Two Men and a Car
Franklin Roosevelt, Al Capone, and a Cadillac V-8
-
- $9.99
-
- $9.99
Publisher Description
It is December 8, 1941, the day after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, and President Franklin Delano Roosevelt leads a nation in crisis.
He must make a speech to a joint session of Congress that will build support for America’s entry to World War II, but to do that he needs an armored vehicle in which to make the short trip from the White House to the Capitol Building. According to legend, the car Roosevelt rode in that day, borrowed from the FBI’s impound lot, was an armored Cadillac V-8 built for gangster Al Capone in the late 1920s to shield himself from enemies. Is the legend true, or is it an American tall tale in the tradition of Paul Bunyan or John Henry? Either way, it’s an ideal vehicle to compare and contrast the lives of two American men who grew up within miles of one another: one a great president, the other an infamous villain.
F&P Level Y
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Garland (A Season of Flowers) uses a car to link two men who made very different headlines during the first half of the 20th century. Legend has it that President Franklin D. Roosevelt, on his way to deliver his "Day of Infamy" speech to Congress in 1941, rode in mobster Al Capone's bulletproof Cadillac, 10 years after it had been confiscated by the U.S. government. A compare-and-contrast narrative describes how the two intelligent and ambitious New Yorkers, born 17 years apart, chose divergent paths. Their biographies intersect in a few interesting and little-known ways: Roosevelt was a wealthy only child who graduated from Harvard; Capone had eight siblings and once held a job at a dancehall called the Harvard Inn. "Roosevelt was a determined politician who fought his opponents with ballots" faces a page that declares, "Capone was a determined gangster who fought his opponents with guns." Scratchboard-style illustrations in muted hues offer realistic portraits of the men and depictions of the era. An extensive timeline contextualizes the major events of their lives, and a further reading list concludes this comparison of contemporaries: one famous, the other infamous. Ages 10 12.
