The Remarkable Ronald Reagan: Cowboy and Commander in Chief

The Remarkable Ronald Reagan: Cowboy and Commander in Chief by Susan Allen

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


A wonderful book about President Ronald Reagan written for preschoolers. The words and illustrations are outstanding. Susan Allen the author is the former Governor of Virginia's wife. Her illustrator is artist, Leslie Harrington. The book is a warm tell about President Reagan. It has a little history about the President and names many of the good things he accomplished while in office. The back has a timeline and a list of quotes which I have included in this review. Even as an adult I really enjoyed reading this book. I trust you will enjoy the quotes below:

“You can be too big for God to use, but you cannot be too small.”

"Within the covers of the Bible are all the answers for all of the problems man face."

Highlights from a Life Well-Lived

• February 6, 1911
Ronald Wilson Reagan is born in Tampico, Illinois, to John (Jack) and Nellie Reagan.

• 1920
After years of moving from town to town, the Reagan family settles in Dixon, Illinois.

• 1924
Reagan enters Dixon’s Northside High School.

• 1926
Reagan spends the first of seven summers working as a lifeguard in Lowell Park on the Rock River.

• Fall 1928 – Spring 1932
Reagan attends Eureka College near Peoria Illinois. Graduating with a dual degree in sociology and economics, he excelled as an actor, student leader, and football player.

• 1932
Within six weeks of graduation, Reagan begins his career as a radio sports announcer at WOC radio in Davenport, Iowa.

• April 29, 1937
He enlists as a private in the Army Enlisted Reserve, and is assigned to serve with the 322nd Calvary Regiment at Des Moines, Iowa.

• 1937
Reagan signs a seven-year acting contract with Warner Brothers.

• June 8, 1937
He accepts an Officer’s Commission and is appointed as a second lieutenant with the 323rd Calvary Regiment in Los Angeles, California.

• January 26, 1940
Reagan marries actress Jane Wyman.

• January for 1941
Their daughter Maureen is born.

• April 19, 1942
Reagan is ordered into active military duty following the Pearl Harbor attacks.

• March 1945
Their son Michael is adopted.

• March 10, 1947
Reagan is elected president of the Screen Actors Guild.

• June 6, 1948
Reagan and Jane Wyman divorce

• March 4, 1952
He marries Nancy Davis.

• October 22, 1952
Their daughter Patricia (Patty) is born.

• May 28, 1958
Their son Ronald Prescott (Ron) is born.

• October 27, 1964
Reagan delivers his “A Time for Choosing” speech on national television in support Barry Goldwater for president and becomes known as a national political figure.

• January 1, 1966
Reagan announces his candidacy for governor of California with promises to reduce the waste in government.

• November 8, 1966
Reagan is elected by almost one million votes more than his opponent, incumbent Democratic Governor Edmund G. (“Pat”) Brown.

• January 3, 1967
Reagan is sworn in as governor of California.

• August 5, 1968
Reagan announces his candidacy for the presidential nomination but loses the primary to Richard Nixon.

• 1970
Reagan wins reelection as governor.

• January 18, 1973
Reagan submits a $9.258 billion budget with a $1.1 billion surplus and gives taxpayers a rebate

• November 13, 1974
Ronald and Nancy Reagan purchase Rancho de Cielo.

• November 20, 1975
Reagan runs for president again. This time he loses the primary race to the then current president Gerald Ford. Ford goes on to lose the election to Democrat Jimmy Carter.

• July 17, 1980
Reagan accepts the Republican nomination for president.

• January 20, 1981
Reagan is sworn in as the 40th president of United States.

• March 30, 1981
Reagan is shot by John Hinckley Junior outside a Washington hotel. The bullet missed his heart by less than an inch, lodging in his long and causing it to collapse.

• August 13, 1981
He signs the Economic Recovery Act at Rancho del Cielo.

• September 1981
Reagan appoints the first female Supreme Court justice, Sandra Day O’Connor.

• January 29, 1984
Reagan formally announces he will seek reelection.

• November 4, 1984
Reagan defeats his Democratic opponent Walter Mondale in a landslide. Reagan carries 49 states -- 525 electoral votes to Mondale’s 10, and 59 percent of the popular vote.

• January 20, 1985
Reagan is sworn in for a second term. At 73 years of age, he is the oldest president ever to take office.

• January 15, 1986
Reagan signs of legislation making the birthday of Martin Luther King Jr. a national holiday to be celebrated on the third Monday of January.

• January 28, 1986
The U.S. space shuttle Challenger explodes only seventy-three seconds after so takeoff. All six astronauts and the first civilian to go to space (teacher Christa McAuliffe) perish.

• June 12, 1987
Reagan challenges Soviet Leader Mikhail Gorbachev to tear down the Berlin Wall.

• December 8, 1987
Reagan and Gorbachev signed the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF treaty)-- a landmark agreement to eliminate an entire class of nuclear weapons .

