Alexander Hamilton: The Making of America by Teri Kanefield
Published by Abrams Books for Young Readers, 2017 This book is recommended for young readers from 10 to 14 Lexile Reading Level 1170L (MetaMetrics) Author Teri Kanefield has won numerous awards for her books for young readers. This book on Alexander Hamilton is the first in her series called The Making of America and is a Junior Library Guild Selection. For readers who enjoy the style of this one, the next two in the series feature Andrew Jackson and Abraham Lincoln, respectively, and lead the reader through the major events of the first 100 years in our nation’s history. If it’s possible for a Founding Father to be trendy, Alexander Hamilton is practically a Kardashian. Kirkus Reviews notes, “The enthusiasm for Broadway hit and cultural phenomenon Hamilton, The Musical shows little signs of abating…and has generated interest in the country’s first treasury secretary among all ages” (2017). It was actually a classmate of mine who is a fan of Hamilton that spurred me to choose this book. I’m glad I did and I think many a young reader would be as well. There’s much to recommend about this book. For starters, it has great shelf appeal. There’s the rock star portrait on the cover created by Sara Corbett and that “star” theme is carried throughout the book to help divide chapters into manageable bites. The book isn’t a massive tome, just over 200 pages including a detailed bibliography and index, so it’s not going to feel overwhelming to a young reader. There’s also a helpful 2-page timeline that helps the reader better understand when events took place. Inside we see the book is cleverly arranged with comfortable spacing and text. It’s a pretty small book anyway, so there are never more than 3 or 4 paragraphs to a page. The chapters aren’t too long either so it’s easy to find a good stopping point and there are tons of interesting illustrations. Hamilton’s life pre-dated the invention of photography, but the author has put together engravings, drawings, and paintings (all reproduced in black and white) of the people and places she writes of to further tell her story. I can be counted as one of those who didn’t know too much about the gentleman before reading this book. I recognized him from the $10 bill and knew he was killed in a duel by Aaron Burr. Beyond that, I didn’t know much. Hamilton packed a lot of living into his rather short life. Depending upon which source you reference, he was either born in 1755 or 1757 (Kanefield uses 1755) and he died in 1804 so he was only 49 years old when Aaron Burr’s bullet ended his life. Speaking of which, Kanefield uses a clever technique of giving that climax away right at the beginning. In her 5-page prologue, we see an engraving of the moment of that fatal shot and we read part of a heartbreaking letter Hamilton left for his wife before meeting Burr on the dueling grounds. We already know our hero dies the next day before we even read chapter one; I can’t imagine any young reader putting the book down at that point! The first chapter of the book, titled “An Orphan and a Dreamer” takes us through young Hamilton’s early years which were anything but easy. He was born in the British West Indies to a mother who was actually married to another man when she had Alex and his brother. His father James was a drifter who was “lazy and not particularly competent” (p. 11) and who deserted his family. When his mother died in 1768, Hamilton and his brother had to fend for themselves and the story of what their life was like reads like a Dickens tale. Kanefield writes about how fate intervened when sixteen-year-old Hamilton wrote about a devastating hurricane that swept the island. The letter was published in the local paper making him a “literary sensation” (p. 19) and triggering a chain of events that saw the young man leaving the islands with the help of a benefactor, Hugh Knox, and immigrating to New York where he would soon make history. The author gives us example after example of Hamilton’s brilliance and drive. As a teenager surviving on his own he impressed his employer enough that Alex ran the business, “a multinational trading company” (p. 17), in his absence. In New York, he completed a two-year study program to enter college in half the time despite the fact he didn’t know any of the required Latin and Greek (p. 24). Once in college, he studied night and day in order to graduate in two years. We learn that he published his first political treatise in 1774 and so believed in American Independence that he devoted himself to learning everything he could about military tactics and joined a volunteer militia right after the Battles of Lexington and Concord. It wasn’t long before General George Washington discovered Hamilton and enlisted him as an aide-to-camp where the young man’s brilliance and gift for communication elevated him to Washington’s “principal and most trusted aide” (p. 40). There is so much to admire in Hamilton’s rags to riches story. He was a persuasive genius whose perseverance on multiple occasions quite literally saved the United States of America. This is a story every young reader should know and it’s one that this older reader never learned in school. I like that the author is able to teach us so much in the book without it feeling teach-y or preach-y. She will address a concept like “tariffs” and then provide a separate bold black box with an easily understood definition (p. 68). This is a tactic she uses throughout the book that helps the reader not only grasp the idea from Hamilton’s time, but provide perspective in our own. She introduces us to the Bank of New York that Hamilton founded in 1784 and within her bonus black box she tells us the bank is still around and that “the Bank of New York Mellon (is) the nation’s oldest financial institution” (p. 99). For readers who just can’t get enough of Hamilton, Ron Chernow’s Alexander Hamilton is a must-read. It’s going to be a bit more daunting for many readers at over 700 pages, but this New York Times #1 Bestseller is billed as the inspiration for the musical and goes into more depth than Kanefield’s book. It also touches on some of the more unsavory aspects of Hamilton’s life (an adultery scandal for instance) which are omitted from the book for younger readers. Fans of Hamilton may be reaching out to this book because of the popular musical, but those who haven’t seen it may want to attend a touring production of Hamilton: An American Musical when it comes to their town. The soundtrack of the musical featuring the original cast is available from various sources. (Parents should understand that certain tracks have some explicit language.) L.A. Times critic Charles McNulty gives his perspective on what makes this musical so relevant for our times. Writing about Lin-Manuel Miranda, the writer and composer who portrays Hamilton in the musical, McNulty asks, “How does he connect audiences to characters separated by more than 200 years, funny costumes and vastly different imperatives? By relating the hopes and setbacks, squabbles and seductions, triumphs and tragedies, of these 18th century American rebels in a score that allows the past to speak in the musical language of the rebellious present — rap” (2015). Author Chernow and composer Miranda have given us a hero from the past whose accomplishments inspire a new generation to hope for the future. Kanefield, in her book for youth, has made Hamilton relatable, accessible, entertaining, and inspirational as well. I’m so glad I (finally) learned more about him. Resources: Chernow, R. (2004). Alexander Hamilton. New York: Penguin Press. Kanefield, T. (2017). Book 1 in the making of America series. Teri Kanefield. Retrieved from http://www.terikanefield.com/ Kanefield, T. (2017). Alexander Hamilton: The making of America. New York: Abrams Books for Young Readers. Kirkus Reviews. (2017, February 1). [Review of the book Alexander Hamilton: The making of America]. Retrieved from https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/teri-kanefield/alexander-hamilton-kanefield/ Lexile Framework for Reading. (2017). MetaMetrics, Inc. Retrieved from https://fab.lexile.com/book/details/9781419725784/ McNulty, C. (2015, October 31). [Review of the Broadway musical Hamilton: An American musical]. Retrieved from http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/arts/la-ca-cm-hamilton-hip-hop-notebook-20151031-column.html
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