Patrick Henry

Just a note to begin: The copy I read was library-bound, not leather. Never heard of leather-binding for this series. This slim volume serves as a nice introduction (or refresher) to the subject for middle-schoolers on up. The chapter titles are as follows: 1. Making of a Leader 2. Farmer, Storekeeper, and Lawyer 3. The Parsons' Cause: "Enemies of the Community" 4. "If This Be Treason" 5. Lighting the Flame of the Revolution 6. Sadness at Home 7. "We Must Fight" 8. "Gale from the North" 9. Governor Henry 10. Friends to Fight with Us 11. War and Peace 12. Virtue or Wickedness? 13. We the People? 14. The Blessings of Liberty 15. "Reader... Remember This" The Kuklas present the material in a generally chronological format. However, there are a few times when they suddenly jump back a few years and/or repeat a bit of information, which seemed unnecessarily redundant to me. (For example, the last paragraph of Ch. 2 states, "The vestry, or church council, hired Patrick Henry to persuade the jury not to pay the parsons the full amount of money they wanted." Then, the end of the first paragraph of Ch. 3 says, "The parish vestry, or council, of a local church had hired him to represent it in court.") The book has good info on Henry's family, education, and early career(s). But, not surprisingly, it concentrates on his participation in the early colonial protests in the mid-1760s thru early-1770s, his involvement in the early conventions and Congresses, and through the American Revolution. It also discusses Henry's multi-term governorship of Virginia, his concerns with the new U.S. Constitution and efforts to get a Bill of Rights passed, and finally his death in 1799. Various parts of his personal life (e.g., marriage, kids, sickness, business problems) are interwoven throughout, though some areas are a little scarce. There are one or two sections where it seemed that the primary subject (i.e., Henry himself) got somewhat lost in the discussion of the revolutionary events, but it's certainly possible that it was the authors'/publisher's intent, in order to further contextualize Henry's activities within the larger framework of the Revolution. The authors' writing style flows nicely (though with minor annoyances like those mentioned above) and is well-suited to its primary audience. I caught a couple of minor typos, but nothing that interrupted the flow or would cause a confusion of facts. As is typical for shorter and youth-oriented books, there are no end/footnotes. There is a 'Timeline' of Henry's life at the end, as well as a helpful Glossary, a short list of 'Additional Resources', a Bibliography, and a brief index. There are several photos and reproductions of paintings, documents, etc. (many color, others B & W), which I really appreciated. There were a couple here & there that seemed overkill and could have been replaced with more text, which is why I knocked off a fraction of a point for both Content and Style & Structure; but,