• January 14, 1989
In his farewell address, Reagan states: “They called it the Reagan revolution. Well, I’ll accept that, but for me it’s always seemed more like the great rediscovery, a rediscovery of our values and our common sense.”

• January 20, 1989
George Bush is inaugurated; Ronald and Nancy Reagan fly to California. Reagan leaves office with the highest approval rating of any president since Franklin Roosevelt.

• November 4, 1991
The Reagan library and museum, located in Simi Valley, California, is dedicated.

• 1993
Reagan is diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease.

• November 5, 1994
Reagan address is a letter to the American people in which he discloses that he is suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. He no longer appears in public.

• June 5, 2004
Ronald Reagan dies peacefully at his home in California. At age 93, he lived longer than any president in American history.


President Reagan wrote more than ten thousand letters over his lifetime. Many, of course, we're to important world leaders, loving family, and friends. Reagan especially enjoyed corresponding with children – – both to hearing your ideas and to encourage them.
Following are examples of some of the letters he sent and received from children:

President Ronald Reagan had an ongoing correspondence with a seven-year-old boy named Rudolph Lee-Hines. At the time Rudolph attended the Congress Heights Elementary School in Washington, D.C.; he received 175 letters from the president over a period of five years.

April 9, 1984
“You… mentioned reading and that is good. Rudolph, if you get in the habit of reading stories for pleasure you will never be lonely. Sometimes I worry that TV is going to rob young people of the great pleasure there is in a good book."

After President Reagan was shot, a second grader named Peter Sweeney from Riverside School and Rockville Centre sent the following note to the president:

“I hope you get well quick or you might have to make a speech in your pajamas.

P.S. If you have to make a speech in your pajamas, I warned you.”

-----------------------------------------------
Feb. 15

Dear Sandy

Will you please tell your teacher and your classmates how very much I appreciate all their good wishes and kind thoughts. It is wonderful to know that young people like all of you with so much to keep you busy could still find time to hold out your hand in friendship to someone far away.

I hope you'll believe me when I say that my decision to enter the political race was because I want so much to help preserve this wonderful country for you and the Skipper and all young Americans. There are so many things to be thankful for in America, so many things that must not be lost; our right to go to different churches, have our own ideas on government, choose our friends and what kind of work we’ll do when we finally finished our school days.

If some of us help keep this for you I know you'll keep it for other young people when you grow up.

Again thanks

Ronald Reagan

Important Things Ronald Reagan Said

They called him the “Great Communicator” because somehow he always seemed to know just the right thing to say. Some of his most famous quotes were . . .

Sometimes Funny . . .

“I’ve often said there’s nothing better for the inside of a man then the outside of a horse.”(which he got from Winston Churchill)

"A hippie is someone who looks like Tarzan, walks like Jane, and smells like Cheetah."

“I have left orders to be awakened at any time in case of national emergency, even if I’m in a cabinet meeting.”

“I hope you’re all Republicans.” (two surgeons as he entered the operating room following his assassination attempt)

“I want you to know I will not make age an issue of this campaign. I am not going to exploit, for political purposes, my opponents youth and inexperience.”(to Walter Mondale at a debate)

“But there are advantages to being elected president. The day after I was elected, I had my high school grades classified Top Secret.”

“The nine most dangerous words in the English language are: I’m from the government and I’m here to help.”

Sometimes Wise . . .

“Whatever else history may say about me when I’m gone, I hope it will record that I appealed to your best hopes, not your worst fears . . .”

“We can’t help everyone, but everyone can help someone.”

“The American dream is not that everyman must be level with every other man. The American dream is that every man must be free to become whatever God intends he should become.”

“We must reject the idea that every time a law’s broken, society is guilty rather than a lawbreaker. It’s time to restore the American precept that each individual is accountable for his actions.”

“All great change in America begins at the dinner table.”

“I hope we have once again reminded people that man is not free unless government is limited. There’s a clear cause and effect here that is as neat and predictable as a law of physics: as government expands, liberty contracts.”

"Governments first duty is to protect the people, not run their lives."

“A people free to choose will always choose peace.”

Sometimes Profound . . .

“You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We will preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on earth, or we will sentence them to take the first step into 1000 years of darkness. If we fail, at least let our children and our children’s children say of us we justified her brief moment here. We did all that could be done.”

"Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction."

“If we lose freedom here, there is no place to escape to. This is the last stand on earth.”

"Let us resolve tonight that young Americans will always . . . find there a city of hope in a country that is free. And let us resolve they will say of our day and our generation that we did keep the faith with our God, that we did act ‘worthy of ourselves,’ that we did protect and pass on lovingly that shining city on a hill.”

“There is no limit to what a man can do or where he can go if he doesn’t mind who gets the credit.” –Words of wisdom from Ronald Reagan

For More Information

To find out more about the Rancho del Cielo, go online The Reagan Ranch

To find out more about the life and times of Ronald Reagan, go online to the Ronald Reagan Foundation and Library.




"A Time For Choosing"

View all my reviews

To order this book click here!