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Young Abraham Lincoln, Log-Cabin President
by Andrew Woods"Several miles from the Lincoln home was a one-room schoolhouse. Abe was very smart and he loved school. But there was so much work to do on the farm that Abe and Sarah went to school for less than a year. Abe kept learning even though he could not go to school. He studied at night by the light of the fire."
Young Americans: Tales of Teenage Immigrants
by John DiconsiglioEvery year, nearly 9 million immigrants come to the United States. These kids have left their friends and homes. Many ran away from poverty and war. Most come to the United States with a dream. They want freedom. They want to work hard. And they want to live better than they did before. Here are the stories of four teenage immigrants. Some are doing great in the U.S. Some are having a hard time. The U.S. has been called a nation of immigrants. This is their story.
Young and Beardless: The Search for God, Purpose, and a Meaningful Life
by John Luke RobertsonJohn Luke Robertson may be young and beardless, but he has a lot to say about growing up and discovering your purpose. John Luke Robertson, the oldest son of Willie and Korie Robertson and brother of Dancing with the Stars sensation Sadie Robertson, shares his story of what it's like to grow up as a Robertson and all the fun and craziness that entails, as well as what he has learned as he has stepped out into his own unique experiences. He also shares what it's like to navigate the walk from boyhood to becoming a man. Topics in this book include friendship, kindness, dreaming big, embracing your God-given uniqueness, taking chances, and choosing mentors. John Luke speaks frequently on dreams (how to build a dream for your life), schemes (how to plan for your dream to come true), and building teams (choosing the people around you who will become a team that helps make your dream come true through their support, honesty, and care). He will incorporate these important guidelines into the book, ultimately helping young people learn how to find and pursue a clear-cut purpose in their lives. Teens and young adults will enjoy reading his story, and they will benefit by reading Robertson's wisdom and perspective on how to grow up and live out your purpose. And, with the Robertsons, this book is sure to be fun!
Young and Damned and Fair: The Life of Catherine Howard, Fifth Wife of King Henry VIII
by Mr Gareth RussellWritten with an exciting combination of narrative flair and historical authority, this interpretation of the tragic life of Catherine Howard, fifth wife of Henry VIII, breaks new ground in our understanding of the very young woman who became queen at a time of unprecedented social and political tension and whose terrible errors in judgment quickly led her to the executioner’s block.On the morning of July 28, 1540, as King Henry’s VIII’s former confidante Thomas Cromwell was being led to his execution, a teenager named Catherine Howard began her reign as queen of a country simmering with rebellion and terrifying uncertainty. Sixteen months later, the king’s fifth wife would follow her cousin Anne Boleyn to the scaffold, having been convicted of adultery and high treason. The broad outlines of Catherine’s career might be familiar, but her story up until now has been incomplete. Unlike previous accounts of her life, which portray her as a naïve victim of an ambitious family, this compelling and authoritative biography will shed new light on Catherine Howard’s rise and downfall by reexamining her motives and showing her in her context, a milieu that goes beyond her family and the influential men of the court to include the aristocrats and, most critically, the servants who surrounded her and who, in the end, conspired against her. By illuminating Catherine's entwined upstairs/downstairs worlds as well as societal tensions beyond the palace walls, the author offers a fascinating portrayal of court life in the sixteenth century and a fresh analysis of the forces beyond Catherine’s control that led to her execution—from diplomatic pressure and international politics to the long-festering resentments against the queen’s household at court. Including a forgotten text of Catherine’s confession in her own words, color illustrations, family tree, map, and extensive notes, Young and Damned and Fair changes our understanding of one of history’s most famous women while telling the compelling and very human story of complex individuals attempting to survive in a dangerous age.
