Getting to Know the Presidents: The Presidential Biography Project

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February 28, 2011 | 15 books mentioned 28 6 min read

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In the fall of 2009, I set out to read a biography of each American president in chronological order. So far, I’ve made it to James Buchanan (#15).

When I tell people about this project, I routinely get two questions.

The First Question: Why?

The short answer is that I want to be the kind of woman Josh Lyman would date, which in turn is a way of saying that I want to be an Aaron Sorkin character. The long answer is about context.

Living in a country with 235 years of nationhood under its corn belt, I have only a fuzzy knowledge of the men who led us here. I know who signed the Declaration of Independence, won the wars, had the prettiest or wackiest wives, and made landmark decisions or landmark mistakes. But who are all these other guys? Which of them decided to build a transcontinental railroad, sign the Equal Rights Amendment, or settle the Oregon border? Did you know Millard Fillmore’s wife established the White House library?  James K. Polk increased the size of the country by 500,000 square miles. John Tyler abandoned his own party while in office, and was later elected to the Confederate Senate. Zachary Taylor was Jefferson Davis’ father-in-law. Martin Van Buren’s first language was Dutch. Thomas Jefferson and John Adams visited Shakespeare’s home in Stratford together.

The march of American history doesn’t leap-frog from one monumental achievement to the next. When people ask me why I’m reading 44 presidential biographies, they’re really asking whether or not it’s boring, which it certainly can be (the blog where I write about the project is called At Times Dull, after all). In reading biographies rather than narrative history, my subject matter is constantly repeating. I went through the American Revolution six times, because the first six presidents were each personally involved. Reading about that phenomenal time period over and over – each time through the lens of a different extraordinary life – was fascinating. Reading about the Compromise of 1850 four times? Far less so.

But therein lies the worth of the experience. We’d like to build a national reputation around triumph and the progress of civil liberty, but we’ve spent just as much time making bad decisions. To read through American history chronologically is to give equal attention to both stripes.

I’ve just reached the end of the streak of presidents between Andrew Jackson and Abraham Lincoln remarkable for how rarely they’re remembered. They are Van Buren, Harrison, Tyler, Polk, Taylor, Fillmore, Pierce, and Buchanan, and you will not find their faces on money. Their hallmarks are the Mexican-American War, expansion to the Pacific, and the Industrial Revolution, but mainly they spent 35 years scrambling to keep the country together by any means possible. Let me tell you this: anyone who says Abraham Lincoln’s legacy is exaggerated has never spent seventeen months reading about antebellum politicians.

Reading about them is to dwell in that long, uncertain, muddy time when the most an outgoing president ever boasted was a long series of compromises. And yet, each of them got up every morning with the weight of the nation on their shoulders and worked late into the night. (Polk actually micro-managed the executive office, working so hard that he sometimes went weeks without leaving the White House.) Learning about their times, watching them navigate the unglorious periods of our history with as much wisdom as they can muster, has changed the way I think about America much more than reading the lofty words of Jefferson and Madison ever could. And much as I love Washington, Adams, and Jefferson, I have a much more personal affection for the likes of Madison and Fillmore.

Which Brings Me To The Second Question: Who is your favorite president?

How my heart swells to say it: John Quincy Adams.

JQA entered public service at the age of 14, when he accompanied family friend and diplomat Francis Dana to St. Petersburg. During Washington’s administration he was a diplomat to the Netherlands, later traveling to England to help finalize the Jay Treaty, then serving as minister to Prussia. He returned to America for a short time during which he worked two jobs – U.S. Senator and Harvard Professor of Rhetoric – before going back to Europe as America’s first ambassador to Russia. He left Russia to negotiate the Treaty of Ghent, which ended the War of 1812, then served for two years as a Minister to Britain before being appointed Secretary of State for President James Monroe, whom he helped to draft the Monroe Doctrine.

