Concluding her first chapter with the death of Roosevelt's father while Roosevelt was still at Harvard, Fritz includes a telling quote ("I felt stunned...he was everything to me"), then telegraphs her theme in her uniquely lucid, succinct style: "In his distress, Teddy may have felt that....his boyhood was gone. If so, he would have been wrong. [He] would always be a boy. And...his father would always be looking over his shoulder." With judicious balance, Fritz surveys the salient facts-- Roosevelt's political rise, his groundbreaking work as reformer and environmentalist, his sturdy militarism-- illuminating them with revealing incidents especially interesting to young readers, from his early interest in natural history (at seven, he was diligently recording animals' measurements; he learned taxidermy just a few years later) to his indulgence toward his children's White House escapades. Each entrancing detail contributes to the larger picture of Roosevelt: active, imaginative, indefatigable, a man who left law school when he found that law "had less to do with justice than he thought it should" and diverted himself from grief with hard work. This colorful, idiosyncratic President, long a biographers' favorite, has never been portrayed with more beguiling wit, precision, and honesty. An excellent book, one of Fritz's best. Notes; bibliography; index. (Biography. 10+)
