Nina Brown Baker (1888–1957)

Signature Books are a series published in the 1950s and 1960s by Grosset & Dunlap, with a target audience of 9 to 14 year olds. Each of the 51 books is a semi- fictional biography of a famous historical figure, particularly those of importance to the USA. The Story of Abraham Lincoln is typical of the series. It outlines its subject's life, with a focus on his childhood and adolescence. Thus, we are presented with familiar tales of his early, hardscrabble childhood, his mother's death, and show more his adolescence as he grows into "honest Abe" "the railsplitter". Lincoln's political career and presidency is given more brief attention. Some of the anecdotes are surely apocryphal, and no complexities are dealt with. Thus, we never hear about Lincoln's difficult relationship with his father, nor of his business failures and financial indebtedness. The author's treatment of her biographical subject reflects the book's goals of inculcating nationalism in US youngsters of the 1950s, no doubt, to inspire the boys to want to grow up to be president. It is what it is, as the saying goes. show less

Reviewed by James T 2026

Very good, tells of Columbus’s younger years up til he arrives home from his first voyage to America.

Reviews:
“A finely proportioned narrative.” The New York Times

“Worth its weight in gold. A warm dramatic story of a man whose career was one of the most astonishing and colorful the world has known.” Parents Magazine

SIMÓN BOLÍVAR, hailed as Liberator by the people of South America, occupies the same place in their affections that George Washington does in ours. An aristocrat and a wealthy man like Washington, he risked position, wealth, and life itself to free South America from the show more unhappy rule of Spain. Like Lincoln in his love for the common man, he brought about the abolition of slavery a generation before that institution was ended here.

HE WOULDN'T BE KING is the first modern biography of Bolívar in English for young people, yet history provides few more exciting tales than the march across the Andes of Bolívar's small but dauntless army; it can offer few stories to compare in color and surprise with Bolivar's courageous career.

Nina Brown Baker tells Bolívar's story fully and vividly. She has not only so portrayed the ideals of the man that we are the better for knowing him, but she has also given us the background that enables us to understand both Bolívar and the South America of today.

More from the New York Times, New Books for Younger Readers, March 15, 1942.

By Ellen Lewis Buell. HE WOULDN'T BE KING. The Story Of Simon Bolivar. By Nina Brown Baker. Illustrated by Camilo Egas. 306 pages. New York: The Vanguard Press.

SIMÓN BOLÍVAR was a hero not merely through force of circumstances and period. He was truly cast in a heroic mold and should be known wherever greatness of spirit as well as deed is revered. His life is of special significance to us of the United States, not only be­cause of our growing sympathy with South America, but because it was from our own Revolution and our first leader, Washing­ton, that he drew much of the in­spiration to win freedom for his own part of the Americas.
It was a life so full and so dra­matic that there is plenty of room for both the fine biogra­phies for young people which this year has brought forth. It would indeed be difficult, and is unnec­essary. to make a final choice be­tween Elizabeth Waugh's "Simón Bolivar: A Story of Courage," previously reviewed in this department and Nina Brown Baker's "He Wouldn't Be King," which has won the 1941 Intra-American Award annually pre­sented by the Society for the Americas. Mrs. Baker's is per­haps more dramatic in its pres­entation of an essentially dra­matic life, and certainly there is a twinkling humor to throw into perspective some of the lighter aspects of a career and a strug­gle which inevitably took on at times a certain comic opera fla­vor, which really emphasizes the size of the task performed.
This would be good reading if only for the sketches of the col­orful figures which surrounded Bolívar: the picturesque, incredi­ble Páez: the dashing and equally incredible Manuela Sáenz, his eccentric tutor, Rodriguez; the loyal and charming Irishmen who fought under him. A host of such friends, and enemies too. come to life, but all these are properly dominated by the Liber­ator himself, and as the pattern of his life is unfolded in a finely proportioned narrative so is the greatness of his vision and of his achievement. show less

Summary: This is the story of Giuseppi Garibaldi who helped liberate Italy from Austria in the late 1800's.