He was a lovely old grump. He got up every morning between 4 and 6 a.m., read the Bible, translated some Latin or Greek, and went for a walk, usually culminating in a frigid swim. When he lived in Russia, he swam in the Neva, on whose banks he would frequently run into the tsar. That he was a genius is no question. Everyone from Washington to Franklin to the King of England said he was one of the keenest statesmen they’d ever known, and by the time he ran for president in 1824, he was easily the most experienced.

He was not a good president. His heart belonged more to the boulevards of Ghent and London than the muddy paths of Washington. The grand ideas he had for internal improvements, university, museums, and observatories didn’t catch the imagination of the country, and he lacked the charm and tact to win them over. Additionally, Andrew Jackson, who had won the popular vote in 1824 but lost to JQA in a House vote, was out to get him. Jackson’s supporters blocked his legislation, and then defeated him in the 1828 election.

Humiliated and depressed, he retired to Massachusetts to read the entire works of Cicero in the original Latin. Despite his glittering career, he had always suffered bouts of self-loathing, stemming from his early fears that success came to him because of his father. He was all too aware that, to an outside observer, his life could appear to be a long string of nepotism and elite cronyism that ended in botching the highest office in the land.

“I will not desert in my old age the Republic that I defended in my youth,” Cicero wrote. At the age of 64, two years after leaving the presidency, John Quincy Adams ran for Congress. He served as a Representative from Massachusetts under the next five presidents, until he collapsed during a House session at the age of 81 and was taken to the Speaker’s chambers, where he died two days later.

JQA’s 17 years as a post-presidential Congressman were legendary. He quite literally had nothing to lose. Most of his colleagues were a generation younger, and he was vastly more experienced. He became an outspoken abolitionist, an issue no one else, politically, could afford to touch. He presented petitions for the abolition of slavery in Washington D.C., and found sneaky ways to evade the Congressional gag rule (forbidding debate of slavery). He argued the case of the Amistad sailors before the Supreme Court, and he orchestrated the founding of the Smithsonian. He wouldn’t give up, and he wouldn’t be quiet. John Quincy Adams was an Aaron Sorkin character.

His unpopularity as a president felt too similar to his own self-doubt, and he set out, in the fifth act of his life, to refute it. Remarkably, it worked. He became known as “Old Man Eloquent,” the nation’s last surviving link to the revolutionary generation, and was far more respected and popular as a Congressman than he had ever been as a president.

His was one of the most eventful lives in early American history. He met Catherine the Great and Charles Dickens. He met George Washington when he was a teenager, and served in the House with Abraham Lincoln when he was in his 80s. To remember him as the one-term, sixth president of the United States is like remembering Michael Jordan as an outfielder for Birmingham.

This month we commemorated the lives of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, and we are right to do so. But the slow, busy procession of history is about so much more than the wins. The forgotten presidents are so much more than seat-fillers. John Quincy Adams was so much more than a president.

The Presidential Biographies I’ve Read (So Far)

(Image: George Washington (The Athenaeum Portrait), First President (1789-1797) from nostri-imago’s photostream)

is a staff writer for The Millions. Janet is a freelance writer and semi-professional baker living in Chicago. Her writing has appeared in The Awl, The AV Club, the Chicago Reader, and Chicago Magazine. She is the co-host of YouTube's The Book Report and blogs about presidential biographies at At Times Dull. Follow her @sojanetpotter.

