Book Review: ‘John Lennon: All I Want is the Truth’ by Elizabeth Partridge

Here’s another late review since this book was published in 2005, but I just heard about  ‘John Lennon: All I want is the Truth’ from a new friend who is friends with the author…so I bought a copy to check it out!  This book was described to me as ‘a book about John Lennon for teenagers’.

The first thing that will surprise you about ‘John Lennon: All I want is the Truth’ is it’s large size: 10.5′ x 10″.  This book looks more like a coffee table book than a book for children.  Also the reader will be suprised at the wonderful photographs throughout the book…adding to it’s ‘not so much for children’ style.  Don’t get me wrong…this book is absolutely beautiful to look at and page through and would be a standout book for anyone’s Beatles book collection.  But (and you knew it was coming)…most Beatles Freaks don’t buy books for their looks.  Beatles Freaks want facts…real facts and they want the truth.

The author does a pretty good job of telling John’s story.  Some of the facts that seem to be wrong are the usual ones, such as Aunt Mimi ducking and hiding from an air raid while on her way to see John in the hospital on the day he was born.  Other than those, which are few and far between, the book is a very easy read with great detail mixed with the gorgeous pictures on every page.

Now, herein lies the problem…sometimes the details are a little much for the younger generation that this book is aimed at.  Ms. Partridge brings up such topics as Paul losing his virginity, ‘knee tremblers’, prellies, etc.  I don’t know that I would have wanted my tweener or young teenager reading these details even if it is about the Fab Four.  My opinion (and it is just that…mine) is that this book would be great for anyone over the age of 15.

This book is available on Amazon and there are some great deals for it on Half.com.

So there you have it…big, beautiful, well-written, though sometimes erroneously, book about the life of John Lennon that would look great in your collection and everyone will enjoy the great pictures!

This brings me to a very difficult decision on what to rate this book, but since this book did win a BCCB BLUE RIBBON NONFICTION BOOK AWARD and a  2006 Michael L. Printz Award, I’m going to bump my rating up to:

I rate this book: 3 out of 4 Beetles