Teen Age Book Talk; Eleanor Roosevelt and Helen Ferris; WNYC

Good morning. This broadcast marks the return of Teenage Book Talk for its second season, coming to you as before from the Donnell Library Center of the New York Public Library. Our book today is Your Teens and Mine by Eleanor Roosevelt with Helen Ferris, published by Double Day and Company under the Aegis of the Junior Literary Guild. For our guests, we're most honored to have not only Helen Ferris, who was for many years editor-in-chief of the Junior Literary Guild and is an author in her own right, but also the person who to many of us is still First Lady of the Land and indeed First Lady of the World, Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt. Mrs. Roosevelt, surely, I need not introduce you to our panel. It's much more fitting to introduce them to you. They are here to talk with you about your book, which they have read, and I hope you will enjoy this discussion with them. I should be delighted to hear what they felt about the book, what they got out of it, and any criticisms they have, because I'm sure there are many things that perhaps seem strange

to young people today. So I should be very happy to hear what they feel about this book, which Helen Ferris and I wrote together. I'm sure after all you say in the book about the value of honesty that you will certainly be quite willing to hear what they say, and I'm sure that they will be quite willing to say what they think. Mrs. Ferris, we welcome you too for your interest in books, reading, and readers in general, and your share in this book, your teens and mine in particular. You're an old friend of teenage book talk, and we're glad you're back. Well, I might be glad to be here. Your teens and mine, if you read the introduction, really started with teenagers, particularly teenage girls, who asked questions of Mrs. Roosevelt. Then when we wrote the manuscript and it was finished it, when it was finished, we in turn submitted to our teenage consultants, and they criticized it.

And now to have you tell us what you think of the book itself is what might be called the last chapter of this garden. Before we talk about how you react to this, we need a description of the book for our listeners, Corinne, when you describe your teens and mine. Corinne deems Hunter High School. Your teens and mine, by Eleanor Roosevelt, is a story of Mrs. Roosevelt's experiences as a teenager. Her problems, how she overcame them, and the problems of other teenagers that she knows. It is also a guide for teens in that Mrs. Roosevelt shares her feelings about life with readers, make suggestions about family traveling in school, and the many other parts of life in your teens. In general, is this the kind of book that interests you, or does this book differ in any way from other books of this kind which you've read? That's a kind of omnibus question, but Laurie? Laurie Chen, the Hunter College High School.

Well, generally, I don't like books about, you know, advice to teenagers and things like that, but I think this one was extremely good in this type of book because it didn't tell us exactly what to do or how to act on a date and what you talk about, and this and that. It talked about how a person like Mrs. Roosevelt had problems and how she cope with them and how possibly these might be good solutions for our own problems. Maria Gonzalez, Junior High School on 17. I don't think that the book was, I would solve some of our problems because her financial problems, she didn't have any financial problems while we do, and those are most of our problems. So how could she solve some of our problems with, they were so different from hers? Mrs. Roosevelt, would you really agree that a problem is different from all other problems, or is perhaps the basic way of facing it, not so different, no matter what your problem is?

Are finances more difficult than anything else? Well, I can see very well what is meant by saying that financial problem is quite of a different kind when you really have to struggle to get an education. When you really have to struggle to have something to wear and enough to eat so that you feel able to do your work, it's a very different thing from being assured of the basic things and trying to adjust to the situation in which you happen to find yourself. But basically, any problem, I think, that you have to meet requires much the same kind of analysis first of the problem, and then the kind of determination and willingness to work at solving it. I think that is basic to

all problems, whether they are exactly similar or whether they are different. Robert Pasthenak called you in your heart. Mrs. Roosevelt, I've always thought of you as a sort of perfect woman. When I read this book, I was really shocked. I didn't think that a person, if you are high standards, would actually have such problems. It was hard to believe, I imagine, that anyone had problems because you'd always thought, a person who was grown up hadn't thought that you had to grow and that you had to meet problems all the way along, just like anybody else. Is it reassuring, Robert, to know that people who

have attained eminence have also had problems and overcome them? Yes, I think so because it really brings me down to, down to earth, just like any other person that was accepted. Carried to lose. Junior High School 117. Mrs. Roosevelt, why do you say that you had financial problems and other problems with shyness? These teenagers up to date, we don't have any problem with shyness, mostly no one because you didn't go to school, you had tutors coming to you and we have to go to school and we have to talk to some person sometime over another. So I don't think that book was helped anybody with shyness and I don't know, it just didn't show the person, people had a cup of that kind of problem. Let's go back and ask some of the rest of you, is it true that shyness is not a problem with teenagers today? What about it Janet? Jen Schneider, James Monroe, on her school. Well, I disagree entirely because I haven't had that

problem shyness and I felt it helped me and I'm sure it will help lots of other girls because it gives you confidence to know that someone else in an entirely different situation and a little earlier time had the same problem and how she managed to conquer it. Eugene? Eugene de Blasio, card junior high school. Well, I think Mrs. Roosevelt's book would come under the subject of guidance and I found it to be very helpful in the problems I face today. Mrs. Roosevelt looked back on her problems while teenagers up today have tomorrow to look forward to. Eugene, I'm very much interested that you found some help in this. I have often wondered if boys have the same kind of problems as girls and I imagine Mrs. Roosevelt knew they did because of her own sons but are boys really painfully shy? Do they worry about clothes? Do they worry about what to say and how to act in dances or do you know? Well, I know that when the first party