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Making a Novel

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December 3, 2008 | 15 books mentioned 5 2 min read
In the novel writing workshop I taught this fall, I asked my students to write down as many novel devices they could think of, starting with the basics (plot, character, and so on), and continuing into more shadowy, magical territories. I participated as well, and after a few minutes I found myself writing down some unexpected stuff - not exactly devices, and yet, integral to my own novel, or to ones I'd read and admired. Afterward, we shared our lists with one another; read aloud, they sounded beautiful, and wise, and often one word would hit me in the gut and I'd think, "Yes! That is necessary to the novel!" It was a strangely inspiring exercise.What follows is the list of devices my class and I came up with. There were a few repeated ones, but for the sake of space I have only listed them only once. What would you add to this list?character, plot, language, conflict, resolution, scene, setting, theme, point of view, pacing, voice, dialogue, style, tone, detail, summary, exposition, chapters, rhythm, time (of day, of year, of life), structure, protagonist, antagonist, inciting incident, climax, mid-point, prologue, epilogue, double entendre, vernacular, structure, tension, suspense, story within a story, discomfort, context, seeming villains who turn out to be good guys, seeming good guys who turn out to be villains, description, historical period, biblical narrative form: ("and then and then and then..."), fantasy, fact, logic, dream sequence, "aha!" moment, McGuffin, red herring, discovery, desire, twist of fate, internal monologue, explanation, events, obstacles, eavesdroppers become involved in plot, autobiographical elements, prediction, magic, arbitrary action, humor, contrast (between characters, events, points of view), relationships, confession, events, growth, deus ex machina, references to literature or popular culture, innocents caught in a web of deceit, unreliable narrator, sex, perspective, flashback, slow motion, stasis, denouement, longing, motivation, beauty, surprise, sidekick, misunderstanding, secrets, entrances, exits, light
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| 15 books mentioned 5 2 min read
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After The Dinner: A Round Up of Newly Translated Dutch Fiction

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March 13, 2013 | 15 books mentioned 3 4 min read
It seems to be a Dutch national record: Herman Koch’s novel The Dinner reaching the ninth position on the New York Times bestseller list. While the Times’ own reviewer Janet Maslin called the morality of the story “sickening” and its characters “indigestible,” The Economist praised it, saying that “[The Dinner] proves how powerful fiction can be in illuminating the modern world.” Either sickening or illuminating, Koch’s book is an international success. With Koch climbing the U.S. bestseller lists, it’s time to take a closer look at some newly translated Dutch fiction. The Dinner by Herman Koch, translated by Sam Garrett Praised in the Netherlands, the U.K., and now the U.S., The Dinner is Herman Koch’s breakthrough novel. In the Netherlands, Koch is still first and foremost known as one of the makers of the satirical television series Jiskefet; only in recent years has he gained popularity as a novelist. The Dinner is loosely based on the story of the murder of a homeless woman in Barcelona in 2005, set on fire by three “respectable” young men, children of The Dinner’s main characters, who are prominent politicians. Over the titular dinner, they must discuss the crime their sons committed. It has been recorded by a security camera and aired on national television in order to find the perpetrators, and so far their parents are the only ones who have recognized them. How loyal, the book asks, should parents be towards their children? The Dinner isn’t a thriller in the usual sense of the word, because it’s not a real whodunit, but one could definitely call it a psychological thriller. Koch has a great talent for creating and maintaining tension in a storyline. Tirza by Arnon Grunberg, translated by Sam Garrett Tirza is a story about the obsessive love of a father for his daughter and is one of the most renowned novels by Amsterdam-born, New York City resident Arnon Grunberg, who debuted as a novelist in 1994 and has since created a vast oeuvre of fiction, literary journalism, essays, and stage plays. Tirza revolves around Jörgen Hofmeester, for whom things aren’t going very well: he lost his job as an editor and all his savings after investing in a hedge fund. His wife left him, but suddenly returns after three years, shortly before their daughter Tirza is about to move out after graduating from high school. Tirza is the apple of Hofmeester’s eye, and he can’t let her go. When Tirza introduces her boyfriend Choukri to him, Choukri's strong resemblance to 9/11 hijacker Mohammed Atta occurs to Hofmeester, who starts to regard him as his “personal terrorist.” Later on, Tirza announces that she and Choukri want to travel to Africa. The three of them spend a weekend together at a farmhouse in the Dutch countryside before Hofmeester drops them off at the Frankfurt airport. The story reaches its apotheosis when Hofmeester, after not having heard from Tirza for a few weeks, travels to Namibia to look for her. Ten White Geese by Gerbrand Bakker, translated by David Colmer Just before he turned 44, Gerbrand Bakker surprised the world with his literary debut The Twin, which was published in 2006. The novel was highly praised, both in the Netherlands and abroad – it won him the Impac Dublin Literary Award among other prizes. Ten White Geese, Bakker’s third novel, is mainly set in the Welsh countryside, during the months of November and December, where a woman from Amsterdam has left a painful situation to start all over again. As things develop in Wales -- of the ten white geese to which the title refers, only four remain after two months -- her husband, back home in Amsterdam, contacts the police and tries to find answers. On the day before Christmas, he and a policeman get on a ferry to the other side of the Channel, and the two story lines come together. Ten White Geese has also been praised by both Dutch and international literary critics, especially for Bakker’s economical style and his descriptions of nature. There’s a lot that Bakker deliberately leaves unclear so that the reader can interpret the story on his own. In other words: in Bakker’s novels, nothing much happens, and that’s what makes them so powerful. Little Caesar by Tommy Wieringa, translated by Sam Garrett Tommy Wieringa wrote Little Caesar after gaining fame with his breakthrough novel Joe Speedboat. Both novels read like a fictional life story. Little Caesar chronicles the story of Ludwig Unger, son of a destructive artist and a porn star (Wieringa based this character on Jeff Koons’s and Ilona Staller’s son). Little Caesar received mixed reviews after Joe Speedboat was unanimously hailed by the literary critics. Perhaps it was the constant comparison to its predecessor that made the critics doubt Little Caesar’s quality: while Joe Speedboat was mostly set in a rural Dutch village, Little Caesar has a great deal of symbolism and a story in which the protagonist travels all around the world. However, Wieringa still shows his quality as a literary craftsman, with a wonderful sense of style and tone, as we follow Ludwig – mostly in flashbacks after he returns to the British coastal town where he grew up – trying to cope with his difficult relationship with his mother and his quest to find his father in the Southern American jungle.
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| 15 books mentioned 3 4 min read
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28 comments:

