Fourth of July Books

It was about a party for the Independence Day. They watch the parades. It was called Fourth of July. They love the parades so much.

"Independence Day: Birthday of the United States" begins with the simple premise that just as everybody has a birthday so does our country. For the United States that day is July 4, 1776 because that is the day the leaders of the Second Continental Congress agreed on the exact wording of the Declaration of Independence. However, as Elaine Landau points out, the first celebration of Independence Day was really on July 8, 1776, because it took several days for news and copies of the Declaration to reach all thirteen colonies.

Landau provides a chapter explaining the history of Independence Day, working in the icons such as the Liberty Bell, but most of the book is devoted to festivities associated with the day, such as fireworks, parades, and food. A chapter is also devoted to the two biggest Independence Days, the centennial in 1876 with the International Exposition in Philadelphia and the bicentennial in 1976. The final chapter looks at the many way Americans celebrate the 4th of July, from all day block parties to eight foot cherry pies, and the back of the book includes a couple of Independence Day Projects for Glitter Sparklers and a Celebration Ice-Cream Sundae.

"Independence Day" is illustrated with both historic artwork, such as a version of Trumbull's painting of the committee presenting the Declaration to the Continental Congress and postcards from the 1800s celebrating the 4th of July, along with photographs such as several of the bicentennial being celebrated in New York City and the "Photo of the Century," which shows one hundred Americans of all different ages born in a different year from 1900 to 1999, including people from all fifty states. Young readers will learn a lot about the diverse ways Independence Day has been celebrated for over two hundred years.

This volume is one of a series devoted to Finding Out About the Holidays which includes "Chinese New Year: A Time for Parades, Family, and Friends," "Christmas: Celebrating, Life, Giving, and Kindness," "Columbus Day: Celebrating a Famous Explorer," "Halloween: Costumes and Treats on All Hallows' Eve," and "Thanksgiving Day: A Time to be Thankful."

This charming book offers kids a great story framed by vivid artwork. Boys especially will love the low-rider theme. It's a fun read no matter how many times through!

For anyone interested in the art of photo interpretation, immigration history, radical politics/unionism, and a history of the Mesabi Iron Range, I would heartedly recommend this book. The extensive bibliography and footnotes, alone, are worth the price of the book. Dr. Nemanic has given both the academic world and those interested in the Iron Range much to assimilate. Her interpretation of the interplay of radical politics and unionism and the changing significance of the July Fourth celebrations will challenge more traditional visions/interpretations. The Iron Rangers may be laconic but they certainly were and are not inactive.

This is a great follow up to the first Sleepytown Beagles book. My daughter was so excited to see it when I gave it to her - I had to read it immediately! We both hope that there will be more Sleepytown adventures coming soon.

This is Winnie the Pooh at his best. All of these 1st readers are just wonderful books to read to my 4 and 2 year old. They have messages of love, charity, hope and happiness

This book and the authors many others are so perfect for toddlers. Simple words and pictures help explain the meaning and customs of many holidays and traditions, making it a nice way for toddlers to understand. The board book style allows for little fingers to request multiple readings. And we all know how repetition helps them learn. They make great gifts, too.

The story is poignant of this good American youth who went enlisted in the marines to fight in Vietnam in order to coma back as an Hero. Who did not have such glorious dreams ?

Alas, he was seriously injured, and returned in a wheelchair deeply traumatized. Injury was double, physical and psychological, as a former Vietnam vet and thus rejected by society.

Every holiday, patriotic, July 4, this dual wound bleeds more because this man is born on the Fourth of July (hence the title). How such a man can escape his tornament is well described in this very good book.

Ron Kovic was an icon of the Vietnam Veterans anti-war movement in the early 1970s, as well as a powerful voice for downtrodden veterans. In his memoir "Born on the Fourth of July," he movingly recounts his journey from an ultra-patriotic youth growing up in an upstate New York suburb to an embittered disabled veteran, who wound up championing the anti-war and veteran causes. His narrative begins in combat in Vietnam where he is wounded and paralyzed, then goes to his childhood experiences; it's not really in chronological order like the movie is.

