Fitzgerald Books

This book rescued me from the recent Taubman biography of Khruschev. Not that I didn't thoroughly enjoy Taubman...up until the point that Kennedy was assassinated. Somehow, without Kennedy to reflect off of, or react off of, or bark at, or explode at, Khruschev became rather dull.

This book, winding as it does completely around the relationship between the leaders of the two superpowers, their mistrusts of each other, their odd affection for each other, their correspondence, and their dangerous, global risk-taking flare-ups, proves far more interesting. Beschloss creates characters full of life and vigor, sympathetic and sometimes frightening, as when Khruschev threatens war over Berlin, or when we learn the details of the narcotics the President required to manage his back pain.

The book also manages to set the stage for years and years of politics to come, in space policy, in cold war strategy, and in the Vietnam war.

Michael R. Beschloss' 1991 book, The Crisis Years: Kennedy and Khruschev 1960-1963, is a literary rarity: a history book about a complex and critical period in the 20th Century that is so well-written that it reads like a novel.

Beschloss describes the dramatic events of the period that began shortly before the Presidential election of 1960 and ended with the dreadful events of November 22, 1963, focusing on the interplay between President John F. Kennedy and Chairman Nikita S. Khruschev. These two men from vastly different worlds -- one the son of a self-made millionaire from Boston, the other the son of Russian peasants who had been semiliterate until his thirties -- held the fate of the world in their hands.

The Crisis Years discusses in great detail the most dramatic events of the Cold War, including JFK's first meeting with the Soviet leader in Vienna, the Bay of Pigs fiasco, the building of the Berlin Wall (including a photo capturing the only time American tanks and Soviet tanks faced off), the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the signing of the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty that marked the first thaw in the frosty relations between the superpowers.

This book is sadly out of print, but it's definitely a must-read for readers who want to know more about this critical period in world history.

Interesting to note that Castro came to the UN after the Cuban revolution in the hope of normalising relations with the US but was rebuffed. There then followed the Bay of Pigs. If cooler heads had prevailed and approachement made at that point, we may have been living in a totally different world today. A banal observation, admitedly. Certainly, US intransigence led to a more absolutist and repressive Castro.
Kennedy indeed felt that Khrushchev had outclassed him when it came to discussing political ideology on first meeting, but Kennedy did focus on the crux of the whole matter. The nation that could provide best materially for it's people would be the winner of the cold war. Krushchev ended up in a hut in the country somewhere, an 'expendable hero' as Harry Palmer once joked to an old Bolschevic in the film 'Funeral In Berlin'.

Michael Beschloss has done what every history writer should aspire to...make complex history telling "readable". Even though this book is very long, it flows very smoothly without missing any of the details of that "Crisis" era. I love books on the Cuban Missile Crisis and have found very few that would be characterized above the "textbook" level, but this one surely meets that tough standard. This book should be included in every "Crisis" historians library.

This is a massive (700 page), comprehensive, if not especially analytic, study of the United States' relationship with the Soviet Union at the height of the Cold War, told from the perspectives of the superpowers' leaders, John Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev. At the beginning of his administration, Kennedy may have had sincere desire to improve relations with the Soviets, but his famous inaugural address was interpreted by many as a committed cold warrior's call to arms, and, as Beschloss's title implies, a series of foreign policy crises followed. Often in minute detail, Beschloss discusses the disastrous invasion of Cuba by opponents of Fidel Castro at the Bay of Pigs, the construction of the Berlin Wall, the proliferation of nuclear weapons, and the Cuban missile crisis. For those who enjoy narrative history liberally sprinkled with portraits of colorful personalities, this is a fascinating book.

There is little in this book which is new, but much of it bears repeating, especially for readers too young to remember the early 1960s. However odious Castro's dictatorship was to become, the attempt to topple it in the spring of 1961 was destined to fail. According to Beschloss, one of Kennedy's advisers warned him that "he could not recall a single case in history when refugees returned and successfully overthrew a revolutionary regime." The Berlin crisis that summer did not escalate into a nuclear confrontation because, as Kennedy observed: "A wall is a hell of a lot better than a war." And Beschloss writes about the missile crisis that the 39 hours' warning of the naval quarantine that Kennedy gave Khrushchev "demonstrated the President's wisdom in starting his response not with an irreversible air strike but with milder pressures that gave Khrushchev time to ponder his move."

