Patriotic Biographies

American Children’s Literature changed in 1809 with the publication of George Mason Weems’ The Life of Washington the Great, with its well known (but invented) story of the young and future president chopping down his father’s cherry tree. Before that, America’s young were given biographies about children who were virtuous in a religious way. But after Weems’ immensely popular book, the Lives of the Saints gave way to the Lives of the Patriots. A number of children’s books in this season’s crop of biographies continue that stirring tradition.

Caesar Rodney’s Ride
Ages: 9 & Up
Author: Jan Cheripko     Illustrator: Gary Lippincott
Boyd’s Mills Press, $16.95 (Hardcover)

To tell the larger story of the Second Continental Congress and the signing of the Declaration of Independence, Jan Cheripko takes up the minor story of Caesar Rodney–a largely unknown delegate from Delaware who rode some eighty miles by horseback to attend the meeting at the last minute and vote. By means of this technique, readers are introduced to information about the issues then being debated and we see in the background those patriots (John Adams, Ben Franklin, and others) usually found in the foreground. Balancing foregrounds and backgrounds, Gary Lippincott provides competent illustrations for the book.

The story is made compelling by sacrifice and suspense. Rodney’s ride was long and hard, and Cheripko makes much of the fact that Rodney had suffered from cancer of the face and asthma; but for a story of patriotic sacrifice, one can only wish that he might also have had to plow through horrible snowstorms rather than just suffer from saddle sores and a July thunderstorm. Suspense is generated by cinema-like crosscutting between Rodney’s ride and events unfolding against the clock in Philadelphia where the vote would be taken for a declaration of independence or not; of course, it would have been wonderful if the vote was close and Rodney had arrived just in time with a tie-breaker but, as the author concedes, that wasn’t quite the case.

History has a way of not being as interesting as fiction, but this book goes to great lengths to overcome that by trying to put Caesar Rodney’s Ride right up there with Paul Revere’s.

When Washington Crossed the Delaware
All Ages
Author: Lynne Cheney    Paintings By: Peter M. Fiore
Simon and Schuster, $16.95 (Hardcover)

At a time of year when others recite “‘Twas the Night Before Christmas” or sing “Oh, Holy Night,” Lynne Cheney seems something of an exception. Apparently when the Cheney clan (including her husband, the vice-president) gathers with hot chocolate around the yule fire, Lynne Cheney recounts how George Washington crossed the Delaware River in darkness and surprised a garrison of Hessian soldiers. “This is the story that I tell my grandchildren at Christmas,” she writes.