Young and Restless: The Girls Who Sparked America's Revolutions
by Mattie KahnGlamour's "The 15 Best Nonfiction Books of 2023, So Far"Vogue's "Best Books of 2023 (So Far)"Town & Country's "The 41 Must-Read Books of Summer 2023"The untold story of the people who have helped spark America&’s most transformative social movements throughout history: teenage girlsNine months before Rosa Parks kicked off the bus boycotts, Claudette Colvin was arrested for refusing to give up her seat on a segregated bus in Montgomery, Alabama. She was fifteen. In 1912, women&’s rights activists organized a massive march in support of women&’s suffrage. Leading them up Fifth Avenue in Manhattan was not one of the mothers of the movement, but a teenage Chinese immigrant named Mabel Ping-Hua Lee. Half a century before the better-known movements for workers&’ rights began, over 1,500 girls—some as young as ten—walked out of factories in Lowell, Massachusetts, demanding safer working conditions and higher wages in one of the nation&’s first-ever labor strikes.Young women have been disenfranchised and discounted, but the true retelling of major social movements in America reveals their might: they have ignited almost every single one. Young and Restless recounts one of the most foundational and underappreciated forces in moments of American revolution: teenage girls. From the American Revolution itself to the Civil Rights Movement to nuclear disarmament protests and the women&’s liberation movement, through Black Lives Matter and school strikes for climate, Mattie Kahn uncovers how girls have leveraged their unique strengths, from fandom to intimate friendships, to organize and lay serious political groundwork for movements that often sidelined them. Their stories illuminate how much we owe to girls throughout the generations, what skills young women use to mobilize and find their voices, and, crucially, what we can all stand to learn from them.
The Young and Restless Life of William J. Bell
by Michael Maloney Lee Phillip Bell"Michael Maloney has complied an impressive amount f details into an entertaining and fast-moving book. Read this book if you want a fascinating insight into one of television's original show runners and the legacy he left behind."--Cady McClain, Emmy-winning actress, All My Children and As the World Turns "A tribute to the man who brought daytime's most memorable characters to life, with great insight into his passion for the genre and dedication to his family."--Angelica McDaniel, senior vice president, Daytime, CBS Entertainment "The carefully selected photographs alone are worth this beguiling trip down memory lane."--Lynette Rice, Entertainment Weekly "An informed, insightful look at the inner workings of the Bell Empire--the most successful dynasty in daytime television history. It's a great read."--Peter Bergman, three-time Emmy-winning actor, The Young and the Restless Millions of fans worldwide know his soap opera and his characters, but few know the story of the man who brought them to life. William J. Bell, television's most prolific writer, reinvented the soap opera genre with his groundbreaking serial The Young and the Restless in 1973 and went on to co-create The Bold and the Beautiful with his wife and successful TV host Lee Phillip Bell, which debuted in 1987. The Young and Restless Life of William J. Bell tells the inside story of daytime's greatest storyteller, including his role as an advertising executive in the era of Mad Men, working for legendary serial creator Irna Phillips, and his move from Chicago to Los Angeles, which resulted in Y&R taking the top spot in the rating. This book offers an unprecedented look into the life of the man who defined the soap genre and draws readers behind the scenes into the captivating world of the daytime soap they know and love.
Young Benjamin Franklin: The Birth of Ingenuity
by Nick BunkerIn this new account of Franklin's early life, Pulitzer finalist Nick Bunker portrays him as a complex, driven young man who elbows his way to success.From his early career as a printer and journalist, to his scientific work and his role as a founder of a new republic, Benjamin Franklin has always seemed the inevitable embodiment of American ingenuity. But in his youth he had to make his way through a harsh colonial world where he fought many battles: with his rivals, but also with his wayward emotions. Taking Franklin to the age of forty-one, when he made his first electrical discoveries, Bunker goes behind the legend to reveal the sources of his passion for knowledge. Always trying to balance virtue against ambition, Franklin emerges as a brilliant but flawed human being, made from the conflicts of an age of slavery as well as reason. With archival material from both sides of the Atlantic, we see Franklin in Boston, London, and Philadelphia, as he develops his formula for greatness. A tale of science, politics, war, and religion, this is also a story about Franklin's forebears: the talented family of English craftsmen who produced America's favorite genius.
