Wednesday, September 13, 2023

Book Review: White House Wild Child



White House Wild Child

How Alice Roosevelt Broke All the Rules and Won the Heart of America

by Shelley Fraser Mickle

Pub Date 03 Oct 2023 

Charlesbridge,Imagine

Biographies & Memoirs| Nonfiction (Adult)



A copy of White House Wild Child was provided to me by Charlesbridge imagine, and Netgalley:



“I can do one of two things, I can be President of the United States or I can control Alice. I cannot possibly do both.”—Theodore Roosevelt



Alice Roosevelt mesmerized the world with her antics and beauty during Theodore Roosevelt's presidency, from 1901 to 1909.




Alice was known for carrying a gun in her purse, a copy of the Constitution, and a snake. After her father told her she couldn't smoke under his roof, she climbed to the top of the White House and smoked there. In terms of public obsession, she predated Princess Diana and Jackie Kennedy as the most famous woman in America.




She continued to push against social norms and pull political sway behind the curtain of privilege and access even as her popularity grew. Both the social and political worlds were hypnotized by her acerbic wit and outspoken tendencies.




This superbly researched and powerfully written book places the reader in the time and place of Alice and asks what it would have been like to be a strong-willed powerful woman of that era. This historical celebration of Alice's life draws from both primary and secondary sources.



 I give White House Wild Child five out of five stars!



Happy Reading!

 

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