Guy Friday- This Boy: The Early Lives of John Lennon & Paul McCartney

Cooper, Ilene. This Boy: The Early Lives of John Lennon & Paul McCartney 
August 15, 2023 by Viking Books for Young Readers

E ARC provided by Edelweiss Plus

The Beatles are still a band that is known by a decent number of middle schoolers, and which still has a handful of avid fans, even sixty years after the band's start. My own family has quite an interest in them; my daughter has seen both Ringo and Paul in concert and has been to Liverpool twice. In addition to being a seminal group and a cultural phenomenon, The Beatles is a group whose members were very much of their time. I loved this book not only because it told me about John Lennon and Paul McCartney, but because it showcased post war childhood in England. 

I've read a number of nonfiction books Coot's Biographic: The Beatles, Leonard's Beatleness, Tiwart's The Fifth Beatle, Bellstorf's Baby's in Black, Benhke's Death of a Dreamer,  and Tyler's memoir Fab 4 Mania; those are just a few titles I've reviewed on the blog. I've read many others. I've also been to Liverpool twice, gone on a tour on one of the original Magical Mystery Tour buses (in 2005), and visited The Beatles Story. This book still had some surprises for me, and I learned a lot. The research was excellent, and the style drew me right into the lives of these famous men when they were the age of the students I teach now. 

My students really don't understand that the world was a very different place in the mid 1900s. They can't fathom life without cell phones and computers, and have no idea what England was like after World War II. Reading Cooper's account of the lives of the Beatles put me in mid of the PBS series Call the Midwife. McCartney's mother was, in fact, a midwife, and she also passed away when Paul was in his teens, which unsettled his family life. John's childhood was not secure until his Aunt Mimi took him in. I'd love to see Cooper write a book about Ringo Starr and how the newly created National Health Service kept him alive. Without it, given his family's poverty, Starr would have likely perished. 

This is a must purchase for middle school and high school libraries. Fans of these musicians will keep it in circulation, and readers who enjoyed the portrayal of midcentury life in Tolin's More Than Marmalade, about Michael Bond (b. 1926) or The Sounds of Silence, a memoir by Myron Uhlberg (b. 1933) will enjoy this look at daily life viewed through the eyes of these iconic singers.