Young, Black and Determined: A Biography of Lorraine Hansberry
by Patricia C. Mckissack Fredrick L. MckissackHere is the remarkable story of the first African-American woman to open a play, A Raisin in the Sun, on Broadway.
Young Bloomsbury: the generation that reimagined love, freedom and self-expression
by Nino Strachey'Entirely original and thrilling . . . this is Gatsby made real' JULIET NICOLSON'This witty, fascinating book is a delight. Read it.' MIRIAM MARGOLYESIn the 1920s a new generation stepped forward to invigorate the Bloomsbury Group - creative young people who tantalised the original 'Bloomsberries' with their captivating looks and provocative ideas. Young Bloomsbury introduces us to an extraordinarily colourful cast of characters, including novelist and music critic Eddy Sackville-West, 'who wore elaborate make-up and dressed in satin and black velvet'; sculptor Stephen Tomlin; and writer Julia Strachey. Talented and productive, these larger-than-life figures had high-achieving professional lives and extremely complicated emotional lives.Bloomsbury had always celebrated sexual equality and freedom in private, feeling that every person had the right to live and love in the way they chose. But as transgressive self-expression became more public, this younger generation gave Old Bloomsbury a new voice. Revealing an aspect of Bloomsbury history not yet explored, Young Bloomsbury celebrates an open way of living that would not be embraced for another hundred years.
Young Bloomsbury: the generation that reimagined love, freedom and self-expression
by Nino Strachey'Entirely original and thrilling . . . this is Gatsby made real' JULIET NICOLSON'This witty, fascinating book is a delight. Read it.' MIRIAM MARGOLYESIn the 1920s a new generation stepped forward to invigorate the Bloomsbury Group - creative young people who tantalised the original 'Bloomsberries' with their captivating looks and provocative ideas. Young Bloomsbury introduces us to an extraordinarily colourful cast of characters, including novelist and music critic Eddy Sackville-West, 'who wore elaborate make-up and dressed in satin and black velvet'; sculptor Stephen Tomlin; and writer Julia Strachey. Talented and productive, these larger-than-life figures had high-achieving professional lives and extremely complicated emotional lives.Bloomsbury had always celebrated sexual equality and freedom in private, feeling that every person had the right to live and love in the way they chose. But as transgressive self-expression became more public, this younger generation gave Old Bloomsbury a new voice. Revealing an aspect of Bloomsbury history not yet explored, Young Bloomsbury celebrates an open way of living that would not be embraced for another hundred years.
Young Bloomsbury: the generation that reimagined love, freedom and self-expression
by Nino StracheySurprisingly little has been written about second-generation Bloomsbury who tantalised the original 'Bloomsburies' at Gordon Square parties with their captivating looks and provocative ideas.Young Bloomsbury introduces us to an extraordinarily colourful cast of characters, including novelist and music critic Eddy Sackville-West, 'who wore elaborate make-up and dressed in satin and black velvet'; sculptor Stephen Tomlin; and writer Julia Strachey. Talented and productive, these larger-than-life figures had high-achieving professional lives and extremely complicated emotional lives. Bloomsbury had always celebrated sexual equality and freedom in private, but by the 1920s self-expression was becoming more public, with cross-dressing Young Bloomsbury giving Old Bloomsbury a new voice in a chosen family of a shared rebellion against pre-war conventions.(P) 2022 Hodder & Stoughton Limited
Young Bloomsbury: The Generation That Redefined Love, Freedom, and Self-Expression in 1920s England
by Nino StracheyAn &“illuminating&” (Daily Mail, London) exploration of the second generation of the iconic Bloomsbury Group who inspired their elders to new heights of creativity and passion while also pushing the boundaries of sexual freedom and gender norms in 1920s England.In the years before the First World War, a collection of writers and artists—Virginia Woolf, E.M. Forster, and Lytton Strachey among them—began to make a name for themselves in England and America for their irreverent spirit and provocative works of literature, art, and criticism. They called themselves the Bloomsbury Group and by the 1920s, they were at the height of their influence. Then a new generation stepped forward—creative young people who tantalized their elders with their captivating looks, bold ideas, and subversive energy. Young Bloomsbury introduces us to this colorful cast of characters, including novelist Eddy Sackville-West, who wore elaborate make-up and dressed in satin and black velvet; artist Stephen Tomlin, who sculpted the heads of his male and female lovers; and author Julia Strachey, who wrote a searing tale of blighted love. Talented and productive, these larger-than-life figures had high-achieving professional lives and extremely complicated emotional lives. The group had always celebrated sexual equality and freedom in private, feeling that every person had the right to live and love in the way they chose. But as transgressive self-expression became more public, this younger generation gave Old Bloomsbury a new voice. Revealing an aspect of history not yet explored and with &“effervescent detail&” (Juliet Nicolson, author of Frostquake), Young Bloomsbury celebrates an open way of living and loving that would not be embraced for another hundred years.
