Eleanor Roosevelt: An Inspiring Life

Eleanor Roosevelt was born into a wealthy family but had a difficult early life. Both her parents died before she was ten. She was a painfully shy child and felt unattractive and awkward as a young woman. But Eleanor overcame tragedy and personal insecurity to become America's most popular First Lady — her husband was President Franklin Delano Roosevelt — and one of the world's most powerful women. Eleanor worked hard to help others, especially women, minorities and poor people.? Eleanor flew greater distances than any other woman in the world during the early days of international flight. She was the first president's wife to hold press conferences and write newspaper columns. After she was First Lady, her achievements continued. Eleanor kept busy as a diplomat and author and also helped write The Universal Declaration of Human Rights for the United Nations. This book in the Snapshots: Images of People and Places in History series introduces young readers to the First Lady, activist, UN delegate, world traveler and writer who led such an inspiring life.

This book in the Snapshots: Images of People and Places in History series introduces young readers to the First Lady, activist, UN delegate, world traveler and writer who led such an inspiring life.

Children's Literature

It is easy to be inspired by the indomitable Mrs. R (as readers learn Eleanor Roosevelt's friends called her). This book, brimming with photographs and short blocks of text, is perfect for middle readers turned off by text-heavy traditional biographies. In 32 pages, it manages to tell the basic narrative of Roosevelt's life, to convey her contributions to American history and to the progress of women in the nation's life, and to impart fascinating nuggets of information. Readers learn of Roosevelt's privileged yet precarious childhood (both her parents died before she was a teenager), of her social insecurity, and of her tremendous energy, much of which was channeled into efforts to make her country, and the world, a better place. Roosevelt's relationship with her husband, thirty-second president Franklin Delano Roosevelt, is presented sensitively, without whitewashing the couple's marital difficulties. The author makes good use of quotations from Roosevelt's writings and talks. "Learn from the mistakes of others," she said; "You can't live long enough to make them all yourself." Photographs are dynamic and revealing, as befits this addition to the publisher's "Snapshots" series of biographies.

Elizabeth MacLeod has written many children's books, including nine titles in the Snapshots Biography series; numerous titles in the Kids Can Read, Kids Books Of and Kids Can Do It series; Why Do Horses Have Manes?; What Did Dinosaurs Eat?; and Monster Fliers. She lives in Toronto.