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Messner, Kate

The Next President: The Unexpected Beginnings and Unwritten Future of America's Presidents

48 pp. | Chronicle | March, 2020 | Trade ISBN 978-1-4521-7488-4 $18.99
(1) K-3 Illustrated by Adam Rex. "No matter who holds the job right now, the presidents of tomorrow are always out there somewhere." There are picture books aplenty about United States presidents, but make way for this breath of fresh air. Messner presents brief profiles of each one through a particular lens: starting in 1789 with George ­Washington, she makes her way down the timeline to the current day, looking at which future presidents were alive when each predecessor served and what they were doing at the time. For instance, when Washington served, nine future presidents were already alive, though Martin Van Buren, William Henry ­Harrison, and Zachary Taylor were still ­children. We often see more than one president at a time as we move through decades, while text boxes impart relatable or little-known facts about them. Rex breathes life into these illustrations, showing the humanity absent from most official portraits. Each president pictured is tagged with a number on these busy but never cluttered spreads so that we always know who's who. And Messner doesn't sugarcoat or whitewash history: "Most [of America's earliest presidents] were wealthy, white, Protestant men," she states; and she notes that while Thomas Jefferson wrote that "all men are created equal," he himself owned slaves. The mood turns to awe-inspiring at the close, when we read that "at least ten of our future presidents are probably alive today," the art here showing an inclusive group of children and adults at a portrait gallery of presidents, gazing hopefully into the unknown, "getting ready to lead." Back matter includes a substantial bibliography.
Reviewer: Julie Danielson | Horn Book Magazine Issue: March, 2020

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