The most heartbreaking part of the book is his stay in the VA, where the conditions for wounded veterans are hardly what we would expect them to be. The recent Walter Reed scandal shows an inability on the part of our government to learn from its mistakes in this area. In addition, though Jane Fonda said that this book was the inspiration for the movie "Coming Home," Ron Kovic gets no Sally Hyde character to be his angel of love. Due to his injury, he can never again function sexually, and the only love he can get is the kind he has to pay for. Kovic is clearly anguished about this, and his situation reflected the reality for most paralyzed veterans.

Ultimately, Kovic was able to find a purpose in his life, and his book had wide influence. He became outspoken against the Vietnam War and for better treatment of veterans. He became a much-sought speaker, and his memoir was eventually turned into a movie starring Tom Cruise. Bruce Springsteen wrote "Shut Out the Light" after reading "Born on the Fourth of July," and his "Born in the USA" may have been partly inspired by Kovic. Kovic continues to speak out against the war, and his memoir remains a classic.

Moreover, "Born on the Fourth of July" remains relevant today. All of the Iraqi veterans coming home with PTSD and having trouble functioning in everyday life, or have had marriages broken due to the stress related to constantly being recalled for another tour of duty, or had injuries similar to Kovic's, show that the issues in the book are very much alive today. Finally, I would recommend this book to history fans who want to see the ways in which society was changing 40 years ago, and how Vietnam impacted ordinary people.

Ron Kovic is one of society's worst nightmares: the unquestioning youth who believed every war movie, signed up for the Marines on his 18th birthday, fully committed to combat and sacrifice...only to turn his shattered back on those same indoctrinated values, speaking out against them with rage and bitterness as he saw himself, post-injury, shoved into a corner like an embarassing mutant.

Kovic's memoir is inelegant, repetitive, self-centered; it is, simply put, not well-written. (The stream-of-consciousness recreation of Marine boot camp on Parris Island is especially clumsy.) Still I would recommend it to any young person, as I would recommend a trip to an open blast furnace, so that the same young person could see life as it sometimes horribly is, to know what war actually does to those who fight on the front. Kovic does not pretend to be writing great literature, but he is presenting the raw case of his life.

The original memoir is also a good antidote (I believe) to its lurid movie adaptation by Oliver Stone. For reasons I do not understand, the movie completely omits the pivotal moment, at a rally just after the Kent State shootings, when Kovic decided to stop simply feeling sorry for himself, and to use his status as a badly crippled Vietnam vet to protest the War. This is the core of the man's story, and still deserves to be read.

Ron Kovic gives an interesting perspective into the ideas and sentiments of the 1960s. Kovic's traumatic experiences and harsh lessons help to illustrate both sides of the decade: that of the "patriot," and that of the protestor. The 1960s were a changing time in American history, and fueling these fires were the fears of Communism, war, and ultimately the shifting identity of the "enemy" as the power of the change. These factors are present in Kovic's account of civilian life both before and after his time in Vietnam.

The Cold War had significant effects on Americans throughout the 1960s, and it permeated through most aspects of society. This paranoia is a byproduct of the 1950s, and Kovic's childhood illustrates how deeply the roots of this fear reached. The arms race and the space race both filled the head of young Kovic as he and his friend "made contingency plans for the cold war and built fallout shelters out of milk cartons" (Kovic 56). The atmosphere even struck emotional chords when he discusses the Soviet's launch of the Sputnik satellite and Kovic weeps in his room because, "we were losing the space race, and America wasn't first anymore" (Kovic 59). The Communist shadow enveloped the nation, and as a child Kovic felt that "the communists were all over the place back then" and he even became convinced that one of his teachers was a Communist agent (Kovic 60). This is further reflected in his finding a hero in the lead role of "I Led Three Lives," a television show about an American double agent infiltrating the Communist lines (Kovic 59). These influences ultimately lead to Kovic's decision to enter military service, believing that he may become like John Wayne to fight for the American way.

