Dear Professor Austin I took about 20 pages of notes on this book --i This is my notes not a review, I intend to edit this so this is not my final review.- I will email you with my final review, but I have so many notes that I would like to share now, as this is the way I begin writing anything. Knowing that we have our required reading and 30 plus books - we are required to read and share it is obvious I have to learn how to streamline this whole process- so I won't be doing this method in the future. now that I have finished reading it Professor Austin I looove this book and intend to use it as a required reading in my high school American History courses. I am going to edit this review but for now I am going to share my notes. I love this book because it takes it through a person whose family will always be effected in History by the events that the 300 million people living in the United States will all be aware of. It is such an interesting perspective, and they were already well known individuals as they were the equivalent of Academy Award winning movie stars when their handsome brother shot the man they so admired. This is a book that will be in my library all throughout my career, as I was in theatre myself in my youth and have one of my most precious memories with my church at the Lincoln memorial. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-JeSOa7Tcs Here is me reading excerpts from the book https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GScU0dpH_rg, NOTES: "On Holy Saturday in April of 1865 - Edwin Booth' left many standing ovations at the Boston Theatre for his performance - and was woken the next day his valet burst into his room in Boston exclaiming : the President has been shot and your brother was the shooter" . When he saw the paper and his brother who was famous as a romantic lead, a star in his own right, as the assassin of the beloved Abraham Lincoln he journaled " it was as if I had been hit in the head with a hammer." He quickly learned from the The Boston Theatre manager that his play IRON CHEST would no longer be performed he responded to the news with : the news this morning has me wretched indeed... while mourning the death of a great man.. I am oppressed by a private woe not to be expressed in words" Soon federal marshals would arrive and arrest and question he and his brother in law and his older brother named for dead father the famous English actor Junius Booth . His sister who was having a difficult pregnancy and the closest to John Wilkes Booth would be confined to her bed with federal marshals guarding her as she grieved her favorite brother running from the law for such a terrible deed. ( )

Intended for grades 6-9 this text provides a dual portrait of brothers Edwin and John Wilkes Booth. This text includes several photographs that help tell the story of these two very different brothers. Author, James Cross Giblin, drew on several first-hand accounts from family members, friends, and colleagues to chronicle the lives of the Booth brothers. This text, although informative, reads like a well-written story. It could be recommended to a student who is interested in this subject as recreational reading or used during a unit in U.S. history on the assassination of Lincoln.

OK--this was an interesting book and I enjoyed reading the details of the early life of the Booth brothers, I just wish that we had known a bit more about John Wilkes Booth and his early years instead of concentrating so much on Edwin. It was fascinating to see how Edwin was treated after the assassination. ( )

From early childhood to the years beyond President Lincoln’s assassination, this book explains the relationship between John Wilkes Booth and his brother, Edwin Booth.

America knows John Wilkes Booth as the man who shot Abraham Lincoln and devastated a nation. But not as much is knows about Booth before that murder. This book delves into his background as an actor and it also chronicles the life of his brother Edwin. Both are actors and both find of the bottle, but they differed in other ways. Edwin actually voted for Lincoln.

Readers are treated to first-hand accounts of family members, friends, and colleagues to help put the picture together of these two brothers. This book would work well with Chasing Lincoln's Killer by James L. Swanson. Readers could compare and contrast John Wilkes booth in both books. ( )