here's an article on jenna bush-the president's daughter. she's publishing a book called 'journey' about aids. the book sounds good. i wonder if it's hard for her with her dad being the president. i don't know if he is totally against gay relationships, but he seems to be against marriage. last year or some time ago, she went to the wedding of two of her gay friends.
Jenna Bush embarks on book 'Journey'
Jenna Bush, in a rare interview, says her forthcoming book for teens - about a 17-year-old single mother in Panama who is living with HIV - will end with a "call to action."
HarperCollins announces today that it's publishing Bush's Ana's Story: A Journey of Hope this fall. It will be illustrated with photographs by Mia Baxter, a former classmate of Bush's at the University of Texas.
The president's daughter, 25, says the book is not political. It's aimed at "getting kids thinking and involved," Bush said Monday by phone from Panama, where she has worked since September as an unpaid intern for UNICEF.
Bush, a former public school teacher in Washington, D.C., says: "I'm aware that not all kids can pick up and fly to Panama. I'm very lucky."
But, Bush says, "there's so much they can do" to deal with issues of "exclusion" - from research on HIV discrimination to "inviting new kids to sit with them in the cafeteria."
The book grew out of her UNICEF job to "put a face on statistics" and document the lives of children in Central and South America who live in extreme poverty.
Jenna and her sister, Barbara (who works at a New York museum), have tried to avoid publicity and have been protected by the White House. But, she says, "I'm willing to give up some of my anonymity" to promote the book and "start a dialogue with kids."
A book tour is planned in schools, libraries and bookstores. "This is not about me," she adds, "but the kids I met here."
The Bush twins have been fodder for tabloids and gossip columnists for their partying and underage drinking. Jenna Bush, who campaigned for her father in 2004, says she doesn't worry about her media image: "I care what people who know me think of me. I think they would disagree (with her image). I like to go to bed early."
Kate Jackson, editor of HarperCollins Children's Books, says she was impressed by Bush's "intellect, drive and passion." A first printing of about 500,000 copies is expected.
Bush says she will donate her earnings to UNICEF. She says she "very, very modestly" hopes her book will have some of the influence of two books about girls caught up in the Holocaust: Lois Lowry's novel Number the Stars and Anne Frank's The Diary of Anne Frank.
Historian Carl Sferrezza Anthony says 23 presidential children are authors, most of them after their fathers left office. Patti Davis' 1986 novel, Homefront, caused a stir because of characters who resembled her father, Ronald Reagan, and mother, Nancy Reagan.