I went to I was in a corner, very shy and I think boys do face many of the problems that Mrs. Roosevelt did face when she was a teenager. Susan Liebeman, card junior high school. Well, I think that the truthful and direct facts in the book were a great advantage over other books and I enjoyed it because it gave truthful direct facts and it didn't skim over subjects that were uninteresting and I think the chapters pertain to subjects that teenagers enjoy reading about. Robert Stonehill, card junior high school. I agree with Susan because I thought this book was very honest and that a person like Mrs. Roosevelt should go and really state how many problems she had in this book which I noticed were quite a few. It's really very honest because like Robert I always had been under the impression that Mrs. Roosevelt was almost perfect. I think that we have an

advantage over Mrs. Roosevelt's teams because well, she lived under well under a certain area while we have to get out more like when she wanted to go someplace she would go only on these certain spots. While we, while trying to work our way and earning money, we learned by experiences so we had more experience than she did. That's right. Jean? Jean are some Walton high school. Well, I was very interested in the part that you wrote about your debut Mrs. Roosevelt because I know that certainly one thing that's never going to happen to me and I was very interested and very happy to find out that there were people who were afraid and that all debutants were not as perfectly polished but had a human side and had human sinuses. How would you tell Brooklyn Tech? Well, though this book was written specifically for girls, though of course there's a lot of good advice and advice. I found there was a great help to me in my many years of association with the

doctor and said, I've never been able to figure some out. I'm sure most of my, I know the most of my friends haven't been able to either. I just want to say to Mrs. Roosevelt that this has been a sort of a help to me and sort of clearing up the mess. Susan Erdog, Hunter High School. Well, I think one of the most important things about the book was the skillful way that the profitable advice was brought out of Mrs. Roosevelt's experiences because it's very difficult to take a real life experiences and problems that people have had and make an interesting guide. Well, you can call it a guide out of it and it was very well done and very interesting reading. Do you think that advice is more valuable for what it says or for the person who says it? I think it's most important for what it says. I think that of course it's very interesting to have someone like Mrs. Roosevelt write a book like this and it does,

it is in a way a little different and more interesting, but still advice is advice from whoever you get it and if it's good advice it pertains, no matter who gives it to you. Laurie, do you agree? No, I don't. Laurie Ross, no Hunter High School. Well, as a matter of fact, I disagree because I have read several books written for teenagers and they written very polished and they each chapter has had acts on the date and how to do this. You mentioned this before and I think because she's so great and we found out that she has many problems that we face, it was much more interesting to me. I didn't, I wasn't talking about the style of the book was written in. I know that the style, this is very interesting that she wrote it from a different standpoint since she was a very famous person and it means something more, but still if you get good advice, if a book like this you say that you read it and it weren't very good, but apparently the message not giving you that much good advice in order for it not to be so good, but if it is a good book with good advice and it doesn't matter who writes it. Let's talk about some of the specific parts in it that are a little

more close, they relate it not to your problems of shyness, but your problems and being a citizen and getting along with your family and all of that. Were there any of those parts that you remember as particularly helpful or not helpful, Janet? Well I like the parts where they told about the high school students visiting other states to see how in their own country you could be so different and in some cases the students also went to other countries to explore and speak to the common person on the street and find out about his country in a down-earth viewpoint. Well I'd like to say that I thought this book was more than a god for the teens and more about a story of Mrs. Roswell's problems. I thought it was an excellent account especially of her travels and I especially love the chapter on books. I found that Mrs. Roswell and I had read many books in common and it was very interesting to see her comments on them. Mrs. Roswell, I think probably one of the unusual parts of this book is the chapter which compares experiences in school with experiences

of citizens and I was wondering if our group read that with a new idea about how school can fit you for being a citizen of your country and of your world. I thought it was a very interesting chapter. One of the best in the book because it showed how your training in school can help you to be a better citizen. There was one part in the book that I sort of didn't quite get it. It seems little ambiguous with the rest of the book. It talked about the time when Mrs. Roswell was at the UN and she was assigned a committee instead of being consultant about it and she accepted it without even knowing what the committee was about. Now I think that following from the other advice she gave in the book she should have first found out what the committee was about before she accepted it because it seems more like she just didn't know it was having she just accepted what was given to her with our question. Mrs. Roswell, you might like to clarify that problem of the UN

committee and a woman's place in government. I think that's a game, a question of having taken too much for granted which I find very often you write and you talk about things thinking that another person understands because of certain background and forget that you should explain. I was the only woman on a delegation which was going to do something that had never been done before. I was going to meet in London on a preparatory commission to set up a United Nations and I was the one woman, all the rest were men and I knew that if I questioned what assignment I had been given I might not get an assignment and I'd be left without one and I thought it was much better not to question to show a willingness to study and to and I asked to immediately I probably didn't say this for all the papers on the committee that I had been assigned to and when I went

