* Fleming, Candace. Ben Franklin's Almanac: Being a True Account of the Good Gentleman's Life.(Book Review)(Children's Review)(Brief Article)

120p. reprods. bibliog. chron. further reading. index. Web sites. CIP. S & S/Atheneum/An Anne Schwartz Bk. Sept. 2003. RTE $19.95. ISBN 0-689-83549-3. LC 2002006136.

Gr 5-9--In her introduction, Fleming says that she set out to write a straightforward biography of one of America's most forward-thinking and inventive statesmen but round the form to be too restrictive and not true to Franklin's wide-ranging interests and accomplishments. She has written instead a compendium of "... bits and pieces by subject" put into eight chapters with headings such as "Boyhood Memories" and "Tokens of a Well-Lived Life." In scrapbook style, the chapters are centered around …