This changed for many who returned from the war, however. Kovic and thousands like him who returned home severely wounded and disfigured found themselves tucked away from the public eye, and feeling ignored when in plain sight. Kovic spent months in a low-quality veteran's hospital laying in his own urine and excrement as a result of malicious neglect. When the public saw him he felt as though he represented an indecent reminder of the brutality of their cause (perhaps because John Wayne never came home in a wheel chair), but all the while he saw himself as its defining product. He was even told by one television show producer that the presence of his condition on their show would not be "tasteful," adding "people have seen it on the six o'clock news and their tired of it" (Kovic 148). Kovic felt used as though "he had never been anything but a thing to them, a thing to put a uniform on and train to kill, a young thing to run through the meat-grinder" (Kovic 166). America ignored his sacrifices, and he soon became determined to enter the protesting circuit, forcing people look at him so that they can "be reminded of what they'd done when they'd sent [his] generation off to war" (Kovic 150).

Slowly the face of the enemy began to change. The brotherhood he once found in the Marines he now found with hippies, the same people he had vowed would "pay" for protesting the war back in Vietnam (Kovic 134). For Kovic and protestors like him, President Nixon and the government had become prime targets of their dissatisfaction. He told Roger Mudd in one spontaneous interview that, "I gave America my all and the leaders of this government threw me and others away to rot in their V.A. hospitals" (Kovic 180). He felt that the war was "the biggest lie and hypocrisy of all" and that all the money spent on the war "should be spent on healing and helping the wounded" (Kovic 178).

In the crippled embodiment of Kovic and other protesters many Americans found another enemy. Kovic met with great opposition and was even violently beaten for speaking out against the war. On many occasions he was even called a "commie" and a "traitor" (Kovic 150, 155, 184), signifying that in their eyes he had become as demonic as those they had praised him for fighting. America was dividing against itself, as it would become time for the veterans, hippies, politicians, and war supporters to take turns wearing the horns. The cannons of American hatred turned from the "evil" Communists around to the domestic enemy within. The 1960s were a decade of replaced anger and hostility, and in many ways a breakdown of American confidence and a redefining of what it meant to be a patriot, and what it meant to be a traitor. Kovic's experiences allowed him to fill both shoes simultaneously. His lesson is one all Americans should be required to read and learn.

While Ronnie Kovic was fighting in Vietnam I was in college playing football and baseball on scholarship. All expenses paid. People told me that I was extraordinary while Ronnie was suffering in a squalid Veterans hospital. And while he was being spit on at the Republican National convention I was learning to believe that I deserved an exceptional life and that I was better than guys like him who had somehow believed the lies our government told about how the communists were going to take over the world unless young men stopped them the way our fathers and uncles had stopped the Nazis and the lunatic Japanese.
I was too cool to believe any of that, and guys like Ronnie were unenlightened. I felt sorry for them.
I have become an old man now and these days I am trying for all I am worth to be a good father to my son who is Ronnie's age. When he began telling me that he was thinking about joining the Marines, I began reading to him from Ron's book. Reading to him at night while he lay in his bed as I had when he was a small boy. I wanted him to know that if he went to war in Iraq and was wounded horribly there, his government and his country would not care about him. I wanted him to know that the same people who were in power in America and who sent Ron off to war, were in power once again. The same pathetic collection of clowns and liars eager to have wars so long as they and their children don't have to fight them. Cowards, really. I told my son that he would be fighting for a commander in cheif and a vice president and a secretary of state who are cowards. I told my son that the same conservative republicans who spit on Ron Kovic after he gave his body for America were in power once again and that he could expect them to spit upon him when he came home from war if he opposed them. Ron Kovic's magnificent book persuaded my son not to fight for his country in Iraq. I am forever in the author's debt.

Get sucked into a incredible book where a 13 year old girl named Charrolett and her neighboor,Shannon,discover a ghost that lives in Charrolett's house!They found out that the ghost,Susie,died from a fireworkthat was triggered!Who killed Susie?Does her family find her?Read The Ghost Sitter and find out.

If you like ghost stories read this book called "The Ghost Sitter."
It's about a girl named Charlotte she lives in a house that is haunted by a girl named Susie that died in the garage of that house and her sister told her to stay in the house until she comes back. If you like this review read this book, beware you might be scared while you read it or cry at the end.

