Gr 2—4—Provensen updates her compendium of presidential portraits to include Clinton, Bush, and Obama. Rhyming couplets serve as footers beneath detailed earth-toned watercolor illustrations that fill each page with miniature scenes featuring campaign slogans, historical events with time line dates, and major accomplishments and inopportune failures. Illustrated historical events, some nonpolitical, graciously surround each man's portrait and term in office. Each president's personality is indirectly revealed through facial expressions that disclose personal struggles with some of America's most difficult executive decisions. For example, the couplet "Junior Bush, Forty-three/Plagued by catastrophe" runs along the bottom of George W. Bush's desk while the tragedy of the September 11th terrorist attacks plays out through his large picture window. Barack Obama's vignette reveals some of the world's current concerns, e.g., the war in Afghanistan and struggling economy, while his wife and children plant new seeds in their White House garden as they cultivate "hope in time of war." "Notes About the Presidents," which can come in useful when writing brief reports, are appended. Unfortunately, the "Selected Bibliography" has not been updated, and the most recent title is from 1993. Nonetheless, this is an excellent introduction to America's leaders.—Krista Welz, North Bergen Public Library, NJ
New ed., 1990, Harper. This twentieth-anniversary edition of Provensen's overview of U.S. presidents (updated through President Obama) depicts each man surrounded by symbols, placards, headlines, and other materials that illustrate his administration. The drawings have a primitive, cluttered charm. The short verses are sometimes funny and sometimes acute character sketches. Appended notes expand the text. First class for browsing. Bib.
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