The book, George Washington and the Making of a Nation, is an excellent book for upper-elementary and middle-grade students. There is a great deal of information about the personal life and professional accomplishements of this great man. Washington's actions, especially in regard to the revolutionary war, are well covered and quite thorough.

The book is lavishly illustrated with color and grayscale pictures that are strategically placed throughout the text in a way that is particularly helpful to the reader. Most students will find this book to be a fairly easy read that captivates them while they learn about the character of our first president.

For those readers unfamiliar with Karal Ann Marling, this book is as good an introduction as any. A professor of Art History and American Studies at the University of Minnesota, Marling, in "George Washington Slept Here" gives us a well-researched and amusing account of how Americans have used the image of the "Father of our Country" for a variety of social, economic, and political purposes.

Washington has always been one of the most enigmatic of Revolutionary heroes and Presidents, which has rendered his image amenable to packaging and repackaging according to the needs of the times. His reputation for honesty, probity, and dignity (among other virtues) has appealed to Americans across the generations. We, as a culture, have placed him in an imaginary colonial past--simpler, less complicated--a past that we can look to, and find comfort in, as a palliative for our own hurried and complicated lives.

Marling takes us through the development of Washington the "icon", beginning in the middle decades of the nineteenth century. She shows us how our fascintation with the hero of Valley Forge helped to spur a general, wide-spread interest in things colonial--the Colonial Revival movement--that continues to this day (her book ends in the 1980s); witness the vast quantities of colonial revival furnishings, house designs, and other "artifacts" produced over the decades.

Apart from Washington's "influence" on the colonial revival, his image has been used to sell everything from soup to nuts to politicians, a phenomenon that Marling examines in amusing detail. Her analysis of Warren G. Harding's use of Washington iconography is wonderful, as is her examination of the symbolic use of Washington and the "colonial" by the artist Grant Wood.

In sum, for anyone interested in American popular culture and the way that we make use of the past, "George Washington Slept Here" should find space on your bookshelf.

Marvin Kitman has done a masterful job of giving us a different outlook on the Revolutionary War. When George Washington was made General of the Armies, congress offered him a salary but Washington nobly declined and instead requested that they only pay his expenses. The actual journal of his expenses are included in this book and then many journal entries are humorously interrupted by Kitman. Needless to say at war's end, the country would have been better off paying Washington a salary. Congress didn't make the same mistake when Washington became president and made the same offer. This book is easy and light reading and shows how ,in Kitman's words, George Washington became the father of the American expense account.

A brisk, but not too brief account of Washington and the times surrounding him. Alden touches on most every event and aspect concerning the subject: from Shay's Rebellion to Martha's disposition, from the Hamilton-Jefferson Feud to his agricultural experiments. It is objective without trying to debunk a great man. Only the cursory discussion on slavery does the junvenile yankee condescention surface (Whose ships were involved in the slave trade even after the Virginians pushed through its ban via the Constitution? Yankees ie the Great Hypocrites of All Time.) It is, however, a thorough and interesting biography and highly recommended.

Schwartz presents a verbose but imaginative look at the life and times of George Washington.

The book seemed to be a meditation on a single theme - George Washington was a human being with human frailties, misfortunes, and maladies. However, it is these weaknesses, according to the vibrant virtous verbiage(this is style in which Scwartz seems to sporadically specialize)of the author, that resulted in the "cult" of Washington.

Schwartz alludes to Washington's Revolutionary War loss at Philadelphia, his military indecisiveness and his self-induced lameducketry during his second term as proof of his humanity. I was pleasently suprised to read about these qualities or in Washington's case, the lack thereof.

Unfortunaely, Professor Schwartz assumes that the reader has rabies, because he injects us with 17 examples on the same theme. What of his problems with L'Enfant, his relationship with Martha, his relationship with his father, his children(did he have any?), his relationship with politicians other than John Adams, Thomas Jefferson and Ben Franklin?

In sum, Schartz provides the reader with a brilliant synopses of as to how Washington's military failures made him more human and thus, a better man. The scinece-fictionesque conclusion is atypical of a biography, but this is an atypical biography, so it fits quite will.