Some of Beschloss's observations about the leaders border on gossip. He lends credence to reports that Khrushchev could be a buffoon who occasionally drank too much and that Kennedy's enthusiastic womanizing continued while he was president. But personal traits and predilections often could not be separated from matters of substance. For instance, the author reports that Kennedy was regularly treated by a medical practitioner with "vitamin shots" which "also contained amphetamines, steroids, hormones, and animal organ cells." Beschloss proceeds to explain the importance of this revelation: "Even in small doses, amphetamines cause side effects such as nervousness, garrulousness, impaired judgment, overconfidence, and, when the drug wears off, depression." Beschloss implies that Kennedy may have been under the influence of amphetamines at his summit meeting with Khrushchev in the spring of 1961, when the Soviet leader, by Kennedy's own admission, "just beat hell out of me." Beschloss concludes that Kennedy "should have been vastly more careful in pursuing his medical experimentation than he had been as a Senator. The stakes now were not one political career but literally the fate of the world."

This book is not without its limitations. As I implied above, it is much stronger on narrative than analysis, and some passages give the impression that Beschloss was more interested in the personalities of Kennedy and Khrushchev than in the substance of the policies they devised and pursued. Beschloss's discussion of Kennedy's approach to the growing conflict in Vietnam is brief and generally superficial. The book's organization is quirky: The role of Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara in the development of Kennedy's national-security policy is barely mentioned until page 400. And the index is not entirely reliable. (For instance, the index's listing for Gen. Lyman Lemnitzer, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, inexplicably omits reference to Beschloss's description of a critical briefing Lemnitzer gave to the President in September 1961 in which the "bottom line" was that "the United States enjoyed vast nuclear superiority.")

While I was preparing this review, I discovered that this book, which was published in 1991, is already out of print, and that surprised me a bit. Some aspects of it clearly have been superceded by more recent scholarship, such as Lawrence Freedman's Kennedy's Wars: Berlin, Cuba, Laos, and Vietnam, which I reviewed here shortly after it was published last November, but I believe that Beschloss's book continues to be of value. The magnificent 19th-century English historian Thomas Carlyle once wrote: "The history of the world is but the biography of great men." Few eras provide more validation for Carlyle's perspective than the crisis years of 1961 and 1962, dominated as they were by the intensely personal diplomacy of Kennedy and Khrushchev. Beschloss's coverage of that aspect of U.S.-U.S.S.R. relations during this period is superb.

Perfect book for a Dora lover. Pictures are inserted wtihin the sentences so your child can read along and particpate with you!

My daughter and I love to read this book together. It is nice and short. My daughter is also learning to spell because of the simple and repetitive words in the book.

My two daughters (ages 2 and 4) request this book be read--at least once a day (along with all the other "Ready-to-Read" books we bought for them). They especially get excited when it's time to go under the sea with Dora. I think this book is probably geared toward the preschool/beginning grade school set. It has big words and colorful pictures. The stories are simple and not too long.
Certain words have little "pictographs" with the word that it's for directly underneath it in smaller print. I suppose this is to help the child learn to read these certain words. Since my daughters are still pretty young (the oldest is now just learning the sounds different letters make; she already can recognize all the letters), we haven't really tried to use these little pictures in that way. Although, we've read this story so many times to them that they "read along" by reciting from memory certain parts of the story. All Dora the Explorer books are great fun for the kids because it involves them in the story much like the TV show does.
I highly recommend it.

My son absolutely loves this book and so does his 2-year old cousin. He enjoys looking at the pictures to "guess" the word and it makes him feel like he's really reading the book. This is his favorite book and wants to read it every day.

We like "Dora in the Deep Sea". My children like it because it has a pretty good story and because it is about Dora, Boots and Pirate Piggy. I like it because it is a good read-aloud, has lots to point out and talk about, and because it allows for a different sorts of interactivity depending on age.

