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Summary
Summary
Forty-three men with forty-three passions, but with one thing in common: a presidential place in America's history.
With her gift for unforgettable rhythm and innovative rhyme, Marilyn Singer brings the presidents of the United States to life--from Washington to Obama--and contextualizes them in their time. Illustrations by John Hendrix are full of hilarious wit and refined exuberance, and backmatter enriches the experience with short biographies, quotes by each president, and more.
Author Notes
Marilyn Singer was born in the Bronx, New York, on October 3, 1948, and lived most of her early life in North Massapequa on Long Island. She attended Queens College, City University of New York as an English major and education student, and for her junior year, attended Reading University, in England. She holds a bachelor's degree in English from Queens and a MA in Communications from New York University. Marilyn Singer had been teaching English in New York City high schools for several years when she began writing in 1974. Initially, she wrote film notes, catalogues, teacher's guides and filmstrips. She also began looking into magazine writing. Her article proposals were not very successful, but she did manage to have some of her poetry published. Then one day she penned a story featuring talking insects she'd made up when she was eight. Encouraged by the responses she got, she wrote more stories and in 1976 her first book, The Dog Who Insisted He Wasn't, was published.
Since then, Marilyn has published more than 50 books for children and young adults. In addition to a rich collection of fiction picture books, Singer has also produced a wide variety of nonfiction works for young readers as well as several poetry volumes in picture book format. Additionally, Singer has edited volumes of short stories for young adult readers, including Stay True: Short Stories for Strong Girls and I Believe in Water: Twelve Brushes with Religion.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (6)
School Library Journal Review
Gr 4 Up-In this impressive collection of poems and matching illustrations, Singer and Hendrix introduce readers to the chronological roster of U.S. presidents, from Washington through Obama. With just a few well-chosen lines, Singer limns the character and/or significance of each man, highlighting Washington's honesty; peace-loving Woodrow Wilson, and feisty Truman: "No one was brasher/than that former haberdasher." In her inimitable verse, she brilliantly captures Nixon's flawed legacy: "Would people remember Watergate, nothing but Watergate?" Some presidents are treated singly; others are grouped together, such as former friends and political adversaries John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. Hendrix's pen-and-ink illustrations match Singer's nuanced text: undersized James Madison faces down British ships standing on a soapbox, and an oversize William Howard Taft holds a rubber ducky in his custom-made bathtub. In the exaggerated style of political cartoons, they add wit and insightful detail. End materials offer more factual information including a paragraph on each president. There are many great books about U.S. presidents, and this one follows in the footsteps of Alice Provensen's classic The Buck Stops Here (HarperCollins, 1992) and Judith St. George's So You Want to Be President (Philomel, 2000). Most libraries will want to make room for this one; it's a wonderful teaching tool for U.S. history and a delightful, readable book for a wide audience of browsers.-Marilyn Taniguchi, Beverly Hills Public Library, CA (c) Copyright 2013. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publisher's Weekly Review
This ambitious rhyming look at America's commander in chief is, like the presidencies themselves, a mixture of hits and misses. Singer's (Follow Follow) attempt both to be breezy and to give a sense of historical sweep can lead to a few awkward moments. "The most peace-loving leaders give up their credos," begins her salute to Wilson, "when faced with attacks from German torpedoes." But she doesn't shy from potentially touchy issues (Reagan's place in history, the Clinton "scandals, the trial, the chagrin"), and she infuses the familiar with new meaning, as in her verse for Teddy Roosevelt: "He took on greedy corporations/ and foreign powers with this trick:/ A president should speak quite softly/ but always carry a very large stick." Hendrix's (A Boy Called Dickens) mixed-media, editorial-style portraits are handsome, often incorporating bold typographical quotes from the presidents. He imaginatively links one leader to another (a cut-paper stock market graph portrays the economic trends that led voters from Bush 41 to Clinton, for example) so readers see history not as a series of isolated moments, but as a continuous trajectory. Ages 6-8. (Dec.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Horn Book Review
