Kennedy Through the Lens

Gr 7 Up—This photo-biography is similar in format to Sandler's Lincoln: Through the Lens (Walker, 2008). Black-and-white and color photographs, some better known than others, accompany Sandler's commentary and quotes from JFK. Even before the title page, the author engages readers with a few photographs, and, after the introduction, provides a semi-chronological record of the man's life from his early years to his assassination. He balances Kennedy's professional role with entries on the Civil Rights Movement, the Vietnam War, and the Cold War alongside his private life, and he touches on how even candid family photographs aided him politically. When discussing the controversial subjects of Kennedy's infidelities and his physical ailments, Sandler does not sensationalize them. In his coverage of the images surrounding the assassination, he provides readers with a sense of why these pictures have such significance. A page on the Special Olympics, which President Kennedy's sister Eunice established in 1968, seems an odd inclusion. It also seems inappropriate for Sandler, in a caption for a photograph of the funeral procession, to refer to Kennedy as a martyr. Though this title is accessible and well researched, the criticisms make it less appealing as a biography.—Hilary Writt, Sullivan University, Lexington, KY