In that regards, Amazon suggests this book for the 4 to 8 age range, but I think it is much more versatile than that. For example, for babies you can read the story and talk about what animals are in the picture and what color they are. [There are seagulls, a variety of silly fish, octopuses, sea anemones, eels, crab, starfish, clams, stingrays, turtles, lobsters, whale, squid, frog, snail, fox (Swiper) and sea horses. There are a great many colors to discuss as well.]

For older toddlers and preschoolers you can `enhance' the story experience by moving your finger over the text, stopping at the `icons' with the intent of letting them fill in the blanks. My children get excited by this because it gives them the sense that they are beginning to feel apart of the `reading'. And if our experience is any indication, they learn that text flows from left to right and top to bottom.

Advanced preschoolers and kindergarteners on up can then begin to use the book for its stated purpose. They can begin to read it themselves. Most words are small: I, am, this, sad, will, the, and help. Although there are harder words for sure: Hooray, swipe, friend, something, clownfish, pirate, and pinch.

Four stars. A pretty good story (see previous reviewers fine summary) about the popular characters from the "Dora the Explorer" TV show. It can be used for babies to beginning readers. It engages children in the flow and process of reading, i.e. how it is done.

You open this book and the endpapers swirl and glow like black painted silk. They're the first indication you receive that this book is something special. Something different. Something apart from the rest. Using the narrating character of one Scat Cat Monroe, an actual well-dressed feline, the story follows Ella from child to lady of the stage. As we watch, Ella moves to Harlem thinking she's gonna make it big through dancing. Once there, however, she switches her focus and unleashes her fabulous voice. She pairs up with the Chick Webb Orchestra and Al Feldman. She then bebops with Dizzy Gillespie and earns herself the name "The Queen of Scat". It's a fabulous upbeat tale that takes the spirit of Ella Fitzgerald and lets her shine. The best possible tribute to her name.

The text of the story is especially amusing. Sometimes a book will attempt to speak in a jiving slangy sort of way and simply come off as annoying. Other times, the author sounds as if he/she is trying too hard. Fortunately, Andrea Davis Pinkney has everything under control so that when the book says something like, "She won the contest straight up, kicked her dance dreams to the curb, and pinned all her hopes on being a singer", you know it's true. There's a poetry to this book's speech that never crosses the line from authentic to agonizing. Instead, it's got a rhythm all its own.

Accompanying Andrea's text are Brian Pinkney's illustrations. At first I was a little put off by the amount of magical realism evident in its pages. Then I read Brian's inspirations (William H. Johnson, Aaron Douglas, the Art Deco movement, etc.) and it all made sense. And there's no arguing that the pictures here are fan-freakin'-tastic. Brian Pinkey has used scratchboard to make these images as bright and free flowing as they are. The result looks like nothing so much as woodcuts on acid. There's breath and movement to these pictures, and Ella herself has been granted the power of appearing larger than life.

If I've any objections to this book, maybe it comes with the choice of creating Scat Cat Monroe. Do we really need an anthropomorphic cat to lure children into this story? But it's a small complaint. Andrea Pinkney is kind enough to supply a biography, bibliography, videography, and selected discography at the end of the book for future reference. Always a nice touch. The Pinkney duo have truly created one of the best picture books encompassing the jazz, scat, and bebop movements of the past. This is the book to read.

I found a children's book about her, even better. It was a great book to jive with. Beautiful pictures, and a nice history lesson on this wonderful woman!

Ella Fitzgerald: The Tale Of A Vocal Viruosa by Andrea Davis Pinkney and Scat Cat Monroe is the amazing true-life picture book story of the First Lady of Song, also known as the Queen of Scat, Ella Fitzgerald. This amazingly gifted African-American singer, and her illustrious achievements are presented with free-wheeling, full-color illustrations by Brian Pinkney and a jivin' prose. A great story to share with young people about the joy of music and reaching for one's dreams, this Weston Woods school library packaging edition is enhanced with the inclusion of a CD of the story with page-turn signals.

The Pinkney couple's biography on Ella Fitzgerald is a delightful read for young children who want to learn more about the talented jazz artist. The use of narrator Scat Cat Monroe as a device to engage children is successful especially due to his use of language. The rhymes and rhythms the authors adopt to tell the story echo the snazziness of the music at the time. Young readers will thoroughly enjoy getting to know more about the artist Fitzgerald through this story.

