 2001. 114 pp. Lexile 1100.  Available as paperback and e-book.

This highly readable biography, which focuses on the artist’s life more than his art, is one of the better choices at this grade level of the books in CCSS’s Appendix B.  (It's o.p. except as an e-book.)  The authors, known for their YA books about art and artists, deftly employ narrative devices found more often in fiction, such as cliff hangers at the end of chapters, making the short book a good read-aloud.  The many quotes from Van Gogh’s correspondence with his brother, Theo, bring him to life, clearing up mysteries and humanizing him. 

Web Tie-Ins 

1. www.vangoghletters.com   

Students can further explore letters written by and to Van Gogh at a website of Amsterdam’s Van Gogh Museum.

2. www.vangoghmuseum.nl   

Students can look at the many paintings of Amsterdam’s Van Gogh Museum, organized both alphabetically and by category, presented with useful notes.

Warriors Don't Cry: A Searing Memoir of the Battle to Integrate Little Rock's Central High

Beals, Melba Pattillo.  Warriors Don't Cry: A Searing Memoir of the Battle to Integrate Little Rock's Central High. 1995. 266pp. Lexile 1000.  Available in paperback.

  

In this gripping autobiography Melba Pattillo Beals recounts her experiences as one of the nine African-American students to integrate Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, in 1957.  She vividly describes the violence against her, the other eight, and her family including physical and verbal attacks by other students, cruel telephone calls, threats, and more. A modern hero, Beals tells her story without bitterness, in well-crafted prose gracefully adapted from a longer book in this meaningful inside look at the Civil Rights movement through the eyes of a teenager.

Reading Std #8: Delineate and evaluate argument and specific claims in a text, assessing reasoning & evidence.  Compare this book with the PBS “Eyes on the Prize” segment on Southern School Desegregation, which includes an interview with Beals.  Available online at http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/eyesontheprize/story/03_schools.html#video.  An excerpt is available here: http://www.teachersdomain.org/resource/iml04.soc.ush.civil.beals/.