YOUNG IKE

Alden Hatch has written other biographies for the young adult group, one on General Patton and an outstanding one- Woodrow Wilson (1947 p. 509), but this about our new president's youth seems patchy, pasty, and childish. The chronology is clear-birth in Texas, growth in Abilene, days at the Point, army career topped by supreme command and presidency- and there emerges a picture of a solid youth growing up in a large, healthy, hardworking family, and becoming instilled with Right Ideas, strength and wisdom. There are some amusing and some realistic anecdotes and they make the narrative essentially readable. There is by far more material on his youth, with his army and political life telescoped into a last two chapters, but even where the book dwells, it does so in a patterned, shallow way that makes it read like an authorized version. Disappointing.