jB

This picture book biography covers the life of John F. Kennedy succinctly, starting with his birth into a large, wealthy family and ending with a nation mourning his death. Along the way, the book touches on major highlights from his life including his college and naval careers, his marriage and children, and his political life. I'm not sure that I could see kids picking this up just for fun or reading it with tons of enthusiasm being as the book is pretty straightforward and lacks any gusto or real insights into JFK's personality. However, as a nonfiction text, it certainly does its job of conveying factual information. I could easily envision kids using this book as a resource for a school assignment. Although I know a bit about Kennedy's life (but am certainly not an expert), I personally learned more about his navy days from this book than I previously knew. The illustrations appear to be pastel reproductions of actual photographs. While technically fine, I was honestly a bit creeped out by the overall effect of the drawings with their blurry, hazy, almost-but-not-quite realism. ( )

Summary: This picture book was about John F. Kennedy. Kennedy was born in 1917 and attended private school and then Harvard. After college, Kennedy joined the United States Navy and was given a medal for his bravery. In 1946 Kennedy served in the United States House of Representatives and then in 1952 he joined the United States Senate. Kennedy married his wife, Jackie, in 1953. They had two children, a girl and a boy. In 1960 he ran for the President of the United States and won. During his presidency, Kenny supported the rights of black people and he sent American volunteers over to help poor countries. Kennedy was also a supporter of arts and space programs. He also averted the Cuban missile crisis from happening and ended up signed a treaty to limit the test of nuclear weapons. However, in 1963 Kennedy was shot and killed.

Review: I thought this book was very informative and told the readers a lot about Kennedy’s life. It mainly focused on his political life, but it informed the readers about his view on certain subjects. Therefore, the main message was informing readers on his life. I thought the use of pictures in this book was great because they were labeled which informed the readers what the picture was of. It also gave dates of when each event took place, which I think is helpful for a reader to know. In the back of the book there was a page that had a list of years and the event that went along with year. I really liked this because it summarized the important years and the events that happened during that time. Overall, I thought this book had a lot of information and would be helpful to someone who wants to learn more information about Kennedy. ( )

In my opinion, this is a great book. First, I like how this biography was taken and made “child-friendly.” The words and sentences are all very simple. The author took his entire life and made it into a picture book, and was still able to show the reader how great of a president JFK was. I like that the author uses text features. For example, there were captions under the pictures, “Joseph and Rose Kennedy with their eight children in 1931. Jack is second from the left. Edward would be born the following year.” I also like that at the end of the book there is a list of important dates. This makes it easy for students to pinpoint important events that were talked about in the book. The central message of this book is to share the great things that John F. Kennedy did for our country. ( )

GR: N
GL: 5.3
DRA: 30
Lexile: ad730L