Read Of Thee I Sing: A Letter to My Daughters Online

Authors: Barack Obama

Tags: #American, #General, #Biography & Autobiography, #History, #United States, #Social Issues, #Juvenile Nonfiction, #Philosophy, #Heroes, #Juvenile Literature, #Conduct of life, #Virtues, #National characteristics, #Ethics & Moral Philosophy, #Heroes - United States

Of Thee I Sing: A Letter to My Daughters

THIS IS A BORZOI BOOK PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A. KNOPF

Text copyright © 2010 by Barack Obama

Jacket art and interior illustrations copyright © 2010 by Loren Long

All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

Knopf, Borzoi Books, and the colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.

eISBN: 978-0-375-98329-0

The illustrations in this book were created using acrylic on board.

November 2010

FIRST EDITION

Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.

To Michelle—whose fierce love and daily good sense have nourished such wonderful daughters

—B.O.

To my sons, Griff and Graham

—L.L.

Have I told you lately how wonderful you are?

How the sound of your feet

running from afar

brings dancing rhythms to my day?

How you laugh

and sunshine spills into the room?

Have I told you that you are creative?

A woman named Georgia O’Keeffe

moved to the desert and painted petals, bone, bark.

She helped us see big beauty in what is small:

the hardness of stone and the softness of feather.

Have I told you that you are smart?

That you braid great ideas with imagination?

A man named Albert Einstein

turned pictures in his mind into giant advances in science,

changing the world

with energy and light.

Have I told you that you are brave?

A man named Jackie Robinson played baseball

and showed us all

how to turn fear to respect

and respect to love.

He swung his bat with the grace and strength of a lion

and gave brave dreams to other dreamers.

Have I told you that you are a healer?

Sitting Bull was a Sioux medicine man

who healed broken hearts and broken promises.

It is fine that we are different, he said.

“For peace, it is not necessary for eagles to be crows.”

Though he was put in prison,

his spirit soared free on the plains, and his wisdom

touched the generations.

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