Customer Reviews

Calvin Coolidge (United States Presidents (Enslow))

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This is an acceptable, but sentimental, biography for 6th-graders and up. Not much humor, just straight telling. The book focuses much more on his life before and after the presidency, skipping much about his actual time leading the nation. A few photos and documents (some good letters) are reprinted. It doesn't do a particularly good job dealing with Harding's Teapot Dome scandal, which Coolidge cleaned up.

However, the information about the formative years of Coolidge's life, and his elected offices prior to the presidency, and his response to the deaths of his son and his father, is very good.

This book delivers a likable Coolidge and lays out his personality, but mostly leaves his leadership out. Better info is available in "Calvin Coolidge" by Amy Graham, for a similar age group.

We used "Silent Cal: The Wit and Wisdom of Calvin Coolidge" to really bring more information about Calvin Coolidge's likability to light.

I checked out this book because it was the only book on Calvin Coolidge in my library (they had placed it in the adult section.) The vocabulary is adult while the writing style is for children.

I wish I hadn't checked it out. The book focuses on Coolidge the human being and episodes such as how hurt he was by the death of his son. I wanted information on policy choices. Lastly, there is nothing about Mexico in the entire book. Maybe we had improved relations with them, I don't know. But I do know that "This was a time of Ku Klux Klan resurgence..." and that's all we get about it!

If you give this book to any child, be they ages 9-12 or grades 6-9, you deserve to be slapped.