Winston Churchill: Soldier and Politician (Great Life Stories: Political Figures)
Grade 5-8–Binns does an excellent job of looking at the statesman's major successes, struggles, downfalls, and rises to political prominence. What comes through strongest in this volume is Churchill's determination to fight for what he believed was right, often meddling in the business of others to do so, often making him unpopular. Yet were it not for his doggedness, vision, and realization of the evils behind Hitler's expansion into Europe, then, as in Churchill's own words, "the whole world, including the United States, and all that we have known and cared for, [might have sunk] into the abyss of a new dark age…." His early life, his beginnings in the military, and his work as a journalist and a writer of numerous books and articles are all explored. Bouts of depression are mentioned in conjunction with a lifetime of constant productivity, which included painting and bricklaying, passions that he pursued with the same determination and dedication that he showed toward politics. Archival photographs and reproductions and boxes of information are attractive and unobtrusive to the main narrative. Binns portrays her subject as a complex, extraordinary hero and thinker.–Tracy Karbel, Glenside Public Library District, Glendale Heights, IL