"You may think I look like any other cat. But baby, I'm in a class all by myself. Scat Cat's my name. Scat Cat Monroe. A name I've earned. Got my name from knowin' Ella. Ella Fitzgerald. The Queen of Scat. What's scat? you ask. Scat's the sound that don't hold back. Ella's sound-that was scat. Singing so supreme. Music's velvet-ribbon dream..." Narrated by this cool, zoot suited feline, Scat Cat Monroe introduces the incomparable, Ella Fitzgerald, to a whole new generation of fans. From her humble beginnings in Yonkers, New York, to her contest winning debut at Harlem's Apollo Theater at seventeen, to her meteoric rise, singing with the big bands and jazz artists of the 1930s and '40s, Scat Cat was there, stompin' at the Savoy with the Chick Webb Orchestra and jammin' to cloud nine and back with Dizzy Gillespie. "Now, when Ella performed, she let her lyrics go. She took her singing out to play." Andrea Davis Pinkney's engaging, lyrical text swings with imagery, magic, and rhythm. Brian Pinkney's bold, bright, and inventive illustrations dazzle, as they swirl around the pages to the music of the words. Together, word and art create an inspiring and captivating introductory biography starring the First Lady of Song. With an Author's Note at the end to complete the story, Ella Fitzgerald is an energetic, fun-filled tribute, that's perfect for music lovers 8-12, and also works well as a read-aloud for younger children.

My daughter is 9 going on 10 and is tearing through all the Stiltons, including this one. We love them.

This was a Christmas gift for my niece. I read another book in this series and enjoyed it.

I love all of the Geronimo Stilton books! I especially liked the part when Pinky Pick got to give away 1 million of her magazines with the Crunchrat Cheesy Chips! It is a great book and fun to read with all of the interesting fonts. You will like it too!

The big G Geronimo has done it again with a great adventure story, Attack of the Bandit Cats. The illustrator of Attack of the Bandit Cats is Matt Wolf. Can't imagine it? Well believe it the writer of a book with a mouse had a guy with wolf in his name illustrate. Also captured by cats was probably Geronimo, Thea, Trap, and Benjamin's the five main mice worst nightmare.

Thea, Benjamin, and Trap convince Geronimo Stilton to go with them to Silver Island,but instead they get captured by cat bandits. The bandit cats want to cook Geronimo and his friends so they can eat them for dinner. They manage to set a fire and scare the cats so bad that they forget that the ship was made of metal and they still jump off their ship. Geronimo, Thea, Benjamin, and Trap discover the treasure room were they find the first quarter to mouse kind. Then they become famous, but they don't keep all the money.

This book is great and I can't believe this book wasn't out already when I was born. It has great illustration with fancy words. Incredible gold or even platinum sentence fluency.[She sounded as if her tail was stuck in slobbertooths high speed blender!]This book is out of this world and can't be beat,five star not three or four five!

It all started when Trap invited Geronimo to solve a mystery on Pirate Island. So they used this hot air balloon. Before long, they realize that they are being shot by...CATS!

My Son read this book to me. This is an easy one for him but we are working on reading out loud. He needs to practice reading with the breaks in the right place. It is a cute story about Little bear and his father. It is an I Can Read book that I would recommend for K-2nd grade.

WE HAVE HAD THE LITTLE BEAR BOOK FATHER BEAR COMES HOME FOR AT LEAST TWENTY YEARS,AND WE STILL LOVE IT! I JUST BOUGHT ANOTHER LITTLE BEAR BOOK FOR MY NEICE, AND AM WAITING FOR IT TO COME. IF YOUR LOOKING FOR A GREAT BOOK YOU CAN'T GO WRONG WITH THESE!

WE HAVE HAD THE LITTLE BEAR BOOK FATHER BEAR COMES HOME FOR AT LEAST TWENTY YEARS,AND WE STILL LOVE IT! I JUST BOUGHT ANOTHER LITTLE BEAR BOOK FOR MY NEICE, AND AM WAITING FOR IT TO COME. IF YOUR LOOKING FOR A GREAT BOOK YOU CAN'T GO WRONG WITH THESE!

