Customer Reviews

Teddy Roosevelt: Young Rough Rider, Library Edition (Ready Reader)

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Teddy Roosevelt, Rough Rider is interesting because it is a biography and history of Teddy Roosevelt as a child. He liked natural history and even stuffed the animals he caught himself - yuck! When he grew up and was president, he was involved in saving park and forest land and wildlife. Yellowstone Park was one of the parks he helped with. He had asthma but he wanted to build up his body to be strong, so he did a lot of sports like boxing and horseback riding. He liked to read and write books. A funny part of the story involved frogs, but you'll have to read it yourself to find out!

We used this book last summer for my 8 and 10 year olds. The first 13 chapters were very good, interesting and show that Teddy Roosevelt was an upstanding, fair, motivated and hardworking young man. The book tells of Teddy was interested in natural history from a young age, his determination to ride a bucking pony, his resolve to not let bigger boys push him around, and his supportive family, especially his father. Each chapter covers a certain event and time of his youth, therefore, can be read independently.

Interesting but somewhat disturbing that young Teddy would use the word "bully" when he was excited and happy. Looked up in the internet, supposedly means, informal speech, "fine, excellent, very good" and Teddy Roosevelt did like to use that word when he was pleased. Keep in mind that slangs and informal speech are confusing to kids when adults are not around to do some explaining.

It is the last chapter that we didn't enjoy. While the first 13 chapters tells Teddy's life as stories, the last chapter was written as the story of a boy scout group putting on a skit of Teddy's life. My boys were frustrated with this chapter because the bantering of the boy scouts were mixed with the skit lines. It would have been better if the last chapter was made into a summary of what Teddy Roosevelt had done after his bull moose hunt - that he went to Harvard, was Governor of New York, established national parks, building Panama Canal, was vice president, took over as president, etc - and what his motto was.

I would recommend the first 13 chapters of this book and let your young people do their own research after that. Hence 3 stars.

Teddy Roosevelt, Rough Rider is interesting because it is a biography and history of Teddy Roosevelt as a child. He liked natural history and even stuffed the animals he caught himself - yuck! When he grew up and was president, he was involved in saving park and forest land and wildlife. Yellowstone Park was one of the parks he helped with. He had asthma but he wanted to build up his body to be strong, so he did a lot of sports like boxing and horseback riding. He liked to read and write books. A funny part of the story involved frogs, but you'll have to read it yourself to find out!

I read this to my kids (7 and 10 years) because they need more practice with nonfiction comprehension and we learned about President Roosevelt this year. This book is great because it tells about a historical figure as a youngster, with adventures, problems, and lots of dialogue. Each chapter has a short adventure or episode in Teddy Roosevelt's childhood, up til teenage years; and through his words and actions we could see various positive character traits in a way that the kids could relate to. For example, when we discover that he was fair, it is shown in a boxing match when he does not hold it against his opponent who throws a last punch because he did not hear the end-of-round bell. And Teddy calls out to the judges and spectators not to penalize the other boxer for it. We also find out about his ability to plan and strategize when he leads his team of neighborhood boys in a game of invasion. At the end of each chapter I would ask my kids, "what did this chapter show about Teddy Roosevelt?" And to whatever answer they gave, my next question was "And how do you know that? How was that demonstrated?" Their school curriculum constantly asked those kind of questions so I just applied it to the book.

The last chapter was the best. A Boy Scout group or something like it, was putting on a play several years after President Roosevelt's death, about his life. To do so, each member of the troupe chose an episode in Teddy's life to portray, with props, sound effects, and costumes. Some of these were episodes described in the book, some were beyond that timeline. So that last chapter was a story of a story of a story, showing what values and details a young person might recall about this great man. It was also a creative, really neat way to wrap up the book.

Great book about character. Looking for another one in the series.

This is a review of the audiobook only. School is ended and until summer camp starts, my 8 year old daughter has to go to work with me. I stocked up on audiobooks to keep her busy. We both were really excited about the one on Teddy Roosevelt, and started with it first. I set her up listening in the lunchroom and I went back to work. After 5 minutes she showed up in my office saying that there was something wrong with the tape, like it was in slow motion. We played it on another cassette player. We played the other tapes. They're all the same. Lloyd James reads this book one syllable at a time and sounds like a 5 year old that is trying to sound out every word. It goes so unnaturally slow that I thought the cassette spool must be warped. One star is too high.