  1. Thoughtful and insightful post. Those Adamses were consistently amazing, though not so easy to like. I’ve always had a weakness for Zachary Taylor, particularly since I learned that Ulysses Grant modeled his military leadership on Taylor’s.

  2. Great post. The part about being the kind woman Josh Lyman would want to date made me laugh out loud. I think I want to be that kind of woman too! But I aspire to be smarter than Donna! You mentioned who your favorite president is so far. What has been the best-written, most interesting book of what you have read? (Not sure if that is mutually exclusive.) Please keep us posted on how your project comes along. I would love to hear an update in a few months.

  3. Hi, this is great. How do you chose which biography to read? For some of these men there will be many to chose from. Also, please add later posts with the books you’ve chosen – I’d love to keep track.

  5. Thanks for your questions, I’m glad you liked the essay.

    The best written and most interesting biography so far has been John Adams by David McCullough, which shouldn’t be a big surprise. McCullough is as much a novelist as a historian, and he provided the most atmosphere and personality. I’m excited that I have his Truman biography to look forward to.

    However, Ralph Ketcham’s biography of James Madison was the most valuable to me in understanding American government, because Madison had the final say in constructing it. There are great stories of later presidents who, when faced with a question of whether or not something was constitutional, simply went and asked Madison, its author.

    It’s a great day when I get to choose between possible biographies. Many of the early presidents only have one or two biographies still in print, if that. When there are several to choose from – as was the case with Washington, Jefferson, and Jackson – I go for the best combination of scholarship, reputation, and length. If you know you want to read a well-respected book, and you’re willing to read between 400 and 600 pages, that normally narrows it down to 3 or 4. After that I read reviews of the candidates or, better yet, ask a good bookseller.

    I may write more for The Millions on the presidents at some point, but you can also follow the project’s blog at http://attimesdull.blogspot.com

  6. What an outstanding, ORIGINAL idea! I’m going to follow in your footsteps. How do you select which biography to read?

    I can’t argue with your selection of JQA, but before your ideas I wrote a blog post offering Grover Cleveland as my favorite President.

