The Presidents Decoded, a fun, no-nonsense look at the White House

In my office, I’ve got a very small shelf that I affectionately call the best books that I never reviewed. Why didn’t I review them? Sometimes my schedule just got too busy, the new release got to be not so new or I just completely forgot. The Constitution Decoded: A Guide to the Document That Shapes Our Nation by Katie Kennedy is one of the books on that shelf. This is a reference book that presents the Constitution of the United States of America in a way that makes it entertaining and teachable, without diluting the content or presenting it in an intimidating manner. The Presidents Decoded: A Guide to the Leaders Who Shaped Our Nation is cut from the same cloth and delivers similar, but not an identical level of enjoyment.

Almost all of that is due to the content and the fact that the preamble, articles, amendments and the people who created or inspired them is fascinating stuff. Regardless of your political opinion, the content in that book is presented in a way that you can understand it and want to read it. Government isn’t boring. It’s frustrating at times, but rarely boring.

As frustrating as politics or government can be, it’s often the President of the United States that has the power to make it more or less so. For better or worse, it’s called the bully pulpit for a reason. The Presidents Decoded offers up three to six pages of history, facts, inspiration and key instances that shaped each one so far. As this is a new book, it also includes the 46^th President, Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr.

Older readers, educators or parents need to know that The Presidents Decoded is apolitical. Throughout the history of the United States there has been one of two political parties that have had control of the presidency. This book is straight educational information designed for upper-elementary through middle school students. There are illustrations of various historical figures, maps of key areas during their leadership and larger ones of them as they’re popularly known. Each President is given a different colored paper and the information blurbs are also printed on different colored blocks. Both of these elements help make the book infinitely more readable.

The Presidents Decoded is a reference book, but those students won’t mistake this for their school textbook. It’s also unlikely, but not an impossibility, that students would engage in the book for leisure reading. Each chapter is easy to read, and does have a very casual, chilled-out flow about it. Adults who are reading the book aloud will need about eight minutes to read each chapter. The book could certainly be consumed as a read-aloud storybook, which would undoubtedly help some of those middle school students.

Reading aloud is a lost art in some classes. Hearing content and distilling the information, when combined with proper note taking is a great skill that can really help students. It could also open up conversations, which is another great avenue to driving home lessons. Perhaps the biggest takeaway that kids will have after reading The Presidents Decoded is that things haven’t changed that much. For older readers that might be reassuring because we could consider the past thirty years of presidents to have been the bottom of the barrel. It’s too centered around cult of personality, they’re fringe candidates, they’re weak and feckless, they placate to the extremes of their base, they’re too old, they’re incapable of intelligent thought, they’re rash and unpredictable.

You adults are frustrated with the choices and actions of our presidents, I get it. The Presidents Decoded looks back at all of them and confirms that almost all of them had issues. And since we can’t have robot George Washington leading the country, we need to accept it and deal with what’s dealt. This book is common sense 101 when looking at their history, conduct, actions, interests and legislation. It’s an informative, entertaining look at the person who holds the high office in the United States of America. There are societal challenges and the denizens of Congress could certainly deal with term limits, which will take real leadership that has to blaze a path regardless of party affiliation. However, that is my personal opinion, something that the book stays away from in exchange for sticking to the facts in a manner that won’t put kids eight and up to sleep.

The Presidents Decoded: A Guide to the Leaders who Shaped our Nation is by Katie Kennedy and is available on Workman Publishing Co., Inc., a subsidiary of Hachette Book Group.

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