Bonnie and Clyde: The Making of a Legend

by Karen Blumenthal

Overview

Bonnie and Clyde may be the most notorious—and celebrated—outlaw couple America has ever known. This is the true story of how they got that way.

Bonnie and Clyde: we've been on a first name basis with them for almost a hundred years. Immortalized in movies, songs, and pop culture references, they are remembered mostly for their storied romance and tragic deaths. But what was life really like for Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker in the early 1930s? How did two dirt-poor teens from west Texas morph from vicious outlaws to legendary couple? And why?

Award-winning author Karen Blumenthal devoted months to tracing the footsteps of Bonnie and Clyde, unearthing new information and debunking many persistent myths. The result is an impeccably researched, breathtaking nonfiction tale of love, car chases, kidnappings, and murder set against the backdrop of the Great Depression.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780451471222
Publisher:	Penguin Young Readers Group
Publication date:	08/14/2018
Pages:	256
Sales rank:	186,495
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 8.90(h) x 1.10(d)
Age Range:	12 - 17 Years

About the Author

Karen Blumenthal is a critically acclaimed children's nonfiction writer and former journalist for the Wall Street Journal. She is the author of seven nonfiction books for young readers including Steve Jobs: The Man Who Thought Different, Hillary Rodham Clinton: A Woman Living History, and Bootleg: Murder, Moonshine, and the Lawless Years of Prohibition. She lives in Dallas, Texas.

Table of Contents

Prologue 1

1 Joplin, Mo., April 1933.- 3

2 Telico, Tex., March 24, 1909.- 8

3 West Of Dallas, Tex., 1922.- 13

4 Waco, Tex., March 1930.- 26

5 Eastham Farm, Texas Prison System, 1930-1932.- 36

6 Electra, Tex., April 14, 1932.- 46

7 Stringtown, Okla., August 5, 1932.- 58

8 Carlsbad, N.Mex., August 14, 1932.- 69

9 Sherman, Tex., October 11, 1932.- 78

10 Temple, Tex., December 25, 1932.- 87

11 Joplin, Mo., April 13, 1933.- 97

12 Wellington, Tex., June 10, 1933.- 110

13 Platte City, Mo., July 19, 1933.- 122

14 Des Moines, Iowa, July 1933.- 133

15 Eastham Farm, Texas Prison System, January 16, 1934.- 147

16 Grapevine, Tex., April 1, 1934.- 157

17 Near Gibsland, La., May 23, 1934.- 173

18 Dallas, Tex.- 187

19 Hollywood, Calif.- 198

A Note About "The Story of Bonnie and Clyde".- 209

What Happened to 213

Key Dates 218

Acknowledgments 221

A Note About Facts and Sources 224

Source Notes 227

Bibliography 240

Photo Credits 246

Index 247

Editorial Reviews

"Blumenthal has written more than a crime narrative or a biography of the famous outlaws Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker. The book presents a social and cultural snapshot of the duo’s times"
—School Library Journal

"Through her use of narrative nonfiction, Blumenthal builds a gripping story for readers of all ages. . .Blumenthal weaves her detailed account of history into a suspenseful tale that reads very much like a novel." —Voya

From the Publisher

07/01/2018
Gr 7 Up—Utilizing witness accounts, contemporary news coverage, and material gained from family interviews and personal letters, Blumenthal has written more than a crime narrative or a biography of the famous outlaws Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker. The book presents a social and cultural snapshot of the duo's times as well as a detailed reporting of their crimes, combining information on the couple's deeds and misdeeds with excerpts from Parker's poems, mugshots, newspaper clippings, and family photos. Cultural artifacts and the phenomenon that contributed to the outlaws' legend are explained in highlighted sections, as are obituaries for each of the Barrow gang's victims. Blumenthal humanizes these gangsters of the Great Depression by placing them within the era in which they lived. In doing so, she never minimizes or excuses the carnage and destruction they caused, nor the terrible price they ultimately paid. The insightful back matter includes sections on "What Happened to…?" and "A Note About Facts and Sources." VERDICT This historical true-crime story is recommended for providing nuanced perspective without glorifying the misdeeds that shaped its subjects' lives and deaths.—Kelly Kingrey-Edwards, Blinn Junior College, Brenham, TX

School Library Journal

2018-05-15
A portrait of two victims of the Great Depression whose taste for guns and fast cars led to short careers in crime but longer ones as legends.Blumenthal (Hillary Rodham Clinton, 2016, etc.) makes a determined effort to untangle a mare's nest of conflicting eyewitness accounts, purple journalism, inaccurate police reports, and self-serving statements from relatives and cohorts of Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow. Though the results sometimes read as dry recitations of names and indistinguishable small towns, she makes perceptive guesses about what drove them and why they have become iconic figures, along with retracing their early lives, two-year crime spree, and subsequent transformations into doomed pop-culture antiheroes. She does not romanticize the duo—giving many of their murder victims faces through individual profiles, for instance, and describing wounds in grisly detail—but does convincingly argue that their crimes and characters (particularly Bonnie's) were occasionally exaggerated. Blumenthal also wrenchingly portrays the desperation that their displaced, impoverished families must have felt while pointedly showing how an overtaxed, brutal legal system can turn petty offenders into violent ones. A full version of Bonnie's homespun ballad "The Story of Bonnie and Clyde" and notes on the subsequent lives of significant relatives, accomplices, and lawmen join meaty lists of sources and interviews at the end.Painstaking, judicious, and by no means exculpatory but with hints of sympathy. (photos, timeline, author's note, source notes, bibliography, index) (Biography. 12-14)

Kirkus Reviews