Close Calls: How Eleven US Presidents Escaped from the Brink of Death

by Michael P. Spradlin

Overview

Historians tell the stories of tragic and untimely presidential deaths, but often forgotten are the near misses. JFK and his fellow servicemen spent six days on a desert island with only coconuts to eat after a deadly attack during WWII. Abe Lincoln was forced to take a train trip in disguise while America's first female detective worked to foil an early assassination attempt. And when Andrew Jackson was attacked by an upset citizen who had been stalking him for months, frontiersman Davey Crockett was the one to save him. With pacy, immediate writing and including supplemental archival photographs and archival materials, this book chronicles thrilling undertold stories of U.S. presidents' moments of bravery.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781547600236
Publisher:	Bloomsbury USA
Publication date:	01/07/2020
Pages:	128
Sales rank:	806,688
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.70(d)
Age Range:	9 - 14 Years

About the Author

Michael Spradlin is the author of more than twenty children's books and several books for adults, including the New York Times bestseller It's Beginning to Look A Lot Like Zombies. His children's books have been named to state lists in Rhode Island, Indiana, Missouri, Georgia, Vermont, Maine, and Alabama, and best book lists by Bank Street School of Education and the NYPL. He was an Edgar Award nomineefor his YA novel Spy Goddess. He lives in Michigan.
www.michaelspradlin.com/

Table of Contents

Introduction ix

1 If They Kill the General, He Can't be the Father of his Country 1

2 Beating the Odds 13

3 The Baltimore Plot 21

4 First You Get Shot, Then You Give a Speech 35

5 A Shootout with the Capitol Police 43

6 I Don't Like Ike 51

7 PT-109 59

8 The Fall of Gerald Ford 71

9 In the Belly of the Beast 79

10 "Honey, I Forgot to Duck!" 85

11 A Young Pilot Saved From Capture 95

Sources 104

Index 111

Editorial Reviews

"Through nonfiction that reads like thrilling adventure tales, Spradlin engages young readers in the lives of the nation's commanders-in-chief. …a wonderfully entertaining, richly informative read." - Shelf Awareness, starred review

"Spradlin’s engaging accounts are concise and provide some historical context without overwhelming the narrative." - School Library Journal

"The quick chapters, snarky humor, and thrilling topic should be catnip for biography fans." - BCCB

From the Publisher

02/01/2020

Gr 5–8—Tales of survival, near-misses, and sheer determination fill the pages of this collection of 11 stories about 11 different U.S. presidents who had close calls with death, either while in office or before they were elected. These short, readable vignettes are organized chronologically. George Washington, Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Gerald Ford, and the first Bush all faced some very dangerous moments while serving in the military. Jimmy Carter's near-death experience was one of his own making: He volunteered to go into a failing nuclear reactor to help fix it since he was one of the few people who had the expertise. Spradlin's engaging accounts are concise and provide some historical context without overwhelming the narrative. VERDICT A solid choice for libraries looking to add to their narrative history collections.—Jody Kopple, Shady Hill School, Cambridge, MA

School Library Journal

2019-10-23
Dramatic accounts of assassination attempts and other brushes with death in the lives of select serving or future chief executives.

Four U.S presidents have been assassinated while in office, but considerably more have had narrow squeaks, as Spradlin, writing with a sharp eye for colorful quotes and details, chronicles. Most incidents occurred before or after their terms—George Washington and Dwight Eisenhower, for instance, were targeted by assassins in wartime; young officers John Kennedy and George H.W. Bush were likewise nearly captured in the Pacific in World War II; Theodore Roosevelt was shot in the chest on a campaign stop (and went on to deliver a 90-minute speech after examining his spittle to make sure his lung hadn't been punctured); and Navy officer Jimmy Carter led a crew tasked with shutting down an unstable nuclear reactor ("I had radioactive urine for six months," he recalls). The author includes substantial asides on the motives and fates of the would-be assassins, significant figures such as detective Allan Pinkerton and his gifted associate Kate Warne, and like high-interest topics. Nearly everyone here is or was white, but though the author's nods to Washington's secret agents "Hercules Mulligan and his slave, Cato" are clumsy, he does note that the GIs who blew the whistle on the Eisenhower plot by capturing a trio of German agents were African American.

Oddly compelling tales of disaster averted, sometimes miraculously. (source notes, index) (Nonfiction. 10-13)

Kirkus Reviews