Kid presidents True tales of childhood from America's presidents : stories

Review by Booklist Review

Everyone has heard the fable of a young George Washington chopping down his father's prized cherry tree, but Stabler's thesis is that the true, unembellished stories of our presidents' childhoods are far more interesting and awe-inspiring than any inflated legend. Young readers will find many of the anecdotes included in this fun read relatable, focusing as they do on sibling rivalries, school antics, and weird hobbies. Even students of history may be surprised to learn that Theodore Roosevelt had serious asthma, George W. Bush was a head cheerleader in high school, and Herbert Hoover attended school on the Osage Indian Agency in Oklahoma for seven months. Sixteen presidents are chronicled, with the biographies arranged into broadly thematic chapters concerning topics like amazing voyages and family challenges. Caricatures by Horner are whimsical and funny, a good match for a book that demonstrates that every president started life as a goofy, regular kid.--Anderson, Erin Copyright 2014 Booklist

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.

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Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

"Every president in United States history started out like you and me," writes Stabler (a pseudonym for author Robert Schnakenberg), before going on to prove it. The stories he's assembled show how the young lives of the men who became president encompassed nearly everything that kids go through today, including blended families (Lincoln), helicopter parenting (F.D.R.), crushes (Nixon), bullies (Eisenhower, Kennedy), being the new kid (Obama), and odd obsessions that drive parents crazy ("Herbert Hoover once ate nothing but pears for two whole days"). The text is straightforward, upbeat, and resolutely apolitical, organized into easy-to-digest sections that alternate between stories of individual presidents and roundups on themes like chores, jobs, and what teachers thought of the presidents as students. "When you grow up, you're either going to be governor or get in a lot of trouble," said Bill Clinton's sixth-grade teacher (though no citation for this or any other quotation is provided). Horner's spot cartoons ensure readers won't mistake this for a history textbook and contribute some funny metafictional moments: "We need strawberries!" says Theodore Roosevelt's mother in one drawing. "Stop waving to the readers and go!" Ages 8-12. (Oct.)? © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

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Review by School Library Journal Review

Gr 4-6-With cartoonish illustrations that will attract fans of Jeff Kinney's "The Diary of a Wimpy Kid" and Rachel Renee Russel's "The Dork Diaries," this informative offering leaves no presidential childhood rock unturned. Children will enjoy the parallels of these presidential lives and their own, from Franklin Roosevelt's helicopter mother to Hebert Hoover's friendships with Native Americans to Barack Obama's tumultuous years in Indonesia. Disorganized kids will be happy to read that John F. Kennedy was given a scathing report card that once stated that he "can seldom locate his possessions." Kids will especially enjoy the section on pranks pulled by previous presidents. Oddly, this book is not organized chronologically, nor is each segment broken down into any rational sequence. Overall, the style is funny and lighthearted. Being a kid isn't always easy, even for those on the path for greatness, like many of these men. The further reading at the end of book provides a nice resource for those who want to learn more about their favorite resident of the Oval Office. Give this fun and accessible title to "Who Was..." series (Penguin) fans or reluctant readers who enjoys history.- Keith Klang, Port Washington Public Library, NY (c) Copyright 2014. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

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Review by Horn Book Review

This lighthearted romp focuses on amusing or unusual stories from United States presidents' childhoods. Anecdotes of facing down bullies, overcoming personal hardships, and learning from mistakes abound. Young history buffs and reluctant readers alike will relate to the humorous, comic-style color illustrations and the breezy, anecdotal narrative format. An appendix of brief, quirky facts about each president concludes the volume. Reading list. Ind. (c) Copyright 2015. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

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Review by Kirkus Book Review

Stories from their child and teen years reveal that U.S. presidents were kids like any otherswith hobbies and families and escapades both amusing and alarming. Robert Schnakenberg, author of Secret Lives of Great Authors (illustrated by Mario Zucca, 2008) and similar titles for adults, uses a pseudonym for this entertaining collection of presidential trivia. Embellishing the story of Washington and the cherry tree with a fire-breathing dinosaur, he points out that that oft-told anecdote is fantasy. Instead, he offers 16 "true tales" organized into three sections, along with additional factoids about games and pranks, early jobs and mishaps, as well as teachers' comments about our nation's leaders. He rounds out his collection with a final surprising fact about each of the 44 presidents (Cleveland gets two for his two nonconsecutive terms). With examples that include Grant's early horsemanship, Obama's travails as a new boy in Jakarta, Indonesia, and the nearsighted Reagan's butterfly collection, the author presents engaging vignettes of these men as boys. Horner's full-color cartoons add to the humor. For young readers wanting to know more about individual presidents, the author provides suggested titles. Troublingly, though, there is no indication of the author's sources, either in the book or on the publisher's website. These tales are pleasingly told, but readers cannot know where the facts end and embellishment begins. Young readers deserve to know that, too. Lively but not reliable. (index) (Collective biography. 9-13) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

