Rebecca Paley

Read the stories of the real people and events that shaped American history. This nonfiction chapter books has full-page illustrations include historical photos, maps, a timeline, a glossary, and a bibliography at the back. In addition to the historical chapters, an American Girl historical character shares a bit of her own fictional story in a journal entry format. Each chapter covers a significate event during the timeline of the story. At the end of almost every chapter a journal entry from the American Girl historical character is included, which portrays what the character would be thinking and feeling during this time. This helps to confirming the historical information you had just read. Historical information is well researched and written for age group. I particularly enjoyed reading about the key historical figures from the events.… (mehr)

This book is one in a new series from AmericanGirl that focuses on real-life pioneering women. It presents a fairly straightforward biography of Clinton. As the target audience is elementary school-age children, the book does place some prominence on Clinton's childhood and how people and events shaped her from a young age. For instance, her mother encouraged her to stand up to a bullying peer, which instilled in Clinton a lifelong habit of not backing down in the face of critics. Another example is how her church encouraged young people to give back to their community by volunteering, which prompted Clinton to learn more about people in need and how to help them, shaping future policy concerns. Even if you don't agree with Clinton's politics, this emphasis on positive behaviors and responsibility, even at a young age, should be inspirational for the intended audience.

The remainder of the book goes over Clinton's adult life as a lawyer, wife, mother, First Lady, Senator, Secretary of State, and presidential candidate. Most of this is mentioned somewhat briefly in an effort to keep the book short and hold the attention span of young children. Controversial moments from her career are not mentioned at all, which is perhaps best for the youngest audience. (I think books aimed at upper elementary and above should address those, however.) On the whole, there is enough factual evidence here to help young children who have school assignments of a biographical nature.

The illustrations in the book don't do a whole lot for me. At times they look spot-on, but then at times they look nothing like the real-life persons they are meant to portray. They do work to break up the text a little though. There are also a handful of photographs at the end of the book. In addition, the backmatter includes a glossary, a timeline of important events in Clinton's life, and a brief one-page blurb about an everyday girl working to make her own political change.… (mehr)