Young Bucks: Killing the Business from Backyards to the Big Leagues
by Matt Jackson Nick JacksonThe electric and daring independent wrestling tag team share their inspiring story of how two undersized, ambitious athletes from Southern California became the idols of millions of popular sports fans, coveted among the ranks of AEW’s elite wrestling lineup. Featuring over 60 photographs and alternating between each brother’s perspective, this entertaining memoir is a complete portrait of what it means to grow into—and give back to—wrestling, the sport and profession they embody and love.Famous for their highflying moves, Superkicks, and viral videos, Matt and Nick Jackson are two of the hottest and most talented competitors in professional wrestling today. Known as the Young Bucks, this pair of ambitious brothers are an inspiration to both fans and aspiring wrestlers worldwide due to their message of resilience and determination. That they are also faithful family men devoted to their loved ones gives them additional appeal.Young Bucks begins in Southern California, where two young boys grew up dreaming of success and fame. Matt and Nick look back on the sacrifices they made to achieve their ambitions, from taking odd jobs to pay for their own wrestling ring to hosting backyard events with friends. They share their joy at being recruited into the independent California wrestling circuit and the work it took to finally make it professionally, and speak frankly about what it means to have the support of millions of fans cheering their talents in arenas nationwide. The Young Bucks talk endearingly about their sport, their faith, and their families, sharing personal reflections and behind-the-scenes anecdotes while paying tribute to the wrestling acts and inspirations that came before them. They also elaborate on this historical time in the evolution of wrestling, as the sport and its culture dramatically change day by day.Told with the brothers’ signature wit and charm, Young Bucks is warm, heartfelt story of hope, perseverance, and undying ambition.
Young Castro: The Making of a Revolutionary
by Jonathan M. HansenAn intimate, revisionist portrait of the early years of Fidel Castro, showing how an unlikely young Cuban led his country in revolution and transfixed the world.This book will change how you think about Fidel Castro. Until now, biographers have treated Castro’s life like prosecutors, scouring his past for evidence to convict a person they don’t like or don’t understand. This can make for bad history and unsatisfying biography. Young Castro challenges readers to put aside the caricature of a bearded, cigar-munching, anti-American hot head to discover how Castro became the dictator who acted as a thorn in the side of US presidents for nearly half a century. These pages show Fidel Castro getting his toughness from a father who survived Spain’s nasty class system and colonial wars to become one of the most successful independent plantation owners in Cuba. They show a boy running around that plantation more comfortable playing with the children of his father’s laborers than his tony classmates at elite boarding schools in Santiago de Cuba and Havana. They show a young man who writes flowery love letters from prison and contemplates the meaning of life, a gregarious soul attentive to the needs of strangers but often indifferent to the needs of his own family. These pages show a liberal democrat who admires FDR’s New Deal policies and is skeptical of communism, but is also hostile to American imperialism. They show an audacious militant who stages a reckless attack on a military barracks but is canny about building an army of resisters. In short, Young Castro reveals a complex man. The first American historian in a generation to gain access to the Castro archives in Havana, Jonathan Hansen was able to secure cooperation from Castro’s family and closest confidants, gaining access to hundreds of never-before-seen letters and to interviews with people he was the first to ask for their impressions of the man. The result is a nuanced and penetrating portrait of a figure who was determined to be a leader—a man at once brilliant, arrogant, bold, vulnerable and all too human. A man who, having grown up on an island that felt like a colonial cage, was compelled to lead his country to independence.
