Heroes for My Son by Brad Meltzer Read Free Book Online

training, but I said, “Don’t quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion.”
    â€”Muhammad Ali

— ORATOR —
barack obama
    President.

    The journey of Barack Obama, the forty-fourth president of the United States of America, is just beginning, but even his critics acknowledge the amazing story of everything it took to arrive at the White House.
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    W hat do you call the son of a Kenyan economist and a girl from Kansas?
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    A black boy raised by white grandparents in a cramped two-bedroom apartment in Hawaii?
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    A rebellious student who scooped ice cream at Baskin-Robbins?
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    An idealistic college graduate searching to make a difference?
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    A law professor still struggling to make peace with the memory of his father?
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    A senator who favored the power of hope , igniting generations of believers?
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    You call him proof that, in America, anyone can be president. *
    I will never forget that the only reason I’m standing here today is because somebody, somewhere stood up for me when it was risky. Stood up when it was hard. Stood up when it wasn’t popular. And because that somebody stood up, a few more stood up. And then a few thousand stood up. And then a few million stood up. And standing up, with courage and clear purpose, they somehow managed to change the world.
    â€”Barack Obama

— NOVELIST —
harper lee
    Author of To Kill a Mockingbird.

    In 1960 Harper Lee’s first and only novel began influencing readers’ perceptions of race and innocence. It is perhaps the most celebrated American novel of the twentieth century.
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    S he didn’t think the story was there.
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    Five years after starting, she was convinced her novel wasn’t worth a damn.
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    Maybe she should’ve become a lawyer after all.
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    It was then that she threw open her window and tossed the manuscript out, scattering it in the filthy snow.
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    In a fit, Harper Lee called her editor Tay Hohoff. No one knows what Hohoff said to her.
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    But when Harper Lee hung up, she went outside, gathered the pages, and saved the manuscript.
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    She revised and revised and revised—until To Kill a Mockingbird was ready. *
    I think there’s just one kind of folks. Folks.
    â€”Scout
    According to the Library of Congress, To Kill a Mockingbird is second only to the Bible in being most often cited as making a difference in people’s lives.
    It is the only novel Harper Lee ever published.

— ARCHITECT —
thomas jefferson
    Author of the Declaration of Independence. Thinker. Statesman. President.

    Thomas Jefferson was delegated by the Continental Congress to write a document proclaiming the colonies free from British rule. His Declaration of Independence became America’s first words.
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    F or seventeen days, the thirty-three-year-old secluded himself in a rented room in Philadelphia.
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    On a small, portable desk, he began writing, laying the foundations of this new American government. Unlike every nation before it, this country’s heart would not beat with the blood of royal lines. This would be a nation based on ideals.
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    It took Thomas Jefferson seventeen days to find the right words. Seventeen days of writing and rewriting before he nervously presented his document to John Adams and Benjamin Franklin.
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    The Declaration of Independence became the greatest decree in Western civilization.
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    Jefferson could’ve easily taken credit for writing it. But he never bragged about his accomplishment. Even when he was elected president, most Americans never knew he was the author of their independence.
    In fact, his authorship didn’t become common knowledge until years later after his death.
    Because to Jefferson, the Declaration of Independence was written not just for all of America, but by all of America. It was the manifestation of a new nation and a new mind.
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    He was merely the