A Ripple of Hope: The Life of Robert F. Kennedy

by Barbara  Harrison and Daniel Terris

Published by Lodestar/Dutton, 1997

Ages 11 - 15

Barbara Harrison and Daniel Terris offer an honest, deft profile of Robert F. Kennedy in this biography that focuses on the events and characteristics that both shaped and marked his life and career in public service. Growing up, he is seen as a somewhat singular, solitary figure in his large, economically privileged family, an individual striving to be as good as his talented older brothers and working to carve his own niche. His tenacious personality was well-suited to work as a prosecutor in the Justice Department, and later to run John F. Kennedy's campaigns for public office. Robert Kennedy is seen as a man genuinely committed to and torn by the issues that defined his era in politics, from the Civil Rights Movement to the Vietnam War. Readers will gain a sense of the terrible, hopeful times that were the 1960s, and the way in which the Kennedys were seen by millions as a source of hope and inspiration to a nation hungry for both. At the same time, the authors allow Robert Kennedy his humanness, making him neither saint nor scoundrel, images that abound these days at the mere mention of the Kennedy family name. Here he is portrayed as a man responding to tense, impassioned times with his own passions, as well as carefully thought out responses and plans. Readers will be grounded in history and enlightened by the emotional tenor of a text that echoes the feelings of a decade that continues to both haunt and inspire today's world. (MS; Oct 13)  © Cooperative Children's Book Center