Young Che
by Ernesto Guevara Lynch"I had prepared a life plan that included ten years of wandering, later years studying medicine. . . . All that's in the past, the only thing that's clear is that the ten years of wandering might grow longer . . . but it will now be of an entirely different type from the one I dreamed of, and when I arrive in a new country it will not be to go to museums and look at ruins, because that still interests me, but also to join the struggle of the people." - Che Guevara, in a letter to his mother, 1956Assembled from two separate books written by Che's father, this is a vivid and intimate account of the formative years of an icon. Ernesto Guevara Lynch describes the people and personal events that shaped the development of his son's revolutionary worldview, from his childhood in a bourgeois Argentinian home to the moment he joined Castro to train for the invasion of Cuba in 1956. It also includes, available for the first time in the United States, Che's diary of his trip around Northern Argentina in 1950. Young Che is an indispensible guide to understanding one of the twentieth century's most famous and enduring revolutionary figures.From the Trade Paperback edition.
Young Che: Memories of Che Guevara by His Father
by Ernesto Guevara Lynch Lucia Alvarez De ToledoAssembled from two separate books written by Che's father, this is a vivid and intimate account of the formative years of an icon. Ernesto Guevara Lynch describes the people and personal events that shaped the development of his son's revolutionary worldview, from his childhood in a bourgeois Argentinian home to the moment he joined Castro to train for the invasion of Cuba in 1956. It also includes, available for the first time in the United States, Che's diary of his trip around Northern Argentina in 1950. "Young Che" is an indispensable guide to understanding one of the twentieth century's most famous and enduring revolutionary figures.
Young Clara Barton: Battlefield Nurse
by Sarah AlcottFollows the life of the nurse who served on the battlefields of the Civil War and later founded the American Red Cross.
The Young Contributor: From 'Literature and Life'
by William Dean HowellsWilliam Dean Howells (1837-1920) was an American realist author and literary critic. He wrote his first novel, Their Wedding Journey, in 1871, but his literary reputation really took off with the realist novel A Modern Instance, published in 1882, which describes the decay of a marriage. His 1885 novel The Rise of Silas Lapham is perhaps his best known, describing the rise and fall of an American entrepreneur in the paint business. His social views were also strongly reflected in the novels Annie Kilburn (1888) and A Hazard of New Fortunes (1890). While known primarily as a novelist, his short story "Editha" (1905) - included in the collection Between the Dark and the Daylight (1907) - appears in many anthologies of American literature. Howells also wrote plays, criticism, and essays about contemporary literary figures such as Ibsen, Zola, Verga, and, especially, Tolstoy, which helped establish their reputations in the United States. He also wrote critically in support of many American writers. It is perhaps in this role that he had his greatest influence.
The Young Eagle: The Rise Of Abraham Lincoln
by Kenneth J. WinkleDrawing on the latest interpretive and methodological advances in historical scholarship, The Young Eagle: The Rise of Abraham Lincoln reexamines the young adult life of America's sixteenth president.
