Summary: Jean Fritz, best known for her award-winning
biographies of historic American figures, now writes the intriguing story of an
influential and fascinating Founding Father and his untimely death in a duel
with Aaron Burr with all the excitement of an adventure story. (Summary from book - Image from Amazon.com)
My Review: First
off, I should probably disclaim that my first real exposure to Alexander
Hamilton came not in my AP US History class (for shame!), but when I was
introduced to Hamilton: An American
Musical, a brilliant, if somewhat altered, rendering of Alexander Hamilton’s
life, set to contemporary music. I adore
it, but still have to turn down the volume sometimes a lot*. My kids love it too, though their album is remarkably
shorter than mine.
My love for the musical has prompted me to check out the now
wildly popular Alexander Hamilton by
Ron Chernow from my local library an embarrassing amount of times. It goes a little something like this: I take
it home and set it hopefully on my end table, glance at it longingly as the
weeks go by, until back to the library it goes, still unread. It’s just.
Long. One of these days it’s
going to happen. Or so I keep telling
myself.
Thankfully, not long ago my daughter brought home a book
that she purchased at the Scholastic book fair -- Alexander Hamilton: The Outsider.** It’s a well-written, easy to understand, summary
of Hamilton’s life, that reads more like a story than a stodgy biography. Fritz divides the book into four sections (Beginnings,
Soldier, Statesman, and Endings), that help guide the reader’s understanding of
Hamilton’s humble beginnings as an orphan of illegitimate birth and meager circumstances,
the good fortune of his education and his rise through the ranks as a soldier, his
pivotal role in the founding of the United States, his often-troubled personal
life, and how it all came to an early end.
The format is very reader friendly, with a few illustrations scattered
here and there to help enhance the story and make the book more palatable to
the younger reader. I didn’t really need
them to keep my attention, but they were interesting nonetheless. At 132-pages, it didn’t take me long to
finish and I closed the book with a better grasp of the story not told by the
musical and an even greater appreciation for the man himself.
As might be expected, there were some marked differences
(and some slightly less noticeable) between the story told on
Broadway and real-life history. I
enjoyed uncovering the differences in both incidents and chronology, but found
that they weren’t so marked as to take away from my enjoyment of either
telling. Occasionally the author took a
little creative license with the story, drawing conclusions with terms like “perhaps”,
“he must have”, or indulging rumor with “so the story goes”. I didn’t really mind the author’s conclusions
as they definitely lent to the story, but did feel that it
mixed a smidgen of potential fiction in with the established historical
facts.
Overall, I would recommend this book to anyone looking to
learn a little more about one of America’s lesser-known Founding Father, without taking a
giant chunk out of their day. It was a
great jaunt into history.
My Review: 4
Stars
For the sensitive
reader: All clear. Even the seedier aspects of Hamilton’s
life are written with a G-rated hand.
*For those of you who might decide to listen to Hamilton: An American Musical based
solely off my recommendation, it should be noted that I purchased the ‘clean’
version (available on iTunes) which has a few less swear words than the original
version. Even 'clean,' it still
contains profanity of the A, Ba, D, H, JC, and OMG variety and two or three crude
suggestions. I usually just turn down
the volume when these come around, but there is at least one song that I leave
off my playlist entirely (Say No to This).
You can infer what happens without listening to it. Basically, Hamilton makes some poor life
choices.
**Yes, I’ve finally gotten to the part where I review the
book I’m supposed to review. Gosh, you
guys are so impatient.
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