I remember so vividly reading this book when I was in the 5th grade. While hiking with my 9 year old I was talking about this book and he can't wait to read it... if only we could find it. Help!

Having read this book over 20 years ago, it has stuck in my memory as one of the Greats, where dozens of other titles are all but forgotten, and it is out of print?! A Pulitzer Prize winner, no less! This book needs to be available to hand down to my children and yours, and their children after them!

I read this book back in the 1970's - it belonged to my Father. I found that it was absolutely rivetting, even though I could only have been about 13 at the time. I reread Jaimie McPheeters at least twice again but unfortunately, when my Father died, the book was sold along with a lot of his other personal effects. I have often wondered where I could get a copy and when I have visited the States, have endeavoured to find one - to no avail! It really is a brilliant read - I still remember some of the passages quite vividly. That 'The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters' is no longer in print is a crying shame. Would some kindly publisher please read these many and unified reviews and resurrect this great novel.

After seeing the Disney movie, I wanted to read the book.

The book was better than the well-scrubbed Diseny version, be warned, though, that it doesn't pull its punches as far as Klan violence is concerned.

I, too, greatly enjoyed "Journey to Matecumbe" but don't rate it the equal of (let alone better than) "Travels of Jamie McPheeters," one of my all-time favorites. Matecumbe was made into a movie, called "Treasure of Matecumbe" (by Disney, I think). It featured the wonderful Joan Hackett, Peter Ustinoff, and (as I recall) Robert Foxworth.

I'd seen the movie before I read "Travels." After reading "Travels" I was looking for more R.L. Taylor books and found "Matecumbe" and realized it was the one made into the fun movie. I'd love to see "Travels" made into a movie!

For those who loved "Travels," I also recommend the Further Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Greg Matthews.

Probably the best "fun" adventure story I have ever read. Just when you think the story is coming to a conclusion on an issue, it reopens. All along the well thought up characters keep you laughing and amused at what happens next. This book is written along the lines of a Tom Sawyer or Huckelberry Finn, but takes the adventure and fun to the next level. I would recommend it to anyone who loves to read and has the time because you won't want to put it down.

with so many tiny tidbits of interesting information stuck in here and there it was a learning experience just reading the special highlights throughout the book. There were useful lists of important dates and happenings throughout each chapter and even suggested websites relating to each chapter's material for further information. The way the book was written made for easy understanding of the material and better memory of what was read. Although the book follows a text book formula it was fun to read which is rare. A real find!

I looked for a long time to find a decent world history; one that was neither 10,000 pages nor painfully dry. This is the best I found. It is a very readable book of reasonable length. The authors make good use of sidebars with thought-provoking bits of literature which are scattered throughout the overall history. They also make a good attempt at discussing underlying causes and patterns behind the historical events. I perfer that to a dry recounting of the facts, even if I may not always agree with them on the interpretation. It was surprisingly neutral on religious topics, given the origin of the book.

My copy of this book is entitled "An Informal Study of Greatness." What the subtitle promises, the book delivers. Rather than an exhaustive look at each and every event of importance, Taylor gives us a glimpse of Churchill, the man, in a series of anecdotes and vignettes. For example, WWII occupies approximately the same space as the material on his hobby painting. However, as the book was written in 1952 (when Churchill was still alive), and because Churchill himself was so guarded about giving interviews, this was the necessary method of writing. It is very successful, though. Taylor supplies wit and flow to the narrative, so it is very easy and entertaining to read.

Churchill's views would today seem prehistoric - he was against universal suffrage, for example. Likewise, the narrative suffers somewhat for having been written in a time of universal chauvenism. This does not detract from the book - it's always necessary to judge people relative to the times in which they lived, and Churchill's life took place in a time of immense social and military change.

It's clear that the author respects and admires Churchill, but not to the detriment of his objectivity. He does not gloss over Churchill's heavy drinking, lack of fashion sense, or child-like impatience. He does not dwell on them, either, instead moving quickly from story to story to give a sense of the personality of the man, not a detailed analysis of his political or social views.

This book is a fascinating glimpse at the man behind the legend. It's too bad it's been out of print for some time, but it's not too difficult to find used - I gather the book did well, so there's lots of copies out there.

Taylor's biography of Churchill is one of the more interesting biographies I have read. His task is substantial: putting the life of Churchill into a volume with the loud background of the twentieth century is not easy to do. Taylor has managed to give us a kind but honest treatment of one of the great men of the twentieth century. Churchill shines at most everything he does. Although a terrible boy and student at Harrow School, he emerged as a leader at Sandhurst, then a seeker of wars and crises, an early visionary of the threat from Adolph Hitler as well as the Soviet Union and through it all a most controversial figure. How else can we explain his being ousted from his position of Prime Minister two months after he completed his role in orchestrating the defeat of Hitler? Artist, voluminous writer, military officer, faithful husband: all these qualities and more spring forth from the witty pen of Robert Lewis Taylor.

This book is based on the author's research, and he includes a bibliography at the back of the book. What we have here is a novel that borders on being non-fiction, because it adheres pretty closely to the archival record Mr. Taylor examined. He read through many, many journals kept by soldiers, officers, and others, about their experiences in this Mexican War. What Taylor comes up with is a somewhat entertaining "introduction" to the Mexican War. It's an introduction for those who know little about the Mexican War, like myself. I learned a lot from this book, and I re-learned that sometimes it's easier to swallow your history with a human story than straight from the history book. BUT...as noted elsewhere on this website, the book does have a tendency to get dull. Maybe Taylor tried too hard to make it authentic by mimicking the journal-keepers of those days. Also, he spends a lot of time describing the flora, fauna, and architecture, and for spoiled readers of the present day, that may be a little too much work. We need more short dialogue and less hard-core narrative, today. So, this book, published in 1964, offers palatable history, but not much emotion or excitement, and very little sex, though there are women in this war, some dressed as men, and this, too, is based on journalistic evidence uncovered by Mr. Taylor, who I doubt still lives, though I don't know for sure. Diximus.

With The Travels of Jamie McPheeters easily in my top three books of all time, I started searching for more books by Robert Lewis Taylor. Maybe because I had to compare this to his incredible work with McPheeters, but Guadulupe was a disappointment. It's a story surrounding a journey to, well, Guadulupe, but with none of the wonderfully eccentric and interesting characters that made McPheeters so enjoyable. The pace was a bit slow and I found myself forcing myself to get through sections of the book. There are still some good laughs and Taylor has a distinctive style that I enjoy reading, but those looking for something as great as McPheeters, you will most likely be disappointed.