A new children’s book, Our White House Looking In, Looking Out, commissioned by the National Children's Book and Literary Alliance, features contributions from over 100 children’s books authors and illustrators. David McCullough, the historian, provided the introduction. In an interview about the book, Mary Brigid Barrett, the Alliance’s President, Executive Director, and Founder, describes her visits to the White House and her childhood memories of Cleveland:
"Also during that conversation, David McCullough raised my awareness to the fact that our founding fathers and mothers adamantly believed that this great experiment of democracy was going to succeed only if all of our citizens young and old were both literate and informed. We discussed the direct link between literacy, historical literacy and civic engagements...
I had spoken and discussed these issues with both First Lady Clinton’s staff at the time and with Mrs. Bush and I’ve had the opportunity to be able to wander around the first floor of the White House and while you’re there, you do actually kind of hear the echoes of voices and footsteps in the hall. You’re being watched by all those incredible presidential portraits; the eyes of the former first ladies and the presidents looking at you and I kind of had the same feeling walking through the first floor of the White House as I did the first time I walked as a kid going into the main reading room of the Cleveland Public Library that this was my space. And that this was our house, the White House, it’s your house and my house."
-Mary Brigid Barrett
See: Interview with Mary Brigid Barrett
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