Nice Work, Franklin!

Dial Books for Young Readers
(Penguin Random House)
(published 1.5.2016) 32 pages 

A True Tale
with A Cherry On Top 

A uthor: Suzanne Tripp Jurmain
      and Illustrator: Larry Day

C haracter: Franklin Roosevelt

O verview from the jacket flap: 

    "FRANKLIN ROOSEVELT wanted to be like his cousin PRESIDENT TEDDY ROOSEVELT. 
     He wore eyeglasses like Teddy's. He spoke like Teddy. He even held the same public offices. But then one day everything changed. He developed polio and could no longer walk. But Franklin Roosevelt was determined not to give up. He ran for governor and won. But, about that time, a different kind of sickness spread across the nation. Businesses stopped. Banks closed. Millions lost their jobs. It was the Great Depression.  
      Franklin believed he could make the country well again, so he successfully ran for president. Then, with more hard work and great determination, President Franklin Roosevelt found new ways to help America heal." 
    
T antalizing taste: 
     
    "Now, no disabled person had ever tried to become a governor, a president, or even a mayor before, so, of course, some people objected. They said that a handicapped person like Franklin was not strong enough to carry out the business of government. But Franklin's friends just answered, PHOOEY! A governor's business 'is brain work,' they said. 'The governor of New York State does not have to be an acrobat.' And that made sense. It made such good sense that New Yorkers elected Franklin D. Roosevelt."

and something more: The Author's Note explains that although "he never regained the use of his legs, Franklin Roosevelt supported research to fight polio. In the 1950s and 1960s such support led to the discovery of vaccines that could prevent the disease. Thanks to those scientific achievements, the illness that made Franklin Roosevelt our only disabled president is now almost a forgotten disease in many parts of the world." 
    The FDR Presidential Library and Museum website includes this quote by Franklin: “You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, ‘I have lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.’…You must do the thing you think you cannot do”