This year I have been struggling with wanting to teach my 4.5 year old daughter about the upcoming Presidential election.   She’s fairly quick to pick up on things but frankly, the subject is quite complex.   It’s hard to find a good  children’s book about elections.  I don’t want to bore her, nor do I want to be overly simplistic about it.   Recently, we were sent a copy of  Woodrow for President: A Tail of Voting, Campaigns, and Elections by Peter B. and Cheryl Shaw Barnes.

Woodrow for President is a cute TAIL about the life of a mouse starting with his life as a child and touching on most every facet of becoming President.   Woodrow’s character is highlighted and it almost has a bit of Mr. Smith Goes to Washington feel about it.   He starts out as being elected to town council, then governor and then president.   Covering campaigns, political parties, debates, national conventions, the election day brou-ha-ha, and the inauguration, Woodrow for President does a fabulous job sharing a pretty complicated process in an easy to process way.

I love that Woodrow for President is written in rhyming verse, and WELL written in verse at that.  Nothing about it feels forced or clumsy.   I would recommend this book for school age children, though, unless your preschooler has a really long attention span.   It’s 27 pages of fairly long verse — two or more 4-line stanza’s per page.   The illustrations go very well with the story and they even have a “secret service mouse” hidden throughout the book.

Voters cast votes different ways, we have seen,

Some mark paper “ballots,” some vote by machine.

Whatever the method, every vote counts

When election officials add up the amounts.

One of the things that I really appreciate about Woodrow for President is that it’s a children’s book about elections that isn’t politically charged.   They talk about political parties mentions several parties (not just two).   Even the talk about the candidates is fairly benign and never really touches on a specific  “issue” that would make someone like or dislike the book based on it.

At the end, there are 8 pages of resources for teachers and parents on the various different topics relating to elections.   This will definitely be used as a springboard for more in depth activities on the election.  If you are wanting to share a love of America through learning about our country, this is a great start!

What are your favorite patriotic books?

Jen S.

 

 

Thank you to TLC Book Tours for providing a copy of this book for review.  You can see what everyone else thought here.

by | 3 Comments

3 Comments on Woodrow for President {Book Review}

  2. trish
    5 September 2012 at 12:55 AM (12 years ago)

    What I worry about with my son is that I forget a lot of things and I don’t want to teach him the wrong information. Books like this are going to be invaluable to me when he gets older! He’s 16 months right now and doesn’t worry about the political process yet. Haha.

    Thanks for being on this tour!
    trish´s last blog post ..Richard Kramer, author of These Things Happen, on tour November 2012

    [Reply]

  3. Heather J. @ TLC Book Tours
    1 September 2012 at 7:47 PM (12 years ago)

    I’m so glad you found this book helpful in discussing the election with your daughter!

    Thanks for being on the tour.

    [Reply]

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