"When I was in elementary school, I discovered the joy of reading biographies. In my mind's eye, I can still see the shelf containing a series about important figures in American history. I loved the stories and was disappointed when I finished the last book. First impressions leave a mark, so I retained a rather idealistic view of these people, which was probably the goal of the series. Thus, when I was required to read a biography of George Washington in my first (and only) college history class, I was exposed to much more than the cherry tree and the crossing of the Delaware. The text was in-depth and well researched, but the iconic figure was not the larger-than-life hero I remembered. He was human and quite fallible, and I was a bit disillusioned. But perhaps the humanity of the subject is one of the benefits of reading biographies." You can read the rest of my post here .