Review: Our Presidents Rock! by Juliette Turner

Wow–another wonderful book to review for you today! I recently received Our Presidents Rock! by Juliette Turner. She is the National Youth Director of Consituting America. Her mother Janine Turner is the Founder and Co-Chair of Constituting America (and an actress).

Disclosure: I get commissions for purchases made through affiliate links in this post. I also received a free copy of the book in order to honestly review it. All opinions are my own.

Our Presidents Rock! is for kids and is all about the U.S. Presidents. It’s a paperback book 316 pages long and jam-packed full of important and fun information about each of our American Presidents.

The book begins with an Introduction page which gives an inspiring explanation of how anyone can become President. Next, it explains how to read the book (like I explain below), and a couple of pages explaining the role of the President as given by the U.S. Constitution. (They also have a book called Our Constitution Rocks! that I’ll have to check out.)

Each president has several pages devoted to him. You’ll find the same subheadings for each one:

The Bottom Line — A couple of sentences about his presidency

What Were They Thinking? — Some of his views about major issues

Why Should I Care? — Why you should learn about and understand this particular president’s policies

Breakin’ it Down — His life before becoming president

Presidency — His most important events and accomplishments

What Has He Done for Me Lately? — What this president did that still affects or influences us today

Presidential Times — Some of the major events in America and the world during his presidency, written like a newspaper with articles

Quick Facts — Several different boxed fun tidbits such as Fast Stats (about the man), Liberty Language (definitions), Election Results!, Fun Facts!, Thoughts on the Constitution (things he said or thought about the Constitution), Congressional Corner (important legislation passed during his time in office), Platform Speech (important lines from speeches he made), and Presidential Personality (how he carried himself as president and in his personal life), a Timeline, and Pictures of the president and his wife.

The book ends with a comparison of Washington’s and Obama’s cabinets and a fun comparison of the Presidents’ heights!

My take:

I feel this in now a valuable resource in our home. I love how it’s easy to read and contains so much information. As we know, all history and political books have a bias, and I’m glad that Our Presidents Rock! leans to the conservative side. Here is a quote from the chapter on Calvin Coolidge “Had any other individual served as president during this time and not allowed the country to ‘run itself’ as Coolidge did, the United States likely would not have reached the level of accomplishment she did during this time.”

I’ll use this great resource book for my elementary through high school students.