12 | February | 2010

Monday, February 15th is Presidents’ Day, so I thought I’d re-run this list with a few additions. Have a happy holiday!

Recommended Children’s Books about the Presidents:

The Buck Stops Here by Alice Provensen.

So You Want to be President? by Judith St. George and David Small.

Lives of the Presidents: Fame, Shame (and What the Neighbors Thought) by Kathleen Krull.

A Book of Americans by Rosemary Carr and Stephen Vincent Benet.

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the White House: Foolhardiness, Folly, and Fraud in the Presidential Elections, from Andrew Jackson to George W. Bush by David E. Johnson.

George Washington and the Founding of a Nation by Albert Marrin.

George Washington’s World by Genevieve Foster.

George Washington’s Breakfast by Jean Fritz.

Dangerous Crossing: The Revolutionary Voyage of John and John Quincy Adams by Stephen Krensky.

John Adams: Young Revolutionary by Jan Adkins. (Childhood of Famous Americans series)

Abigail Adams: Girl of Colonial Days by Jean Brown Wagoner. (Childhood of Famous Americans series)

A Picture Book of Thomas Jefferson by David A. Adler.

The Great Little Madison by Jean Fritz.

Young John Quincy by Cheryl Harness.

Old Hickory: Andrew Jackson and the American People by Albert Marrin.

William Henry Harrison, Young Tippecanoe by Howard Peckham. (Young Patriots series)

Lincoln: A Photobiography by Russell Freedman

Lincoln Shot: A President’s Life Rememberedâ€¨ by Barry Denenberg.

Chasing Lincoln’s Killer by James Swanson.

Abraham Lincoln for Kids: His Life and Times with 21 Activities by Janis Herbert.

If You Grew Up With Abraham Lincoln by Ann McGovern.

Unconditional Surrender: U. S. Grant and the Civil War by Albert Marrin.

Bully For You, Teddy Roosevelt by Jean Fritz

The Great Adventure: Theodore Roosevelt and the Rise of Modern America by Albert Marrin.

Eleanor Roosevelt: A Life of Discovery by Russell Freedman.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt by Russell Freedman.

Dwight D. Eisenhower: Young Military Leader by George E. Stanley.(Childhood of Famous Americans series)

Kennedy Assassinated! The World Mourns: A Reporter’s Story by Wilborn Hampton.

Ronald Reagan: Young Leader by Montrew Dunham. (Childhood of Famous Americans series)

Happy Birthday to poet and novelist George Meredith, b.1828, of whom Oscar Wilde said, “”Ah, Meredith! Who can define him? His style is chaos illumined by flashes of lightning.” (Wilde had an opinion on everything and everyone, didn’t he?)

Meredith wrote one novel that I’ve read, Diana of the Crossways.

I’ve also read a series of sonnets that Meridith wrote, called Modern Love, in which he worked out his feelings about his wife who three years after their marriaage deserted him and ran away with a Pre-Raphaelite artist. (Those Pre-Raphaelites!) the sonnet sequence consists of fifty sonnets tracing the decay and the death of a romance and a marriage. Rather a sad subject for the advent of Valentine’s Day. Think of it as an antidote to all the hearts and flowers clogging the airways.

It is the season of the sweet wild rose,
My Lady’s emblem in the heart of me!
So golden-crownÃ¨d shines she gloriously,
And with that softest dream of blood she glows:
Mild as an evening heaven round Hesper bright!
I pluck the flower, and smell it, and revive
The time when in her eyes I stood alive.
I seem to look upon it out of Night.
Here’s Madam, stepping hastily. Her whims
Bid her demand the flower, which I let drop.
As I proceed, I feel her sharply stop,
And crush it under heel with trembling limbs.
She joins me in a cat-like way, and talks
Of company, and even condescends
To utter laughing scandal of old friends.
These are the summer days, and these our walks.

Ouch. I hope if you send your love roses for Valentine’s Day, they fare better than the one in the poem.

Semicolon

Books we must have though we lack bread.

Archive | 2/12/2010

President’s Day for Kids

Many Happy Returns: Poetry Friday