Ronald Reagan: Fortieth President of the United States (Encyclopedia of Presidents)

Rating:
Summary: Kids Book?
Review: While this is a book geared towards kids, I found it very useful in my studies on the life and times of Ronald Reagan, perhaps one of the greatest Presidents the United States has ever seen. I was surprised to see that it was a book for children, particularly because of the strong examples and hard-to-understand (for kids) scenarios and events. Overall, this book was great and I recommend to anyone (kids and adults alike) looking to increase their knowledge and awareness of Ronald Reagan, the Great Communicator.

Rating:
Summary: A solid juvenille biography of Ronald Wilson Reagan
Review: Zachary Kent's look at "Ronald Reagan, Fortieth President of the United States" was published the year after he left office, so there is not much here in terms of historical perspective on the Reagan years in the White House. But in terms of providing biographical details on Reagan's long road to the presidency and cataloguing the main issues and accomplishments during his two terms in office, this is a substantial effort geared towards younger students. If anything this book might be more substantial that such students would expect, so it is not necessarily the first juvenile biography of Reagan I would recommend. But once students have read a more concise biography of Reagan to understand the basics, this is where I would send them for more details.

These volumes in the Encyclopedia of Presidents series always begin in media res, and I was curious to see what choice Kent would make for picking one episode in Reagan's life to introduce his biography. Kent's choice is the assassination attempt in which Reagan was wounded on March 30, 1981, just a few months into this first term in office. The episode evidences Reagan's sense of humor and explains how the incident made him a national hero as well as president. But most importantly in setting up how Reagan, having survived an assassin's bullet, would set out to change the course of American history, strongly implies that had he died the world in which we live in would be considerably different.

The first chapters in the book looks at Reagan's boyhood and how he became interested in acting, chronicles how he became a rising star in Hollywood until he called to active duty after America became involved in World War II, and then tells how the actor set the stage for his political career. One of the strengths of this juvenile biography of Reagan is that Kent provides decent coverage of Reagan's film career, more so that most comparable books. The chapter "Reagan of California" begins with Reagan's terms as governor of the state and ends with his defeat of Jimmy Carter in the 1980 election.

The book devotes one chapter apiece to the two terms Reagan served in the White House. "The Great Communicator" covers the first term, where Reagan survived the assassination attempt, fired the air traffic controllers, put the first woman on the U.S. Supreme Court, saw 241 Marines killed in a truck bombing in Beirut, landed troops on the island of Grenada, and made jelly beans popular again. If you lived through those years you can see that Kent has all of the major events of those four years covered. "One More for the Gipper" details Reagan's second term, which saw the United States retaliate against Libya for the bombing of a West Berlin nightclub, Reagan face cancer surgery, the "Challenger" explosion, the Iran-Contra affair, and meets with new Soviet premier Mikhail Gorbachev. Again, the major events and issues of the period are covered.

My one complaint about this book is that because the subject is so recent, the editors were able to find private and public photographs to go with just about everything Kent covers in his narrative (there are pictures of both John Hinkley and Jodie Foster, for example, in discussing the assassination attempt). Consequently, this Encyclopedia of Presidents volume is rather unique in the series because it does not contain one editorial cartoon. This is unfortunate because I do not think anything better captures the idea of the "Teflon President" or Reagan as the "Acting" President than a choice editorial cartoon. But this regret is also because there have been such marvelous examples of the art form in previous volumes. Still, Kent has provided an informative biography on Reagan to which you students can term in doing research on the president or the issues that defined his administrations.