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Barack Obama: New Kid in Town, Born 1961 When elected in 2008, Barack Obama made history. He was the first black man, and the first "skinny kid with big ears and a funny name," as he put it, to become president of the United States. Being the first anything is never easy, as Obama would learn during his two terms in office. But he was prepared for it. After spending his boyhood in Indonesia, he knew a little something about being the new kid in town.      The moment he walked through the front gate of his new home, little Barry Obama knew one thing for sure: he wasn't in Honolulu anymore.      For starters, a huge hairy animal was ready to hop onto his shoulders. The creature was high in the treetops of Barry's new front yard, perched on a branch and howling at him. Amazed, Barry turned to his mother, who was equally surprised.      "His name is Tata," explained Barry's stepfather, Lolo Soetoro, who owned the house and the swinging simian guest.      Stepping into the ape's enormous shadow, Lolo paused to feed it a peanut from his pocket. Then he turned to his stepson. "I brought him all the way from New Guinea for you!"      Barry knew that his stepfather had a job drawing maps for the Indonesian army, and that his work took him to some strange and faraway places. But he had no idea that Lolo had returned from one of his trips with such an unusual welcome-home gift.      Barry leaned forward to examine the ape. Tata, however, was not in a welcoming mood. He looked like he was about to lunge forward, so Barry backed away.      "Don't worry," Lolo reassured him. "He's on a leash." He gave Tata another peanut and then gestured for Barry and his mother to follow him into the backyard. "Come," he said. "There's more."      This new place was a big change for Barry. Back in Hawaii, he had lived with his grandparents in a four-bedroom home in one of Honolulu's prettiest neighborhoods.      His new house, on the volcanic island of Java, was in a ramshackle neighborhood on the outskirts of town. Half the people in the capital of Jakarta lived in old bamboo huts. Electricity had come to the residents only a couple years earlier.      To get to his new house, Barry had to cross a narrow rickety bridge over a wide brown river. Below he could see children riding water buffalo and villagers washing their clothes in the muddy water.      Barry felt like he had traveled to an exotic and distant land. Things went from strange to stranger when he followed Lolo into the backyard.      From the looks of the place, you might have thought Lolo was a zookeeper. Animals emerged to greet them from all corners: chickens and ducks, a snake, an iguana, even a turtle the size of a cookie tin. A large yellow dog howled. A big white cockatoo screeched. Two brilliantly colored birds shook their long tail feathers. Barry would soon learn they were called birds of paradise and could be found all over New Guinea. Lolo explained that his travels allowed him to pursue an unusual hobby: collecting unusual animals.      The strangest creature of all resided in a concrete tub, about a foot and a half deep and a yard long that was half submerged in a small pond fenced off by chicken wire. Green and scaly, it looked like a cross between a dragon and a crocodile. The Indonesians knew it as a biawak, or monitor lizard, a venomous meat eater that liked to feast on crabs, squid, and fish. As Barry peered into the tub, he made a frightening discovery. There wasn't just one lizard. There were two!      As the only foreign child in the neighborhood, Barry was teased more than any other kid. His appearance also made him stand out. He was chubby, with dark skin and curly hair. At school, he was known as "the Little Duck" because of the way he waddled when he ran.      It didn't help that Barry couldn't speak the Indonesian language. For the first few months, he spent most of his time sitting by himself in the back of the classroom, drawing Superman and Batman in his notebook. But after just six months, he had learned the language and could communicate with the other children.      Sometimes the other kids would play pranks on Barry. They'd offer him something he was familiar with from America, like chocolate. But when he bit into it, he found that it was shrimp paste. Another time they gave him red hot cayenne peppers and told him it was candy.      One day Barry tagged along with a group of his school friends on a visit to the local swamp. When they arrived, some of the other boys seized him by his hands and feet. They picked him up and began to swing him back and forth. "One...two...three!" they yelled, and threw him into the water.      What they didn't know was that Barry had learned how to swim in Hawaii. Paddling furiously, he managed to escape the murky waters by himself.      Barry never felt totally comfortable living in Indonesia. It would always remain a somewhat scary place where he didn't quite fit in. But he learned to adapt, finding ways to make it feel more like home. Learning to speak the local language was one way. Standing up for himself when teased was another. Barry joined the scouts, taught himself to sing local patriotic songs, and even studied karate.      He also stopped hiding in the back of the class and moved up front, where he became well known among his teachers for always shouting out the right answers.      Whenever he encountered an aspect of Indonesian culture that puzzled or surprised him, Barry would write a letter to his grandparents back in Hawaii. He would tell them about the people he met or the unusual foods he ate--like roasted grasshoppers and crispy fried crickets. In return, they would send him packages of familiar treats from America, like peanut butter and chocolate. But not every detail made it into his letters. Some things he saw, like the extreme poverty and disease that afflicted many villagers, were just too difficult for him to put into words.      After four years in Jakarta, Barry was no longer the new kid in town. He had learned to survive new surroundings. But he was still homesick. His mother, Ann Dunham, realized that he would be happier back in Hawaii. She also worried about his future growing up in such a poor and turbulent country. So when Barry was ten, Ann and Lolo put him on a plane to Honolulu and sent him to live with his grandparents. It was just the next stop on a long journey that would take Barack Obama on to Los Angeles and New York, then from Boston to Chicago, and eventually all the way to the White House.      Sometimes you have to leave a place before you really begin to appreciate it. In later years, Barack Obama would remember his time in Indonesia as "one long adventure, the bounty of a young boy's life." He always cherished the memories of his childhood, even when he became president of the United States. Excerpted from Kid Presidents: True Tales of Childhood from America's Presidents by David Stabler All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.

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