WHY NOT, LAFAYETTE?

From Fritz (You Want Women To Vote, Lizzie Stanton?, 1995, etc.), another winning portrait of a colorful historical figure with whom most readers will have but a nodding acquaintance. Rich, bored, 19, and thirsty for glory, Lafayette impulsively bought a ship in 1777 and sailed away to join the American colonists in their fight against Britain. An ardent admirer of George Washington and of republican ideas—“It was as if he had not only been plunged into the very stuff of liberty, but had been swished around in it until he was soaked through”—Lafayette became a war hero, returned to France for a long career as a political firebrand, then, in his late 60s, came back to this country for a 5,000-mile-long triumphal tour. Fritz adds telling—and usually entertaining—details so effectively that readers will be stirred even at this distance by Lafayette’s accomplishments, personal gifts as a leader and mediator, and lifelong idealism. (Biography. 10-13)