The Ghost Sitter is about a ten year old girl who has been stuck in this house for 50 years.This story takes place in a house with a graveyard a foot away.The conflict in this story is that a girl named Susie and she was dead and didnt know it. Brandon seemed attached to her but Charolet refuses that there is a ghost in her nwe house.After the cookout with the Kohns ,and Shannons family and then the story of "Sparkler Susie" Lottie started to belive it.

To start with The Ghost Sitter is about a ten year old girl who usted to live at the house in the story with her family.then on a July 4 her sister and her were playing with fireworks and someone dared her to hold a firework then let go.When she did she held it to long and when it exploed she dided.Then her sister said dont leave that she would come back for her.The setting mostly takes place at the house in the story.The proublem in this story is that there is a ghost that lives in this house however only little kids can see her and she loves to babysit.The conflict in this story is Chrollet and the neighbor look in the phonbook for someone named Gloria and the found where they burried Sparkler Susie and they looked and looked for this graveyard and they found a place where the vines and grass hadnt been cut .they go up there and they find her tombstone and then left a note on her sistres gravystone. a couple days latter someone named Gloria came and said that sh was Susies sister but she didnt belive her. then she sid that she had been dead for 50 years.This is resolevd by Susie finally belives her and she can finally leave and then the house isnt haunted anymore

To start with The Ghost Sitter ia about a ten year old girl who usted to live at this house with her family.Then one July 4 she was playing with a firework and she held it to long then she dided.Glora said that she would come back for her and then she could never leave this house. This story is mostly about a new family who moves into a house that has a graveyard right behind the house. The conflict in this srory is that there is a ghost that lives there however only kids can see her and play with her. Charollet and their nieghibor asked where she was burried and they went to all the grave yards and finally found her tombstone and they left a note on her sisters gravestone and then a couple of days later Gloria her sister came and Susie went with her sister and the house wasn't hunted anymore.

a very good book from children 10 to 12 to read. This book is extra intresting because Madison gets kissed!

Madison finn is really excited to go to Far hills 4th of July bash. But when her mother goes on a buisness trip in southern U.S. she has to stay with her grandmother and miss the 4th of July bash. At her grandmothers house,she meets a boy that is staying next door. Then the summer fireworks start to really pick up in Madisons life.

Out of the first 9 books, the 9th one, "Just Visiting", is my favorite one. This book is about Madison having to visit her Gramma for the 4th of July while Far Hills has a big bash. Madison is really upset until she meets a young boy, Mark. They hang out almost every day and their love for each other grows. Then, when they both go to Winnetka's Fourth of July carnival, Madison and Mark see what REAL fireworks mean. This book is very romantic and I suggest it most out of the first 9 books. Buy "Just Visiting" today!

From the Files of Madison Finn Just Visiting

From The Files Madison Finn is about a girl who has to go to her Grandma's house for the Fourth of July. Madison would rather stay home with her best friends, and go to the parade. At least she had her computer and dog. Madison finds that it might not be as bad as it seems. Madison's Grandma Helen has a best friend named Mable, and they are neighbors. It just so happens that Mable's grandson Mark who is a year older then Madison is visiting. Madison thinks she might like him. Finally on the Fourth of July Madison and Mark go to the carnival together and they kiss.


Madison Finn has brown hair. She is thirteen years old and is an only child. Madison likes going to the lake with her friends, and loves summer vacation. Madison seems like a fun person to be around, and is popular. Madison's grandma Helen lives near Chicago. She has no pets and lives alone. She is old and has a friend named Mable. She is very organized and loves to paint. Mark has brown hair and loves to play tennis. He is fourteen years old, and helps his grandma every summer.


I enjoyed reading this book. It kept me busy and was easy to read. My favorite part in the story is when Madison and Mark kiss. I would recommend this book to a friend because it is exciting and you never know what will happen next. Also it deals with problems that could happen to any one.

This has got to be like my most favorite book next to like two others. It is so romantic to think that in only about a week you could get your first kiss, especially from someone as nice as Mark. I love tennis to, and the beach, and like everything they did together. I should have called the love connection sooner. I mean, it was obvious, yet so surprising you had to put the book down just to breathe.