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"Growing up, he [Thomas Sowell] never got the chance to know his mother and father. And he often had no money for new shoes, or even for bus fare. When Thomas Sowell left home at age seventeen, all he had in the world fit into a single suitcase. While he looked for work, he often had nothing to eat save for some stale bread and a little jelly. But Sowell refused to give in to despair or self-pity. He was determined to make his life better--and to do it on his own, without favors from anyone. show more Thomas Sowell went on to become a famous thinker, inspiring millions with his writings on self-reliance, the free market, and personal responsibility. His incredible life story, no less than his books, demonstrates the power of his ideas."--Back cover. show lessTags
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themulhern One is the only biography of Thomas Sowell for children; the other is the only biography of Thomas Sowell for adults.
Member Reviews
Five stars for being the _only_ children's biography of Thomas Sowell.
Its most significant flaw is that it devotes too much space to anecdotes about his early childhood and too much space to the story, which may be apocryphal, about his failing student. It passes over his stint in the Marines during the Korean War, which is a vitally important part of his story since he developed some skills and he was enabled to go to college afterward on the GI Bill. It also passes over his marriage, his late talking son, and his formation of a support group for parents of children in a similar situation.
The good points are that the book is actually quite well put together with high quality bespoke illustrations on every page that are a bit cartoonish show more but also realistic. Once Sowell becomes an adult, the depictions of him are unmistakable.
There is a bit of a visual troll in the depiction of Thomas Sowell testifying in Congress. The illustration is taken from an actual event, which can be viewed on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pEOlK4y8AUo . Joseph Biden is sitting directly in front of Sowell, and the man on Biden's left is the man in the video on Biden's left. The man on the right is clearly identified as Strom Thurmond, who is generally associated with a strong defense of segregation at the time when he was a Democrat just like Biden. I'm not sure that Thurmond was present at the hearing or sitting next to Biden, so the illustrator is engaging in a bit of symbolic artistic license, there.
In one of the final pages, Sowell's great outpouring of influential books is shown behind him. It's a pretty good selection, with "Basic Economics", his best selling book, directly above his head. show less
Its most significant flaw is that it devotes too much space to anecdotes about his early childhood and too much space to the story, which may be apocryphal, about his failing student. It passes over his stint in the Marines during the Korean War, which is a vitally important part of his story since he developed some skills and he was enabled to go to college afterward on the GI Bill. It also passes over his marriage, his late talking son, and his formation of a support group for parents of children in a similar situation.
The good points are that the book is actually quite well put together with high quality bespoke illustrations on every page that are a bit cartoonish show more but also realistic. Once Sowell becomes an adult, the depictions of him are unmistakable.
There is a bit of a visual troll in the depiction of Thomas Sowell testifying in Congress. The illustration is taken from an actual event, which can be viewed on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pEOlK4y8AUo . Joseph Biden is sitting directly in front of Sowell, and the man on Biden's left is the man in the video on Biden's left. The man on the right is clearly identified as Strom Thurmond, who is generally associated with a strong defense of segregation at the time when he was a Democrat just like Biden. I'm not sure that Thurmond was present at the hearing or sitting next to Biden, so the illustrator is engaging in a bit of symbolic artistic license, there.
In one of the final pages, Sowell's great outpouring of influential books is shown behind him. It's a pretty good selection, with "Basic Economics", his best selling book, directly above his head. show less
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- Thomas Sowell: A Self-Made Man
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