There are 4 different stories in this book. My favorite was Little Bear's Mermaid. I liked when Little Bear saw the mermaid when his mom and dad were sleeping. I also liked when Little Bear went fishing. Other kids will like this book because it has many stories in it.

The Little Bear saga are truly classic. From the artwork and storylines you think you are reading a Victorian era storybook. No your grandmother didn't read these stories to you. Soon enough we will be reading them to our grandchildren. Buy the hardback versions, your grandkids will love them.

I am an English teacher, and I bought this to aid in my classroom discussion of the novel. After receiving this version of Gatsby, I discovered that our school library had a copy read by a different narrator. I listened to both, but Alexander Scourby's reading was much more entertaining to my 11th graders. The other version put them to sleep. I highly recommend Scourby's reading of "The Great Gatsby."

I listened to this book over a few nights with my wife, after having read it first some sixteen years ago. It is a masterpiece, and known widely as such, but what surprised me on hearing it was how the book I'd remembered as terribly romantic was actually rather clear-eyed and dark. My wife, who had never read it, listened spell-bound, and at the end burst into tears at the sadness of it. A word about Scourby as reader - he is restrained but emotional, captures the personality of each character with a slightly different tone, and - most importantly for me - brings out the fact that the closing pages, which are often quoted out of context as deeply romantic, are in fact painfully cynical, a voice of disenchantment about the cost of America, not its promise. A masterpiece on the page and on tape. Can't recommend it too highly.

Scott Fitzgerald, a monumental talent who only occasionally got things working right, made Gatsby great by the extraordinary invention of Nick Carraway. Carraway as narrator provided the exact perfect pitch: more awestruck than he would admit, more moral than it was fashionable to reveal -- always objective and distanced and subtle and charming, genuinely decent and impeccably well mannered, a little dangerously smitten himself by the lovely but corrupt Jordan Baker.

Alexander Scourby, one of the greatest reading voices of his era (overlapping Fitzgerald's enough to know and feel it all) here does Carraway in a way that cannot, therefore, again be quite equalled. Imagine having a recording of a great contemporary actor reading Ahab's speeches in Moby Dick, and one begins to appreciate the gift that we only now have in recorded sound, something we are already quite casual about. But there is much more here than historical accuracy. Scourby's voice wraps around every phrase of Fitzgeral's text with both an actor's professionalism and a good reader's care, making it not only uncannily his own monument but also a monument in audio book history. It sets the bar, and anyone interested in the recorded voice as an art form should own this for repeated learning.

There is a reason why this is required reading in advanced literature classes throughout the country. This is without a doubt one of the best tales ever told. It should be used as an example to any aspiring writer of what great writing can be. The thing that makes it so great is Fitzgerald's ability to formulate characters, both large and small, and his ability to have them interact in a manner that is at once both imaginative and realistic. This makes the story, which in and of itself is not more amazing than other books, more amazing because you are compelled to believe the plausibility of a story that is incredible. Even if you are not a literature student you will find this book an enjoyable read that is intellectually stimulating, yet easy reading for those reading to relax. Many have copied this story directly and indirectly because of the lesson it teaches (that in the story about life and that about creating a story) and many will continue to do so in the future.

After living abroad in the Middle East for a year and traveling through more than twenty-five countries, I recently re-read The Great Gatsby, seeking the familiarity of America. The Great Gatsby captures what is different about Americans and the American experience. At its most basic, America represents endless striving for greatness. Whether in business, science, athletics or world affairs, Americans imagine and seek the best. Though we often stumble and fall short; though we often cut corners to achieve our dreams - striving for greatness is the essence of America. In Gatsby, we feel what it is like to want something so badly, to succeed in reaching it and to ultimately fail. How many of us have not shared these experiences in some way or another? American writings today, such as David Ebershoff's Pasadena (2002) and Scott Gaille's The Law Review (2002), continue to explore Gatsby's central theme of obsession with greatness. In this time of global uncertainty, we can get back in touch with what it means to be an American by reading such books.

Beginning with suggestions for ways you and your little reader can get the most out of the book, Friends Forever is a collection of three very short stories about two friends. In Cleaning House, Hare and Rabbit clean their house, only to discover that they now miss the things they threw away. A toy from a cereal box, in Mind-Reader Ring, causes a little friction as Hare becomes uncomfortable with the idea of Rabbit being able to read his mind. And in Boo-Boo Bunny, Hare gets jealous when Boo-Boo, an old friend of Rabbit's comes to town and invites them to see her perform in the circus.

