Eunice by Eileen McNamara

EUNICE by Eileen McNamara, subtitled “The Kennedy Who Changed the World,” was an eye-opening read which I think our students, particularly those who need to write about someone who made a difference, will appreciate.  As the publisher notes, Eunice Kennedy Shriver was “a woman both ahead of her time and out of step with it: the visionary founder of the Special Olympics, a devout Catholic in a secular age, and a formidable woman whose impact on American society was longer lasting than that of any of the Kennedy men.”  It was interesting to read the many details about her childhood and adolescence, the influence that her sister Rosemary’s disability likely had on Shriver’s future actions, and the global magnitude of the changes she made as a determined activist.  One estimate was that the Special Olympics, after 50 years of operation, had served more than 4.9 million athletes from 172 countries with more than a million coaches and volunteers. McNamara, an award-winning journalist from The Boston Globe, describes Shriver’s “compassion as the engine that propelled her to fight for the forgotten.” 

To learn more about an extremely influential woman, read EUNICE, a compelling biography which received starred reviews from Kirkus and Library Journal.  Added NOTE: Author Eileen McNamara will be speaking Thursday, April 26th (7:00pm to 8:15pm) at the Glencoe Public Library, 320 Park Avenue for a program in partnership with The Bookstall.