    I’m officially a fan of yours!

  7. I was speaking with a group of high-schoolers recently, and was shocked to hear about their US History curriculum. It essentially ignored everything prior to the Revolutionary War, then allotted an astonishingly skimpy amount of coverage to the first one hundred thirty-some years of “official” American history before plunging into a decade-by-decade exploration of the twentieth century. I mean, can we give our high-schoolers a little more historical context please? Sheesh…

    Anyway, back to your post: thank you for demonstrating how one can break out of the box of common US history knowledge by exploring it on their own, and in such a creative yet systematic way. I wonder if your system could be applied to other areas of American history. A ‘biography’ of each of the fifty states? Each decade?

  8. I am doing this too! I’m currently about 3/4 of the way through the Nagel biography of JQA. I don’t know that I would have liked Adams if I encountered him, but I also see so much of myself in him. He’s really an interesting character.

    I’m really looking forward to TR and Jimmy Carter (I’m young enough that I was born soon after Carter left office).

    Will you be reading any presidential autobiographies?

    I look forward to reading more of your reflections on your blog.

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  10. I love you and your brilliance Janet Potter! You make me want to follow your footsteps and pick up a biography

  11. Pingback: Presidential Biographies Reading Project « Atlanta Booklover's Blog

  12. I think it is a great idea to read about all of the presidents and how they affected America in their time. America is like it is today because of each and every one of them. We can lean a lot from their life and the experiences they had.
    I think the presidents today are nothing like the presidents we had in the past. Number one, the effect the media has today on what the president says in amazing. Everyone wants to look good to the world and society. However when it comes to a person like the president its a hundred times worse. They are thinking at all times about how they appear and what people are thinking about them. I can’t ruin my reputation. It all turns in to arrogance and they don’t put the nation and their people first. We have a democracy and the people govern America however, sometimes I think that it ends up being governed by the presidents’ reputation and not always on what is the best for the people.
    This problem that we have can be changed if worked on. The presidents today can learn a lot from the presidents of the past.

  13. What a great idea for a project, and a fascinating post on your progress. As a non-American, I have possibly even less idea about those “lesser” names. There seems to have been an extraordinary range of characters and abilities occupying the Oval office in the 19th century, from the highest calibre to people who you wonder how they could have achieved such a level.

    Certainly a great way to understand your country’s history and politics. Like other commenters, I’m inspired by your approach to try something similar myself. Thanks!

  14. Well done! I’m glad that you’re framing the experience through overall events, since it’s not like the president was always the most powerful person in the country.

    I’m also not surprised at the Adams choice with the exception of the differences in your (probable) politics. Now, to see how you react to a Chester Arthur (hack to incredibly honorable person, lowbrow to highbrow, no power to, well, some power and some success).

  15. Funny you should mention this. I recently worked out an itinerary taking in all the presidential birthplaces, starting in Quincy, Mass and ending in Yorba Linda, CA (after which I guess one could board a plain to Hawaii). Not sure why I felt compelled to do this – no idea whether I’ll ever actually go on the trip (certainly not while I have small kids and limited vacation time) – just a daydream, and a chance to learn obscure but telling facts about where these guys came from.

    Maybe many of us are suddenly interested in the presidency because, for the first time in our lives, we aren’t embarrassed by the incumbent?

  16. anyone who says Abraham Lincoln’s legacy is exaggerated has never spent seventeen months reading about antebellum politicians.

    This is very, very true. That said, I’ve always admired Polk, and Crapol’s John Tyler biography was surprisingly interesting.

    Did you consider reading George Pendle’s The Remarkable Millard Fillmore: The Unbelievable Life of a Forgotten President for your Fillmore biography? It’s pretty good, and more accurate than you might think given that he’s shown on the cover riding a unicorn.

