Unfading Beauty

Rating:
Summary: NOT RECOMMENDED
Review: It is truly sad when modern authors ignore not only the best scholarship but even the most easily available information which is available on the Internet and write a book based on inaccurate and outdated information that was discarded a generation ago. Such is the case with this book, a beautifully-designed, magnificently-printed package of sloppy research viewed through rose-colored glasses.

The smiling face of Dolley Madison on the cover shows her with red hair (it was black), a ruddy tan (her skin was "white as parchment"), wearing a hat, blouse, and coat which did not exist until seventy years after her death. The historical information inside is riddled with glaring mistakes which could have been avoided with even cursory fact-checking.

The children of America need better history and biography than this. A fine example of how to explore and tell the life of our nation's heroes is "Dolley Madison: Her Life, Letters, and Legacy," by University of Virginia professors Holly C. Shulman and David B. Mattern (PowerPlus Books, 2003). Accurate, engaging, lovingly told and and beautifully illustrated with REAL pictures of Dolley and her environs, it inspires children through fine writing and storytelling based on historical fact, unfiltered by personal opinion or religious objectives.