The stories are just the right length for first and second graders. The illustrations are cute. Definitely not for kids much older, though, as the stories are a little boring for them.

Hare and Rabbit:Friends Forever is my second grade daughter's favorite new book. She reads it over and over and can't wait to read more of Hare and Rabbit's adventures. Thank you Julia Noonan for creating such wonderful characters who bring our children into an imaginary world and teach them values in a fun and endearing way.

Julia Noonan's expressive book perfectly captures the essence of being best friends--with all its ups and downs. The warm, exuberant artwork has a classic feel, and the stories are sensitive and upbeat. Children I have read this with can't wait for more adventures with Hare and Rabbit.

These characters are SO marvelous! Ms. Noonan has got friendship (and the acompanying tribulations) down pat. Her illustrations are totally charming. A must read for all kids.

Hare and Rabbit, friends forever, are totally involved with each other as best friends are. They make their way through three humorous but tender stories, accompanied by delicious watercolor illustrations filled with details kids will love. Cheers for Hare and Rabbit, and for Julia Noonan!

As a kid of ten I rode out this storm in a car at Crescent Beach not far from where the high water and debris stopped. This book brought back vivid memories of that day and the days that followed.
If you are in any way connected to this area of Cape Cod or this time (1954) you will enjoy the many pictures and first hand accounts. What comes through is the way neighbors cared for each other in this time of need.
Mrs FitzGerald was a personal survivor of this storm and has done an excellent job of collecting the interviews and photographs that went into this book.
Thanks for the memories.

I really enjoyed reading about the experiences of the residents in the path of Hurricane Carol. As a resident of Florida, I have experinced numerous Hurricanes, ranging from Category 1 to Category 3, and I could not imagine having no foreknowledge of an approaching storm. The first hand accounts of the storm and the pictures of the subsequent destruction were amazing. This book is rich in both history and community togetherness and I highly recommend reading it.

A wonderful piece of work detailing the menace that was Hurricane Carol.

I laughed, I cried, I learned something about the people & history of the South Coast, Mattapoisett & Crescent Beach.

I am in love with this book. The photographs, the stories and the memories are just amazing. After living through Hurricanes Andrew, Charlie, Frances, Jeanne and Wilma, I greatly appreceiate and can relate to the personal accounts of the effect Hurricane Carol had on these people's lives. It is obvious that Ginnie loves this town, and this book is truly a wonderful piece of history that should be shared and not forgotton.

I found this book a fascinating collection of real stories! The "then" photos are fabulous and really give a sense of the damage! They were also incredibly well preserved for being 50 years old! ! I also liked the "now" photos! It made me feel there was a happy ending, because most homes were rebuilt! This certainly is a good piece of history that may have been forgotten had this book not been made. Great book!

As a kid of ten I rode out this storm in a car at Crescent Beach not far from where the high water and debris stopped. This book brought back vivid memories of that day and the days that followed.
If you are in any way connected to this area of Cape Cod or this time (1954) you will enjoy the many pictures and first hand accounts. What comes through is the way neighbors cared for each other in this time of need.
Mrs FitzGerald was a personal survivor of this storm and has done an excellent job of collecting the interviews and photographs that went into this book.
Thanks for the memories.

I really enjoyed reading about the experiences of the residents in the path of Hurricane Carol. As a resident of Florida, I have experinced numerous Hurricanes, ranging from Category 1 to Category 3, and I could not imagine having no foreknowledge of an approaching storm. The first hand accounts of the storm and the pictures of the subsequent destruction were amazing. This book is rich in both history and community togetherness and I highly recommend reading it.

A wonderful piece of work detailing the menace that was Hurricane Carol.

I laughed, I cried, I learned something about the people & history of the South Coast, Mattapoisett & Crescent Beach.

I am in love with this book. The photographs, the stories and the memories are just amazing. After living through Hurricanes Andrew, Charlie, Frances, Jeanne and Wilma, I greatly appreceiate and can relate to the personal accounts of the effect Hurricane Carol had on these people's lives. It is obvious that Ginnie loves this town, and this book is truly a wonderful piece of history that should be shared and not forgotton.