  17. You immediately won my heart and abiding support for this project by admitting to your love of Sorkin and wanting to be Josh Lyman’s girlfriend. Even *I* want to be Josh Lyman’s girlfriend. And I’m a dude.

    Fantastic project, envious of your focus and concentration. I’d love to do this someday. Keep us up to date!

  18. My wife passed this link to me. I too started this project last year.

    I am a naturalized US citizen. I became a sparkling new American last year and although I have a reasonably good grip on the big events in history of my new country, I wanted to get a much more in-depth perspective on how the US has become the country it is today. While there are many history books I could read (and I have read a few), I thought it would be interesting to read about the Presidents, to get a feel for the issues of their day that have gone on to shape the nation.

    I started with Ron Chernow’s great biography of Washington that was published in just the past year or so. At 900 pages it is long, but he has kept it interesting and the chapters are all about 10 to 14 pages long which is a perfect length to read each night before bed. I have decided to take a slight deviation to read Chernow’s biography of Aleaxander Hamilton, and I’m also on the look out for a good biography of Benjamin Franklin. Although neither of these men served as President, I think they were very influential in the forming of the early US Government and its policies.

    Beyond that I am looking forward to McCollough’s books on Adams and Truman. I have read a few of his books and love his writing style. Thanks for posting the books you read. I’ll need your list for good suggestions on some of those lesser written about Presidents.

  19. Thrilling stuff…! I was a presidential nerd as an elementary schooler, and have carried this torch ever since. The specific focus on a case-by-case understanding is a laudatory endeavor. Can’t hardly wait for the Taft/Bush narrative, the Harding intrigues and the Roosevelt saga. Presidentia rocks!

  20. I was so pleased to see that Janet and I share a
    favorite in David McCollough’s John Adams. It
    may be impossible to choose a favorite President
    – they are such a varied group. I love Alexander
    Hamilton for a lot of reasons. Though he did
    not run for President I always think of him as
    a NY superstar. Great series. More of the
    same, please.

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  22. Thank you, Janet, for this wonderful essay – so original, insightful and enlightening. I’ve got some good news for you. You’re in for a treat when you get to the president who makes Millard Fillmore look positively memorable. I’m talking of course about Gerald Ford, who, as you’ll soon learn. was born Leslie King Jr. in Omaha, Neb., where his mother fled from her abusive husband and took her infant son to Grand Rapids, Mich. There she married a solid citizen named Gerald Ford Sr., who treated the boy like own son. It’s positively biblical, and I predict you’ll find yourself thinking about Moses in that basket beside the Nile. Much later, you’ll think back to those antebellum presidents who spent their time in office scrambling, as you put it, “to keep the country together by any means possible.” Sometimes, on the eve of a calamitous war or in the aftermath of a national trauma, that scrambling can be a memorable achievement in itself. Please give us more as you read your way through the rest of the presidents – especially the ones whose faces will never appear on money. Again, many thanks.
    Bill Morris

  24. Great idea. In fact I’m doing the same thing myself. Just finished a biography of John Tyler. I’m currently in the middle of Henry Clay: The Essential American. I’ve decided to add bios of non-presidential statesmen, as well as general histories of the period. Walker Daniel Howe’s What Hath God Wrought has been my favorite of those thus far.

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  26. Just wondering – and maybe I missed it here somewhere – about your choice of each biography. How did you choose each one, and when did you do so – overall in advance, along the way, or only choosing each one in sequence as you’ve concluded the prior one? Have you ever begun a biography, then changed to a different one (and if so, why?). I find this a fascinating process and did something years ago – but for some odd reason I read two at a time, starting with Washington AND the incumbent, then reading toward the middle. Made no sense and I’ve decided to begin again – in order this time. Just curious about the process and administration of building a reading list.

  27. Hi, I am reading Killing Kennedy and got to thinking that I don’t know very many details about the past presidents. Then I thought I would like to read a good biography about every president. So I googled good authors for biographies of U.S. presidents and I would your website. Do you think the biographies you chose so far are good? How did you decide what book to read. Since there are so many books out there.

