2018 School Spending Survey Report
Becoming Ben Franklin: How a Candle-Maker's Son Helped Light the Flame of Liberty
96p. bibliog. chron. illus. index. notes. reprods. Holiday House. 2013. RTE $24.95. ISBN 978-0-8234-2374-3. LC 2012002971.
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Gr 4–8—There are numerous excellent children's books about Benjamin Franklin, including Robert Byrd's Electric Ben (Dial, 2012), Rosalyn Schanzer's How Ben Franklin Stole the Lightning (HarperCollins, 2002), and Candace Fleming's Ben Franklin's Almanac (S & S, 2003). Freedman, however, is a master at taking primary sources and turning them into engaging narratives that draw readers into the subject. While the three earlier books are highly visual presentations, this treatment is more about the text. Numerous paintings and engravings are included, but they are not the main event. Tracing Franklin's life chronologically, the author chose episodes that reflect how the young man, disgruntled with being his brother's apprentice, made a life for himself, and how he became the figure who is revered today. By describing the obstacles Franklin overcame in establishing his print shop in Philadelphia, Freedman delineates a clear path between his subject's early ambition and his ease with people to his success in business and then to his later roles as a diplomat, revolutionary, and public servant. Biographers make decisions about what to leave out as much as what to put in, but Freedman is consistent in connecting his discussion to primary sources. The result is an account that examines the whole of Franklin's remarkable life but does not overwhelm readers.—Lucinda Snyder Whitehurst, St. Christopher's School, Richmond, VABritish resident Thomas Penn described Ben Franklin as "a dangerous man" and stated, "I should be very glad [if] he inhabited any other country." Americans, however, proudly claim Franklin as their native son. Although his inventions, scientific inquiry, writing skills, and productiveness all receive notice in this book, the growth of his belief in an independent and united Colonial government, and his diplomatic efforts leading to that ideal, are emphasized most. Freedman thoroughly discusses Franklin's ambassadorial accomplishments and failures as well as his accompanying hardships, which ranged from enduring a public dressing-down by Britain's Privy Council in 1775 to coping with the frigid Canadian winter of 1776. With impeccable sourcing and deep research, Freedman enhances his narrative by quoting liberally from Franklin's autobiography and respected scholars such as Carl Van Doren and Walter Isaacson, and Freedman's modern and accessible language provides context for and serves as a bridge to adult (often arcane) exposition. Archival photographs appear on every page, to varying effect; the page design, which employs a faded colonial gray-green, is rather drab. Appended with a timeline of Franklin's many accomplishments; documentation; a note about sources; picture credits; and an index. betty carter
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