If I Were President

by Catherine Stier, Diane DiSalvo-Ryan (Illustrator)

Overview

A multicultural cast of children imagines what it would be like to be president.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780807535424
Publisher:	Whitman, Albert & Company
Publication date:	01/01/1999
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	32
Sales rank:	31,597
Product dimensions:	7.60(w) x 9.80(h) x 0.20(d)
Age Range:	4 - 8 Years

Read an Excerpt

If I Were President

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By Catherine Stier, DyAnne DiSalvo-Ryan

Albert Whiteman & Company

Copyright © 1999 Catherine Stier
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4532-7625-9

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CHAPTER 1

TWO UNITED STATES PRESIDENTS, George Washington, the first president, and Abraham Lincoln, the sixteenth, are honored each February on Presidents' Day. But who is the president of the United States, and what does the president do?

The president is leader of the country. Unlike kings and queens, presidents aren't born into the job. The people of the United States choose a president every four years. They vote for the person they want to run their country.

But the president does not run the country alone. According to an important plan called the Constitution, written more than two hundred years ago, a group of people called the Congress make the laws. Other people, called judges, explain the laws.

Some of the president's work is probably fun, such as handing out medals or flying to a meeting in a private jet. But most of the time the president works hard and must think about serious things, like how to spend the country's money and how to get along with other nations. The president helps make new laws and leads America's fighting forces. He (or maybe, someday, she) is also the leader of his political party—usually the Democrats or Republicans.

The Constitution says a person must be born a citizen of the United States and have lived there for at least fourteen years to be president. A person must also be thirty-five years old to hold the highest office in the land. That's it! Perhaps someday you may choose—and be chosen—to take on this very important job.

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from If I Were President by Catherine Stier, DyAnne DiSalvo-Ryan. Copyright © 1999 Catherine Stier. Excerpted by permission of Albert Whiteman & Company.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Editorial Reviews

What does the President of the United States actually do? That's the question that Catherine Stier and DyAnne Di-Salvo Ryan address in this straightforward account of the work of being president. The president must "preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States," as agreed when sworn into office. The president must live in the White House and be in charge of the armed forces. Stier also describes some of the perks of the job--that the president can go bowling at home and throws the first pitch of baseball season. Notably, while the text is a first person account of life as a president, the accompanying illustrations present the president with a wonderfully multicultural set of faces. Sometimes the president is a boy, at other times, a girl, and sometimes he's dark-skinned and other times he's light-skinned. The book provides a clear, enthusiastic description of a "great" job! At the front of the book is a one-page summary, including information about Constitutional requirements for being president.

Children's Literature - Heidi Green