  28. Pingback: “We are the Mediocre Presidents” | Fatherhood Etc.

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A Brief Caribbean Reading List

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February 5, 2018 | 15 books mentioned 4 min read
These four Caribbean writers take you to the heart and soul of Caribbean living, while tackling big issues—from natural disasters and their aftermath to mental illness and the underbelly of tourism.
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| 15 books mentioned 4 min read
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Ask a Book Question: The 61st in a Series (World War II Books for Younger Readers)

Ask a Book Question Lists
June 19, 2008 | 15 books mentioned 2 3 min read
We compiled some excellent lists of World War II fiction and non-fiction a while back, but one topic that wasn't broached during those discussions was books about the war for younger readers. Ryo wrote in with a question that has spurred us to close that gap:Im a Thirteen Year Old Boy who is interested in WW2. I like books where the character is actually in the war. Can you recommend few for me?This is really a perfect question for a librarian, but not having one close at hand, I searched around and was able to find some great lists on the topic, specifically a pair of pdfs. One from Thomas Branigan Memorial Library in Las Cruces, New Mexico and another from Grand Rapids Public Library in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Both offer up a wide selection of books to look into. Here are a few titles and descriptions from each list that seem like they might fit what Ryo is looking for.The Cruel Sea by Nicholas Monsarrat - Originally published in 1951, "One of the classic naval adventure stories of World War II, Monsarrat's novel tells the tale of two British ships trying to escape destruction by wolf pack U-boats hunting in the North Atlantic."Under a War-Torn Sky by L.M. Elliott - "In 1944, 19-year-old Hank is an American pilot flying his 15th bombing mission when his plane is shot down over Alsace, near the Swiss border. Locals assist him in getting to neutral territory. There, a Red Cross doctor advises him to attempt an escape from Europe across France with the help of the French Resistance. Hank's many adventures as he makes his way toward home and freedom comprise the rest of the story. This is a gritty, unblinking look at the horrors that the Nazis visited upon France during the occupation."Soldier Boys by Dean Hughes - "Parallel stories follow teenagers Spence Morgan, a farm boy from Utah, and Dieter Hedrick, a farm boy from Bavaria. Stirred by complex feelings of patriotism and adolescent insecurities, both young men find themselves fighting for their respective countries in World War II. The first part of the story follows Spence from his small-town life to the rigors of basic training as a paratrooper; Dieter has left his family in order to supervise other Hitler youth, digging trenches on the German border. Then suddenly, both teens are thrust into the chaos and carnage of the Battle of the Bulge."A Boy at War: A Novel of Pearl Harbor by Harry Mazer - "Adam Pelko has lived for only two weeks in Honolulu, where his father is an officer assigned to the USS Arizona in nearby Pearl Harbor. When he befriends Davi Mori, a high school classmate whose parents are Japanese, Adam's rigid father forbids him to associate with Davi, fearing that the anti-Japanese sentiment so rampant on the island will tarnish the Pelko family and Lieutenant Pelko's navy career. When his father is called back to the ship unexpectedly, Adam slips away from his house the following morning-December 7, 1941-to go fishing with Davi and another classmate. Rowing close to the fleet in Pearl Harbor, they witness the horrific Japanese air attack and are nearly killed themselves, their boat shot from beneath them by a low-flying fighter plane. Desperate to reach home and find out if his father is alive, Adam is spotted by an officer who mistakes him for a young enlisted man and orders him into action to help rescue survivors and restore order."Soldier X by Don L. Wulffson - "Veteran and teacher Erik Brandt's students deem him a hero, but he confides to readers that in WWII he fought for the Germans--not the Americans. He then flashes back to March 21, 1944, when at age 16, Erik, the son of a (deceased) German father and Russian mother, and a member of the Hitler Youth, boards a train bound for battle in Russia."Readers, if you have any other suggestions, let us know. Ryo, thanks for your question. Let us know if you read any of these.
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| 15 books mentioned 2 3 min read