"Who were these men / who had what it took / to be commander in chief of all the armed forces, / to suggest what to do with our country's resources?" Forty-three presidents receive thirty-nine poems here; Grover Cleveland gets two--one for each nonconsecutive term in office. Unlike Susan Katz's The President's Stuck in the Bathtub (rev. 5/12), which focused on quirky traits, this volume touches on more sophisticated subjects such as political ideology, foreign policy, and domestic programs. In a single poem Thomas Jefferson and John Adams debate their political differences. Zachary Taylor, Millard Fillmore, Franklin Pierce, and James Buchanan engage in a four-way conversation about states' rights, while Andrew Jackson and Martin Van Buren examine Manifest Destiny in a two-voiced poem. (Poor old William Howard Taft, however, is still stuck in the bathtub, as his corpulence seems to override national issues.) A quote from George Washington in a bold hand-lettered font opens the book, and with the poem positioned on the facing page, readers have space to contemplate its meaning. In other cases, however, the richly colored art overwhelms the text; for example, William Henry Harrison's poem is lost in the swirling storm that surrounds him as he delivers his inaugural address (but then again, that weather also overpowered the man, causing the pneumonia that killed him). Brief biographical notes of each president give pertinent, but abbreviated, background information; sources are included. betty carter (c) Copyright 2014. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
Witty poetry and equally clever caricatures of all 43 presidents create a book that can add spice to serious studies, but it's not for beginners. If the information in the appendix were interspersed with the poems, the less-intelligible ones--such as the four-part conversation among Taylor, Fillmore, Pierce and Buchanan--would begin to make sense. Even so, the backmatter is too spare. For example, only readers who already know such tidbits as the quotation "We have nothing to fear but fear itself" and the slogan "We like Ike" will be able to appreciate lines dedicated to those references. Singer shows mastery of poetic forms, from appropriately "tricky" word wizardry for Nixon to eminently pleasing couplets: " We will return,' said Cleveland's spouse / the day they left their stately house. / She was right--the chief executive / had four more years (though nonconsecutive)." Some of these work well for reading aloud as a team; the Reagan page offers an excellent opportunity for a choral trio to demonstrate differing opinions about a president. Colorful artwork recalls political cartoons of yore, grounding poems in their respective eras, and highlights presidential quotations. Carefully crafted poetry and artwork ideally suited to history buffs. (author's note, presidential biographies, sources) (Informational picture book/poetry. 9-13)]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
This attractive collection of pithy, illustrated verse takes a new look at the 43 American presidents. Each man is represented in a poem, but some share the spotlight with others. Speech balloons from the mouths of Taylor, Fillmore, Pierce, and Buchanan are spaced on the page to create one poem, while a more typical entry profiles one president per page, and Washington garners a double-page spread of his own. The appended historical notes represent each president with a tiny portrait, a quote, and an information-packed paragraph commenting on the man and his term in office. Sometimes combining drawn and painted elements with quotes, the artwork is eclectic and expressive. Packed with facts and historical references as well as human interest elements, the rhythmic, rhyming verse may sometimes baffle elementary-school children and even older students without a solid grounding in history and politics. Creative teachers could find ways to use some selections in their classrooms. In fact, almost anyone reading the book will learn something new and find some amusement along the way.--Phelan, Carolyn Copyright 2010 Booklist
New York Review of Books Review
"AWAY BACK IN my childhood, the earliest days of my being able to read," Abraham Lincoln nostalgically remembered on the eve of his first inauguration, "I got hold of a small book Weems' 'Life of Washington.' " The future president never forgot its vivid accounts of the battles and heroes of the Revolutionary War, not to mention the causes for which the founders fought. "I recollect thinking then, boy even though I was," he reminisced, "that there must have been something more than common that those men struggled for." The book's stories "fixed themselves on my memory," he proudly added, acknowledging that "these early impressions last longer than any others." It is entirely possible that some other future president, boy or girl, may cast eyes on these four works of presidential biography and poetry, inviting the question: Will any of the books inspire young readers to revere and emulate - or, just as usefully, question and critique - their subjects? It's probably too much to expect. Modern juvenile biographies hardly strive for the Weems effect. They are mercifully shorter than that notoriously bloated tome, and far less hagiographic. It is fair to admit, on the other hand, that young Abe Lincoln would not have liked books with "an edge," just as today's young readers would never stand for the reverential bloviating in Weems's megaselling bible of myths. Yet even Lincoln would have appreciated the beautiful and often amusing color illustrations that accompany the best of today's kid-lit biographies. In Lincoln's day, a stilted engraving of a miniature George Washington manfully admitting he had cut down his father's