The Hero Project: How We Met Our Greatest Heroes and What We Learned From Them
Eight years ago, when they were ages 11 and 14, brothers Robert and William Hatch embarked on this ambitious project: to interview their heroes and write a book about "how they have made America a better place." The 13 men and women interviewed here are not the usual boyhood heroes: along with athlete Lance Armstrong and movie star Jackie Chan, there is novelist Madelene l'Engle, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Blackfeet Indian activist Louise Pepion Cobell. The boys are inquisitive and sometimes probing, even urgent with a child's concerns; Will presses l'Engle, for instance, to explain how, after an unhappy childhood, she could forgive and become close to her parents. The conversations range widely: Pete Seeger talks about the civil rights movement and having rocks thrown at him during a concert with Paul Robeson; Florence Griffith-Joyner speaks about her belief in God; cellist Yo-Yo Ma discusses raising his own children differently than his traditional Chinese parents raised him. The subjects speak clearly and simply, very aware that they are addressing a young person, and young adults seeking inspiration and new ways to think about difficult questions will probably be the best audience for this precocious book.Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.