Editorial Review

This entry in the well-written ‘Our Presidents’ series provides an overview of Harry S. Truman’s life, including his early years in Missouri, his rise to political life and important aspects of his presidency, including his beginnings when Franklin D. Roosevelt died in office, the dropping of the atomic bombs on Japan and returning to a peacetime economy. A variety of photographs show his family, early career and official government activities. Other outtake pages include information about Truman’s rehabilitation of the White House, and a separate section about the very private Bess Truman. Sidebars include interesting facts and the picture captions are informative and lengthy enough to inform casual browsers. Each book in the series ends with a glossary defining highlighted words in the text, a timeline specific to the president’s life, a complete table of presidents through George W. Bush with their home states, life spans, presidential spans, political party and the name of their first ladies. Included are a page of ‘Presidential Facts’ and numerous web sites and relevant suggested other resources, as well as an index. All in all, it’s a strong, informative and very readable contribution to the literature about presidents for upper elementary and middle school readers.