Landslide!: A Kids Guide To The U S Elections 2000 Edition [Paperback]

I am a 5th grade teacher and I found this book very helpful in providing explanations to my students about various elections processes. The kids really enjoy as it is written in a question/answer format. I recommend this to anyone who wants to know more about our elections!

Do not let the fact that this is the 2000 Edition of Dan Gutman's "Landslide! A Kid's Guide to the U.S. Elections," because except for the appendix that is devoted to the candidates for the Presidency four years ago (Bill Bradley, Albert Gore, George W. Bush, and John S. McCain), Gutman's discussion of how elections work refrains from anything that would make the information outdated. More importantly, the first thing Gutman says when he introduces his topic is that "Every four years, the grown-ups of America go a little crazy." With that sort of understatement, Gutman properly sets up the more than 120 questions that children could (or should) ask about a presidential election, all of which will be as relevant four years from now as they were four years ago (even if what happened in 2000 repeats this year the other way around, there will not be any significant changes).

The six chapters of the book are devoted to: (1) The Presidency, (2) Our Government, (3) The Campaign, (4) Candidates, (5) Voting, and (6) The Election. So "Landslide!" begins with explaining why we have a President and what they can do, before moving on to the process of selecting candidates for campaign for the office. Gutman, who wrote "The Kid Who Ran for President" and "The Kid Who Became President," keeps a lot of his explanations simple and to the point. He also anticipates a lot of questions that kids would have that most teachers and adults might not think of, such as "Do you have to vote for your political party candidate if you don't like that person?" and "If I was eligible to vote, could I vote for my teacher instead of the candidates?" From my perspective he also works in a good deal of Presidential trivia as well that students will not get from their history textbooks.

The best test for "Landslide!" is to look at what Gutman covers that would have been of help to teachers and parents the morning after Election Day 2000. In Chapter 6, covering The Election, Gutman addresses such questions concerning the press getting the winner wrong and why the Electoral College determines the outcome and not the popular vote. In fact, on page 95 Gutman asks, "But isn't it possible to get the most popular votes and lose the election. Obviously the name of George W. Bush will have to be added to the list of John Quincy Adams, Rutherford B. Hayes, and Benjamin Harrison, who all won the presidency even though they lost the popular vote.

I think this is clear indication that Gutman has covered all of the bases in this book. The only area where Gutman might have some shortcomings is in his glossary of "Words You'll Hear in an Election Year," which runs from "ballot" to "veto," but avoids anything along the lines of "negative ads" and "smear campaigns" that unfortunately seem to matter more and more each election cycle. Teachers will find this book useful for answering a lot of the basic questions and they can even turn the tables on their students and ask them to answers these questions on their own before being provided the answers. That would certainly be interested indeed, especially if they have had the misfortune of being in a swing state where they are bombareded by wall to wall political ads.

Bought this book for my homeschooler prior to the last election, but it was boring. We found better material for free online at Time Magazine.

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