Young Eliot: From St. Louis to the Waste Land
by Robert CrawfordOn the fiftieth anniversary of the death of T. S. Eliot, the award-winning biographer Robert Crawford presents us with the first volume of a comprehensive account of this poetic genius. Young Eliot traces the life of the twentieth century's most important poet from his childhood in St. Louis to the publication of his revolutionary poem The Waste Land. Crawford provides readers with a new understanding of the foundations of some of the most widely read poems in the English language through his depiction of Eliot's childhood—laced with tragedy and shaped by an idealistic, bookish family in which knowledge of saints and martyrs was taken for granted—as well as through his exploration of Eliot's marriage to Vivien Haigh-Wood, a woman who believed she loved Eliot "in a way that destroys us both." <P><P> Quoting extensively from Eliot's poetry and prose as well as drawing on new interviews, archives, and previously undisclosed memoirs, Crawford shows how the poet's background in Missouri, Massachusetts, and Paris made him a lightning rod for modernity. Most impressively, Young Eliot reveals the way he accessed his inner life—his anguishes and his fears—and blended them with his omnivorous reading to create his masterpieces "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" and The Waste Land. At last, we experience T. S. Eliot in all his tender complexity as student and lover, penitent and provocateur, banker and philosopher—but most of all, Young Eliot shows us as an epoch-shaping poet struggling to make art among personal disasters.
Young Eliot: From St. Louis to The Waste Land
by Robert CrawfordA groundbreaking new biography of one of the twentieth century's most important poetsOn the fiftieth anniversary of the death of T. S. Eliot, the award-winning biographer Robert Crawford presents us with the first volume of a comprehensive account of this poetic genius. Young Eliot traces the life of the twentieth century's most important poet from his childhood in St. Louis to the publication of his revolutionary poem The Waste Land. Crawford provides readers with a new understanding of the foundations of some of the most widely read poems in the English language through his depiction of Eliot's childhood—laced with tragedy and shaped by an idealistic, bookish family in which knowledge of saints and martyrs was taken for granted—as well as through his exploration of Eliot's marriage to Vivien Haigh-Wood, a woman who believed she loved Eliot "in a way that destroys us both." Quoting extensively from Eliot's poetry and prose as well as drawing on new interviews, archives, and previously undisclosed memoirs, Crawford shows how the poet's background in Missouri, Massachusetts, and Paris made him a lightning rod for modernity. Most impressively, Young Eliot reveals the way he accessed his inner life—his anguishes and his fears—and blended them with his omnivorous reading to create his masterpieces "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" and The Waste Land. At last, we experience T. S. Eliot in all his tender complexity as student and lover, penitent and provocateur, banker and philosopher—but most of all, Young Eliot shows us as an epoch-shaping poet struggling to make art among personal disasters.
Young Elizabeth: Elizabeth I and Her Perilous Path to the Crown
by Nicola TallisThe first definitive biography of the young Elizabeth I in over twenty years—drawing on a rich variety of primary sources—tracing her tumultuous path to the crown.Queen Elizabeth I is renowned for her hugely successful reign that makes her, perhaps, the most celebrated monarch in English history. But what of the trials she faced in her challenging early life? Her status as a princess didn&’t last long—when she was less than three years old, her mother—the infamous Anne Boleyn—was brutally beheaded and Elizabeth was relegated to the title of bastard. After losing several stepmothers, she then faced predatory attentions and illicit flirtations from her stepfather, Thomas Seymour, which ultimately forced Elizabeth to leave her home. But these were only the beginning of Elizabeth&’s problems. Later, she became implicated in a plot to overthrow her half-sister, Mary, and faced interrogation and imprisonment in the very tower in which her mother died. Adamantly protesting her innocence, Elizabeth endured the interrogation and was eventually released. Her popularity as a royal increased from that point on, and she finally became queen at the age of twenty-five. Expert historian Nicola Tallis draws on a variety of primary sources—from the queen herself as well as those closest to her—to provide an extensive and thorough study of the Virgin Queen&’s perilous journey to the crown. Looking at Elizabeth as a human being rather than a political chess piece, her narrative explores the dangers and tragedies that plagued Elizabeth's early life, revealing the queen to be a young women who drew strength from her various plights as she navigated one of the most thrilling paths to the throne in the history of the monarchy.