However, Schwartz is a sociologist, not a historian, and he attempts to overcompensate for this fact. Instead of producing a sociological study of a man whose life is often portrayed as if he were a Super Bowl halftime show, Schartz has fallen into the quagmire of over-analyzing his military misadventures, a boring road that this reader has travelled down many times before as an amateur historian.

Still, this is an entertaining read, one I will recommend to others with just caution.

Not just for children, adults, too, will find the secret world of the White House fun, disguised education. Learn how a president personally communicates from the phone operators, calligraphers, special stationary, to how he signs so many letters. There's sections on how the President entertains that is a must for those who like to host elegant parties, includes menu cards. There's lots of fun first-family trivia that history buffs enjoy. For the sports enthusiast, learn how a president keeps fit and trim. Naturally there's a chapter on guarding the First Family. A great reference book to be enjoyed again and again.

For kids who think George Washington chopped down his father's cherry tree and threw a silver dollar across a river, Robert Quackenbush's juvenile biography of the first President will set them straight. "I Did It With My Hatchet: A Story of George Washington" is a lighthearted but informative biography that covers all the aspects of Washington's life and public career. Young students will learn much more about Washington's military career than they will about his two terms as the nation's first President (besides, I am not sure that Washington actually proposed the two party system to reflect the different needs of the American people). The accompanying artwork consists of full page black & white drawings with blue & gray shadings and then underneath the text on the opposite page we always find three soldiers huddling around a camp fire at Valley Forge cracking bad jokes about George Washington. However, Quackenbush does a couple of nice twists with the trio later in the book. The result is a very competent biography of Washington that does not resort to deifying the man to convey his importance in American History.

Kiki Mosher's "Learning About Leadership from the Life of George Washington" is aimed at younger elementary school students. Each two-page spread offers a full-page picture (mostly painting of George Washington from around the time he lived) representing the chapter in his life. Most of the "chapters" (they are one page each) focuses on his military career as examples of Washington's leadership abilities. The problem, of course, is that for most of his military career Washington was a "failure," simply because he was on the losing side until pretty much the end of the Revolutionary War. Obviously this is a concept that will prove troubling to younger students and Mosher keeps the focus on Washington's great success in simply keeping the Continental Army together long enough to eventually win the American Revolution. The book does make it clear that there was no other choice to be the nation's first President and that Washington was universally admired. It also makes it clear how the President functions in our democracy. A glossary highlights 14 words students, such as "democracy" and "surveyor," are introduced to in the book (they appear boldfaced in the text along with the pronunciation in parentheses). This volume is "A Character Building Book," one of a series of volumes The other five books look at Abraham Lincoln and Honesty, Frederick Douglass and Dedication, Florence Nightingale and Compassion, Bravery and Harriet Tubman, and Fairness and Susan B. Anthony. The idea of focusing on specific character traits in terms of a diversified roster of famous Americans is certainly worth pursuing.

There is a reason this book is on the Joint Chiefs of Staff recomended reading list. Eccles provides clear insite into the strategic aspects of logistics in a global era.

If you can handle Marvin Kitman's repeated attempts to knock Washington off his pedestal you'll enjoy this book. I was one of those public grade school kids who labored under his stern contenance. He must have been god. Or at least god's right hand man. We outgrew this. We know he was just a man. A highly flawed man according to Kitman. Flawed, yes, but also good & lucky. George Washington was America first celebrity. We weren't going to be denied. He lost most of the battles but he did win the Revolutionary War. Actually the British tired of it and lost it. This ultimate politician was not political. In essence he was the only game in town. He had Morris & Hamilton as his spin-meisters, shady land deals & girls-friends. (Beginning to sound familiar?) He looked like a hero, acted like a hero, mostly told the truth although he didn't talk much. He was very brave & loyal especially to the electoral college delegates. Kitman asserts that the U.S. Constitution was written especially with Washington in mind. That may be true. They both have survived, no thanks to Kitman