"Close Calls" by Spradlin is a fascinating read about the near death experiences of 11 US Presidents. Whether assassination attempts, wartime escapades, nuclear reactor repair...this book has some really amazing and interesting stories. It is a quick read and the length is great (just a little over 100 pages) for middle schoolers. The events tell of acts of heroism and courage and offer insight into these historic personalities that most young people don't know. Very well done.

Fascinating information about our country's past presidents!
Thanks to NetGalley And Bloomsbury Publishing for the opportunity to read and review Close Calls by Michael P. Spradlin.
A collection of short stories describes how eleven of past United States presidents escaped “from the brink of death”. The book begins with the threats to George Washington and continues throughout the centuries to the first President Bush. It seems that we learn about the assassinations only but never the attempts that aren’t successful or the other dangers presidents have been in. I never realized that JFK almost died in a boat crash while serving during World War II just as I hadn’t realized how many death threats President Lincoln received. Fascinating information and snippets of facts sprinkled throughout the book make it an interesting nonfiction read. 5 stars!

Interesting historical tidbits of history about 11 presidents who escaped death. Most of the events happened before the man became president thus allowing their history as president to play out. Interesting choice of Lincoln on the cover since he did escape and attempt and then, of course, later didn't. Most were stories I had heard before but a few were new. History buffs will like this and it is pretty accessible.

Thank you to NetGalley and Bloomsbury USA Children’s Books for the review copy of Close Calls: How Eleven U.S. Presidents Escaped from the Brink of Death. This book will be released on January 7, 2020. All opinions are my own.

We're all aware of the presidents who have met tragic fates. However, few of us probably know about the many close calls our former presidents have also faced. Spradlin recalls the close calls faced by 11 U.S. presidents. These close calls include both assassination attempts and near-death war experiences. Some of these occurred during their presidencies while others occurred before they became president.

I found this book to be extremely interesting. I learned about the assassinations of Lincoln and Kennedy in school, but I wasn't aware of how many other presidents had survived assassination attempts or that Lincoln survived an assassination attempt before the one that ended up killing him. This book is told in chronological order and I enjoyed the fact that Spradlin also included sidebars providing additional information on topics related to the close call. For example, I learned about the life of Davy Crockett. I had no clue that he was a congressman and that he helped to thwart an assassination attempt on President Jackson. I also didn't know that Teddy Roosevelt was shot and then proceeded to deliver a 90 minute speech before seeking medical attention. These stories were completely enthralling. The narrative voice was easy to fall into, and I think this is a perfect nonfiction book for middle grade readers. The title will draw their initial attention and the narrative voice will hook them. I hope to get a copy of this for my classroom library in the new year.

E ARC Provided by Netgalley

There was a recent Jeopardy! champion who apparently got himself up to speed on many areas of knowledge by reading children's nonfiction books. This would have been an excellent one to consult for information about presidents and their lesser known brushes with death!

The most interesting thing about this is that it wasn't all information about assassination attempts that I've read before. Readers who like war stories will be drawn in by Kennedy's PT-109 story (instead of November of 1963), and Ford's service on the USS Monterey (instead of the two attempts on his life while in office), and Eisenhower's involvement in World War II. The spying that George Washington had to deal with while he was otherwise engaged in the Revolutionary War is something I didn't know about, and the sidebar about the Tories was informative as well. Andrew Jackson's temperament and demeanor are described in enough detail that I was almost sympathetic to Richard Lawrence and his malfunctioning, damp pistols. Harry Truman's would be assassins, however, were almost a comedy of errors, although I am very glad that Truman was saved because he was living at Blair House while the White House was being renovated.

Each entry is less than ten pages long, and written in a particularly fast-paced, engaging way. The tone is a bit flippant at times (Page 4 of the E ARC: "The constant spying drove Washington batty"), but only when the person discussed is not in any real danger. The section on Lincoln, and his dealings with the Pinkerton Detective Agency, was particularly gripping, and had me holding my breath with the one line description of events. Theodore Roosevelt also gets a treatment worthy of a man willing to give a ninety minute speech after his notes saved him from getting a bullet to his lungs, even though he did get hit and was bleeding!

It would have been nice to have the presidental portraits of the leaders discussed, although many readers today would just look those up online.(https://www.whitehousehistory.org/galleries/presidential-portraits)

My only real problem with the book was that the E ARC was a bit slow to load, making it difficult to go back and list all of the presidents mentioned. The table of contents has clever titles, but does not list the subjects.

The short, high-interest discussions of various incidents might lead readers to further pursue longer books, like Swanson's Chasing Lincoln's Killer, Seiple's Death on the River of Doubt (Roosevelt), and Martin's In Harm's Way (Kennedy). This is a compelling, quotable book that is sure to interest readers who like history, danger, or who want to add some presidential anecdotes to their lunch table conversation!