This is a great book written about the Kennedy kids by a Kennedy kid. The Nine of Us: Growing Up Kennedy by Jean Kennedy Smith is about what the Kennedy kids’ lives were like growing up – before they were adults in politics, before all the tragedies. Jean is the only living Kennedy kid. Jean writes about those famous dinners where everyone was asked questions about politics and current events and were only allowed one napkin.

Chapter 8 is all about Bobby, my favorite Kennedy. Jean writes Bobby was “their jewel.” She writes Bobby loved animals and played with the maids’ kids not even noticing they were a different race – and this was in the 1940s and 1950s. Jean writes, “‘If you have men who will exclude any of God’s creatures from the shelter of compassion and pity, you will have men who will deal likewise with their fellow men.’ These powerful words of St. Francis capture how my brother Bob lived his life.”