YOUNG GEORGE WASHINGTON

A rarity: a biography of Washington that ends 15 years before the Revolution. The story opens when the subject is in his teens, yearning to go into the Navy and forced to stay on the farm by his mother. Using snippets from journals, Rosenburg (William Parker, p. 73, etc.) progresses through Washington's difficulties with his mother and his early surveying days, then focuses on his efforts on behalf of the Crown to drive the French out of the Ohio Valley. The author employs a novelistic style and dialogue (from sources mentioned in the acknowledgments—there is, unfortunately, no bibliography) to create a fast-paced, exciting biography. Although Rosenburg limns the qualities Washington gained that served him so well later on in life, this is not hagiography, but a chronicle of mistakes made and lessons learned. Atypical of a book of this length, there are no chapters to impede readers through this invigorating, human look at a man who usually resides among statues, monuments, and other US icons. (b&w photos, not seen, chronology) (Biography. 10+)