Will Rogers: An American Legend - Hardcover

Keating, Frank

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0152024050 ISBN 13: 9780152024055

Publisher: Harcourt Childrens Books, 2002

Synopsis

"A man only learns by two things," Will Rogers said. "One is reading, and the other is association with smarter people." Will Rogers loved people, and adventure, from the time he was a young boy. As a man, he traveled to the four corners of the globe--and never met a man he didn't like. Filled with Will Rogers's own timeless quotes, this picture book tells the story of a great maverick who lived the American dream.
Governor Frank Keating of Oklahoma and award-winning illustrator Mike Wimmer bring to life a role model--and one of Oklahoma's favorite sons--who was quick on his trusty steed but even quicker with his wits.

About this title

About the Author

FRANK KEATING has held many government positions, including assistant secretary of the Department of the Treasury and associate attorney general of the United States. He is currently the governor of Oklahoma, an office he has held since 1995. Governor Keating lives in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

MIKE WIMMER has illustrated many heralded books for children, including Home Run, which was called a "grand slam" in a starred review from Publishers Weekly, and Flight: The Journey of Charles Lindbergh, which won the Orbis Pictus Award for Outstanding Nonfiction for Children. He lives in Oklahoma.

From School Library Journal

Grade 2-4-A beautifully illustrated, nicely designed, but flawed book. Wimmer's oil paintings are striking in terms of their realism and their authenticity with regard to time period. In fact, it is only from the pictures that children unfamiliar with (this) Mr. Rogers will know when events take place, as Keating mentions neither dates nor specific occurrences. There are charming touches of whimsicality in the art, such as Will lassoing a puppy's tail. However, there is also a certain lack of sensitivity. In one picture, Will is playing "Cowboys and Indians" with his children, and the youngsters are depicted as stereotypical savages, whooping and attacking with tomahawk and bow and arrow and wearing headbands of feathers. In another instance, the text refers to Will speaking "common sense to common people," accompanied by the only illustration featuring African Americans. Keating's text is confusing and disjointed. Will goes from "ten years or so in school," to flying everywhere he could, and then returning to a previously unmentioned Betty and their four children. The text is littered with oblique statements such as "Will Rogers loved the land.- the land taught him that all men were good-," and is fraught with sentence fragments and questionable grammar and syntax. Although the author quotes liberally from Rogers's own words, the kind of influence the man exerted in his day never emerges, and his most famous appellation of "Good Will Ambassador" is never mentioned. This book does not do justice to this American icon.
Grace Oliff, Ann Blanche Smith School, Hillsdale, NJ
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Harcourt Childrens Books
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0152024050
• ISBN 13: 9780152024055
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 32
• Illustrator: Wimmer Mike