For April’s book I read Hershey by Michael D’Antonio. My husband purchased the book last year and I stumbled across it when I was selecting my book to read for April.

I grew up near Hershey PA and I moved back to Central PA a few years ago.  I’ve been to Hershey more times than I can count.  So I’m relatively familiar with some of the history of the town and Milton Snavely Hershey himself.

I found this book very interesting.  It confirmed many things I believed to be true, some of which weren’t overly positive.  An example is M.S. Hershey’s temper.  It’s not something that’s commonly known, but I always rather suspected he had a temper and the book confirmed that.  I could have lived without the rumours about Kitty Hershey and her life before marrying Mr Hershey, but that’s my personal preference.  Since I’m a bit of a history buff, I was a bit annoyed by the attempts to place the story in a historical concept.  If it wasn’t connected to M.S. Hershey or the history of the company, I didn’t really need it.  An example would be mentioning Lincoln speaking in Lancaster.  I’m not sure what that really had to do with the story, but again that’s personal preference.  I’m sure those pieces of information were useful to someone not as well versed in history.

The majority of the book is devoted to MS Hershey’s life.  I found the portions on Milton’s early life extremely interesting.  These are some of the very important events that helped shape the man.  I’ve always found these portions of his life to be breezed over in most of the other Milton Hershey information I’ve read.

The information about his early businesses and failures he faced were eye opening.  I’d known he’d tried and failed before finally succeeding with the Lancaster Caramel Company, but never heard the actual extent of those previous businesses.  I really enjoyed reading about the Lancaster Caramel Company’s creation and later sale.  That sale allowed Milton Hershey to have to time and money to create the town of Hershey, the milk chocolate recipe, and the Hershey company.  There was a lot of history to the company of Hershey I had a only slightly familiar with, like the Cuban sugar plantation & refinery, and they were covered in the book.

The last 2 chapters about his legacy and lasting impact on the people and town of Hershey.  They even cover some of the recent history of the legal battles of the Milton Hershey School Trust.

If you want to learn more, the good and the bad, about Milton Hershey, the Hershey Company, the town of Hershey or the Milton Hershey School, this is a good book to pick up.  I’m happy I read it even with the negatives I mentioned earlier.