I found this book a fascinating collection of real stories! The "then" photos are fabulous and really give a sense of the damage! They were also incredibly well preserved for being 50 years old! ! I also liked the "now" photos! It made me feel there was a happy ending, because most homes were rebuilt! This certainly is a good piece of history that may have been forgotten had this book not been made. Great book!

I first happened to see the book at a local grocery store. It was so small and thin that I didn't even give it a second look. Even though I am a great Kennedy fan. However, at Christmas, my youngest son, gave the book to me as a gift. I smiled and thanked him and thought that I would look at it just to please him. But then I found the cd that came along with the book and it was incredible. In 1940 JFK tells a radio audience that if America didn't start re-arming we would be caught off guard the same as london was. What an incredible foresight he had. The other selections on the cd are well worth listening too. Including JFK reciting an autobiographical segment, handling a stubborn southern governor regarding James Merridith, and an adorable exchange between President Kennedy and his 2 year old son.

This book is truly a wonderful tribute to JFK.

Greetings from Canada from a Canadian who wants to honor the memory of President John F. Kennedy.

Kennedy was my hero when I was a 12-year-old boy, and 40 years later, President Kennedy is a true hero in the heart of a 52-year-old man.

It seems hard to believe that 40 years have gone by since that very tragic day of Friday, Nov. 22, 1963. The day John F. Kennedy died, I shed tears and felt the world had lost a truly wonderful and remarkable leader.

In the 40 years since the death of President Kennedy, I have built up a collection of books, photographs and political buttons from Kennedy's campaign for president in 1960. On my office wall hangs a large campaign poster with a larger-than-life photograph with a caption that reads: "A Time for Greatness" - John F. Kennedy for President. On my desk is a bust of President Kennedy. It is my way of honoring his memory and legacy.

President Kennedy offered America and the world hope and a vision of greatness. He had courage and, like (those portrayed in) his book "Profiles in Courage," he was indeed a man of courage.

Over the years, I had the honor to shake the hand of Robert F. Kennedy and U.S. Sen. Ted Kennedy, and in 1989, I spent a whole day at the John F. Kennedy Museum in Boston, where I had the honor of spending time with one of John F. Kennedy's closest friends - David Powers. Mr. Powers shared with me some wonderful memories of JFK.

These encounters with history have reinforced my heartfelt belief that John F. Kennedy was truly a wonderful and remarkable world leader.

Back in December of 1974, on a cold morning, I made the trip to Arlington National Cemetery to visit the grave of President Kennedy. Though it was early and cold, I was moved by the line-up of people filing past President Kennedy's grave. Thousands of people like myself were moved by the life and times of a leader gunned down in the streets of Dallas.

Forty years have not changed my affection and admiration for President John F. Kennedy; he has a special place in my heart.

Michael McCafferty lives in Regina, Saskatchewan

A wonderful pictorial of a brave man.
No one is asking you to feel sorry for the Kennedys. But they do deserve respect. Yes, they could have lived long lives and grown full heads of grey hair if they had gone "with the flow" but instead they were killed for standing up for what they believed in.
Brave people truly live Life while alive, more so in one year than cowards do in a lifetime.

"Speak not evil of the absent: it is unjust."
~George Washington

jfk remembreing jack is good tribut to jfk.
there are some rare pictures and anecdotes.
there is a cd too. we can heard jfk at 23 and john-john speaking to his father.
but there is not a biography, so if you want to know more about him buy another book.
soif you are a kennedy fan or not buy it1

With the purchase of this book, you get not only great pictures of the Kennedy's, but also a wonderful 60 minute CD with some of Kennedy's greatest press conferences, speeches and some phone conversations. This alone is a seller for this book. Bringing back JFK, if only for a few moments is awsome. He did things his way, you hear his conviction and beliefs in his voice, and his choice to follow those beliefs, is awe inspiring.

I reccomend along with this book and CD the purchase of the book, "John Fitzgerald Kennedy: A Life In Pictures". They are superb together and what I feel to be 2 of the best 40th Anniversary Commemorative books on JFK.