Dear Young Friend: The Letters of American Presidents to Children

6 x 9 Never-before-published letters from more than thirty American presidents. Rare insight into the personalities of leaders and the issues that affected them. Presidents since Washington have written to children. In a less hectic era, presidents even went through White House mail themselves, choosing which letters to answer and often confiding in young people in ways they rarely would to peers. The letters span a broad emotional spectrum: from James Polk's heartwrenching letter informing his nephew of his mother's death to Teddy Roosevelt's lighthearted "picture letters." How each president, from Washington to Nixon, responded to his young constituents often revealed an unusual view of the private man. Taken together, the letters offer a glimpse of how the presidency has evolved. This is the Weintraubs' fifth book. Rodelle Weintraub is now a travel consultant; Stanley Weintraub is a biographer and historian, now Evan Pugh Professor Emeritus of Arts and Humanities at the Pennsylvania State University.