America Votes: How Our President Is Elected

by Linda Granfield

Kids shouldn't have to wait until they're old enough to vote to get caught up in the excitement of presidential elections! From the first primaries, through the party conventions, to the final count at the polls, the race for the presidency is a whirlwind of passionate speeches, sensational campaigns and new beginnings that every American can be a part of!

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Childrens, Picture Books, Politics

Paperback

First published August 1, 2003

Reviews

[Kelly Grimes · Rating 4 out of 5]

1. Personal reaction- I really enjoyed this book because it provided the overall process of how a president gets elected in just 60 pages. Growing up, we would spend weeks in the classroom going over the process of a president being elected. At times it went slow and would get boring. But this book provided the basics of how a president gets elected in a simple way that didn’t require much time to learn. I also enjoyed the engaging pictures throughout the book and the bold titles on each page in which I was directed right away what the next step was.

2. purpose-
This would be a great book to read during a social studies unit on the election or presidency. Students will learn in a simple way the basic steps of a president being elected. Even though this book doesn’t get into every little detail in the process of a president being elected, it does provide an overall outline of the multiple steps and procedures of the president being elected.

This book would be a great independent read for students in the 5th and 6th grade. The book is lengthy and on each page a good amount of text is provided. But to ease up the lengthy text, simple pictures are provided to help students visually see each step in the president’s election process. This book would be appropriate for this age group because the vocabulary is direct and simple but at times does include words that are unknown, including democracy, registration, ratify, advance polls and many more words. But students at this age will understand that they can learn the meaning of these words by referring to the glossary at the end of the book.

This book provides a glossary at the end of the book for students to refer to when they were introduced in the book to words important in the process of electing a president. Throughout the book, words were italicized indicating that they would be explained in the glossary. The book also provided an index at the end of the book to help students refer back to the book and be able to find exactly where a concept, term, or event was discussed in the book.

3. The illustrations throughout the book were every simple and light, causing most of the attention to be drawn in on the text. But with the illustrations being provided, it lightened up the large amount of text, allowing the readers to refer to the pictures to gain a visual of how the process works.

[Hyeonjeong Lee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Personal Reaction - I like this book very much because I believe the right to vote is the most important right that we have in this society. As I began to learn the world history as well as my country's history, I realized that the right to vote was not given to all people. Many people fought to get the right and because of their efforts and dedications, all people can vote now. Especially, women could barely have the right to vote. Thus, while reading this book, I thought that I would read this book to children as well as teach them the importance of having the right to vote.

Purposes- I would recommend this book to third graders.
- As third graders have get used to their school systems after passing their first and second grades, they would realize that there are students who represent other students. To elect those students, they should vote. Thus, this book will help them to understand why they should vote for someone, what the meaning of having the right to vote is, and how they vote.
- As an information book, especially about social study, this book is vey well-organized and easy to read. Each chapter has interesting pictures that are related to each chapter's theme. Also, some chapters include short stories that are also related to the chapters' contents. Those pictures and short stories would enhance children's interests and their understanding of the contents.
- This book uses bullet points to list orders or sub-areas. Also, each bullet point begins with a same phrase, it looks very organized. For example, ★ As chief executive, ★ As chief of state, and ★ As commander in chief.
- This books emphasize each chapter by using big and thick fonts for each title. As the titles are the processes of voting, when children read this book and see each chapter's title, they would memorize the order of vote.
- At the end of this book, it contains the list of words that are related to the theme of this book, votes. For example, it includes acclamation, concession, landslide, etc. Children would increase their language development as well as they could understand more details while listening to news.

[Kira Richardson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thought that this was an extremely informative book that students could use for social studies research or a teacher could use as a read aloud during class elections or election time. The book had fun colorful pictures on every page, highlighted important people, had the history of voting, and important terms (absentee ballot, electoral college, campaigning). This book could be a great book to stretch across an entire social studies unit because it has so much information. It is definitely not a one day read, but students could refer to this book to learn specifics about how the President is elected in America, and could use it as a research book.

[Meg · Rating 4 out of 5]

Of all the election books I used this year in my classroom, I liked this one the best. It's kid friendly but also has a lot of pertinent information for kids and adults alike. I'll be pulling it out again in 2012 ;o)

[Schuerra · Rating 4 out of 5]

I felt this was a very useful book for Social Studies. This would be the perfect book to read during elections. It's a great breakdown and helps the students understand. It is very kid friendly and does a good in explaining the the process of predidential elections.

[Theresa · Rating 3 out of 5]

good resource for an essay on voting that my daughter got it shows how, why and when we earned the right to vote, and how our political system works and the history of changes that made it open to more people. also describes the political parties

[Rose]

E Gra

[Sasha · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book does a good job of explaining the history and process of presidential elections in America. It's written for kids and tries hard to appeal. Quite comprehensive.

[Emily · Rating 3 out of 5]

Non-fiction text for students to self-explore about the election and answer their questions.