Young Elizabeth: The Making Of The Queen
by Kate WilliamsWe can hardly imagine a Britain without Elizabeth II on the throne. It seems to be the job she was born for. And yet for much of her early life the young princess did not know the role that her future would hold. She was our accidental Queen. Elizabeth's determination to share in the struggles of her people marked her out from a young age. Her father initially refused to let her volunteer as a nurse during the Blitz, but relented when she was 18 and allowed her to work as a mechanic and truck driver for the Women's Auxiliary Territorial Service. It was her forward-thinking approach that ensured that her coronation was televised, against the advice of politicians at the time. Kate Williams reveals how the 25-year-old young queen carved out a lasting role for herself amid the changes of the 20th century. Her monarchy would be a very different one to that of her parents and grandparents, and its continuing popularity in the 21st century owes much to the intelligence and elusive personality of this remarkable woman.
Young Elizabeth: The Making of our Queen
by Kate WilliamsThe story of how Elizabeth II became queen.We can hardly imagine a Britain without Elizabeth II on the throne. It seems to be the job she was born for. And yet for much of her early life the young princess did not know the role that her future would hold. She was our accidental Queen.As a young girl, Elizabeth was among the guests in Westminster Abbey watching her father being crowned, making her the only monarch to have attended a parent's coronation. Kate Williams explores the sheltered upbringing of the young princess with a gentle father and domineering mother, her complicated relationship with her sister, Princess Margaret, and her dependence on her nanny, Marion 'Crawfie' Crawford. She details the profound and devastating impact of the abdication crisis when, at the impressionable age of 11, Elizabeth found her position changed overnight: no longer a minor princess she was now heiress to the throne.Elizabeth's determination to share in the struggles of her people marked her out from a young age. Her father initially refused to let her volunteer as a nurse during the Blitz, but relented when she was 18 and allowed her to work as a mechanic and truck driver for the Women's Auxiliary Territorial Service. It was her forward-thinking approach that ensured that her coronation was televised, against the advice of politicians at the time.Kate Williams reveals how the 25-year-old young queen carved out a lasting role for herself amid the changes of the 20th century. Her monarchy would be a very different one to that of her parents and grandparents, and its continuing popularity in the 21st century owes much to the intelligence and elusive personality of this remarkable woman.
Young Elizabeth: The Making of our Queen
by Kate WilliamsWe can hardly imagine a Britain without Elizabeth II on the throne. It seems to be the job she was born for. And yet, for much of her early life, the young princess did not know the role that her future would hold. She was our accidental Queen.As a young girl, Elizabeth was among the guests in Westminster Abbey watching her father being crowned, making her the only monarch to have attended a parent's coronation. Kate Williams explores the sheltered upbringing of the young princess, with a gentle father and domineering mother, her complicated relationship with her sister, Princess Margaret, and her dependence on her nanny, Marion 'Crawfie' Crawford. She details the profound and devastating impact of the abdication crisis, when, at the impressionable age of eleven, Elizabeth found her position changed overnight: no longer a minor princess she was now heiress to the throne.Elizabeth's determination to share in the struggles of her people marked her out from a young age. Her father initially refused to let her volunteer as a nurse during the Blitz, but relented when she was eighteen and allowed her to work as a mechanic and truck driver for the Women's Auxiliary Territorial Service. It was her forward-thinking approach that ensured that her coronation was televised, against the advice of politicians at the time.Kate Williams reveals how the 25-year-old young Queen carved out a lasting role for herself amid the changes of the twentieth century. Her monarchy would be a very different one to that of her parents and grandparents. And its continuing popularity in the twenty-first century owes much to the intelligence and elusive personality of this remarkable woman.This audio edition is read by the author.(p) 2012 Orion Publishing Group