back into my state room that night I had a pile of papers that blew papers and they're about so long and they write on one side. I had a pile of papers that was this high and I knew that I had to read every one of those and that I probably had to be better prepared than any of the men who were going to serve on committees because if I made any mistake it wouldn't be just Eleanor Roosevelt that had made a mistake it would have been all women and they would have said well now look what's the use of putting a woman on she's no good you see what mistake she made and so I really had a tremendous sense of responsibility and that's why I accepted and just asked for as much knowledge as they could give me and I should have also said that on that trip there were briefings by State Department people and that I not only went to all the briefings for the delegates but I went to all the newspaper people's briefings so that I would get everything I could

get before I got there. You must say that Mrs. Roosevelt is a very astute stateswoman we haven't really scratched the surface in this book we really should take time to talk a little bit about the personal problems Mrs. Roosevelt overcame her shyness her fears how she became a member of government and how she encouraged citizenship and what she has to say about your experiences in school with committees and with elections and what she has to say and answer to the question how can teenagers help maintain the peace Mrs. Roosevelt at this time the answers to those questions particularly that about peace are so important I wish you would for this group reiterate a little bit what teenagers can do. Well I think teenagers have a chance to learn while they are in school about the rest of the world and of course one of the important things for us in the United States because we are now trying to lead as many nations as we can in

the world is to know about them you can't lead people if you don't understand anything about their problems if you don't know what that country is like if you don't know what goes on there what the habits and customs are how can you lead them how can you talk to them even so you really file your teenager have a chance to study the rest of the world and I'll tell you an interesting little story I think one of our troubles is that very often without knowing and almost everything that happens here is connected with something that happens in other parts of the world but we don't know so very often we do harm without knowing it I had a grandson this summer who was at Harvard and went as a volunteer on the request of the government of Tanganika the prime minister 20 Harvard boys went to do whatever work they were told to do while they're some during their

summer holiday and he was signed to the famine area and one of his first letters said he described what it was like he'd never seen a famine before I didn't know what a famine was like and he said thank God the shipping strike at home is over because we were running out of corn now it was our American corn that was being distributed that was keeping those people alive and so when he came home I said to him you know if anyone in this country had said to the stretchers this ship has to be loaded with corn to go to a famine country they would have loaded that ship there wasn't any question any any one of them would have gone to work and loaded the ship but because even I will try to keep very much up on the things that connectors with the rest of the world didn't realize that that strike was holding up the corn that we were sending to Tanganika and it never could to me to go down say to some of those men look load that ship I could have done

it but I just didn't know enough now this is what I think is important that we should all try to get the basic knowledge while we're young in school so that as we grow up when we see something is happening we will immediately tie the things together and realize what's happening in our country affects some other part of the world and if we don't understand it we may without we might have really caused the death of a great many people if the shipping strike hadn't happened to come to an end and probably that story really underlines the basic theme of your teens and mine Linda may I ask you whether you think that you could recommend this to any kind of person or any age for whom is it Linda, a can of Dominican Academy well I think that this is a very good book for all age groups those who are just about to become teens those who are teens and those who

have just graduated from the teen years well perhaps we can summarize the pros and cons of your comments on your teens and mine by Eleanor Roosevelt with Helen Ferris gene the cons first well the only con that I can remember is that we disagreed about the studying habits of today's teenagers and that really isn't Mrs. Roosevelt's fault a lot of what about the pros well I'd say that we were glad to find out that a person like Mrs. Roosevelt faced the same problems that we do today and we felt that she gave us good solid advice about our problems what to do how to cope with them and also I think the boys gained some knowledge about the girls and I think maybe they get to understand us better and maybe the girls find out that the boys have problems too Mrs. Roosevelt and Miss Ferris author and collaborator have the last word in the discussion so I might ask you have the reviewers found out from the book what you hope they would or have they failed to see

some of your points that you think important well I think on the whole the reviewers have been very kind and I in turn Mrs. Roosevelt too both of us are very grateful to our teenage friends who helped us with the book well Mrs. Rosa felt in the chapter exploring in books and your teens and mine you say I have my requirements for what I consider a good story perhaps I can read good book there you say I want to be interested in knowing how it comes out I want the people in it to be real I want the place where it happens to seem real and I want what happens to be true to life judging from our discussion today your book does meet these requirements of yours it blends your own life story and experiences with wise and detached advice to today's teenagers it's interesting it's true it's inspirational to you for your charity wisdom and honesty our gratitude and to you Helen Ferris for I am sure as Mrs. Roosevelt has said prodding her into writing

your teens and mine also our gratitude this is a book and an occasion we shall never forget to our listeners tune in again next Saturday at 10.30am to hear our teenage book talk panel review the Queen's most honorable pirate with author James Plasted Wood as guest and here now is our announcer