cherry tree was about as visually daring as things got. Happily, no such restraints inhibit the acclaimed artist-writer Maira Kalman, whose exuberant Matisse-like style, eye for unusual detail, and disarming bluntness enliven her breezy and typically offbeat life of Thomas Jefferson. She talks children's language, too. Her subject is interested in "everything," she enthuses in a text overflowing with capital letters and emphatic script "I mean it. Everything." So is Kalman. She illustrates and explicates on everything from Jefferson's freckles (20 of them in all, she thinks), formidable linguistic talents, collecting mania, green thumb, fondness for ice cream, inventiveness and inexhaustible energy. Then, once she has us ensnared in her whimsical world, she hits us with five blunt pages on the horrors of slavery, calmly and cannily introducing the subject with a spare interior view of a cramped slave cabin, followed by a busy depiction of enslaved cooks tending Jefferson's kitchen, which he enters obliviously each week, she tells us, merely to wind the grandfather clock. It's about as much as readers aged 5 to 8 should be expected to absorb about Jefferson's - and his country's - shameful hypocrisy without having a sleep-inducing bedtime story descend into a nightmare-evoking all-nighter. Kalman, a subtle but shrewd moralizer, is right on the mark in summarizing Jefferson as "optimistic and complex and tragic and wrong and courageous." Her book is hypnotically charming, abounding with striking little details that children will remember. Who wouldn't be enthralled to know that the author of the Declaration of Independence had blazing red hair, liked peas, counted to 10 when he was angry, and had his frayed coats mended with old socks? C. F. Payne's soft-toned illustrations, which grace Doreen Rappaport's lovely little volume on Theodore Roosevelt, prove no less gripping, although they hardly approach a Kalmanesque "edge." The text inevitably offers classic "weakling to heman" inspiration, following young Teddy (in truth not so nicknamed until he met his future wife, we're told) as he transforms from nearsighted nerd to Energizer Bunny workaholic. Rappaport, who is strongest on Roosevelt's childhood years, portrays the grown-up T.R. as a crusader without warts, reforming the corrupt New York Police Department, achieving military glory with the Rough Riders, and busting selfish corporate trusts. The book sidesteps Roosevelt's tendency to use "bully" as both a catchword and a political tactic, and brushes past his anticlimactic 1912 try for a White House comeback - Doris Kearns Goodwin may now breathe a sigh of relief - but Rappaport is no less persuasive than Kalman in evoking the virtues of energy and curiosity. And Payne's pictures advance the text with spirit and inventiveness: The double-page illustration showing President Roosevelt lassoing a gigantic fist gripping a wad of cash, to name one, neatly evokes T.R.'s crusading spirit while wordlessly critiquing the American mania for wealth. With similar proficiency, the illustrator AG Ford's John Currin-like realism makes Jonah Winter's new biography, "JFK," sparkle like a Life magazine collectors' edition, but here it is the text that produces the true startle effect. Yes, of course, we will be told that John F. Kennedy, too, adored study, exercise and family fun, but Winter opens his account at the end of the story with a whale of a first-person revelation: He was a 1-year-old perched on his father's shoulders peering at the Dallas motorcade on Nov. 22, 1963, just a few minutes before the president lost his life. Winter watched Kennedy "waving to the crowds of cheering people, watched him getting smaller and smaller as the car drove on." Could a 1-year-old really be left with such vivid impressions? A reality check would be superfluous. Amid the recent avalanche of 50th-anniversary assassination rehash, how many other authors can offer such an extraordinarily personal connection to the tragedy? It's been a few years since I've read bedtime books to my grandson - he now reads to me - but I would have happily chosen all of the above to read to my own future president (and then tried stealing Kalman's for my own bookshelf). After all, what could be more nourishing and soothing than a dose of inspiring success stories leavened by the occasional, if sugarcoated, dose of reality? For variety, the poems in "Rutherford B. Who Was He?" will surely entertain any little insomniac even if the sometimes tortured rhymes won't soon supplant Dr. Seuss. Still, one has to give Marilyn Singer credit for rhyming "drudge" and "pudge" for Taft, "underrated" and "celebrated" (Carter), "jazz cat" and "New Democrat" (Clinton), and "Afghanistan" and "Yes, we can!" (guess who?). Suppose, as in the case of my grandson, it takes at least three books on one soothing subject to elicit grudging consent for lights-out. From an hour's immersion in these four adorable volumes of presidential lore, one encouraging common theme emerges: Jefferson "read many books," Teddy Roosevelt "gobbled up books," and John F. Kennedy "loved words." The lesson is: Read, and then read some more. These particular titles would not be a bad place to begin. HAROLD HOLZER is the author of "Lincoln: How Abraham Lincoln Ended Slavery in America," the officialyoung readers' companion book to the Steven Spielberg film.
