1 August 2011–OBAMA: The Election of America’s 44th President

Written by Agnieska Biskup; Illustrated by Seitu Hayden ISBN: 978-1-4296-7339-6 Capstone Publishing, 2011 $7.95

Summary  Obama: The Election of America’s 44th President discusses the meteoric rise of our 44th president, Barak Obama, who also happens to be the first black president.

Analysis Any time a politically themed book comes out, one has to question the intent of the author, as well as checking their own biases at the door. Biskup’s latest book sets out to tell the tale of President Obama, from his “Politics of Hope” speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, all the way to his election to the office of president. In between these two events is lots of room (and fodder) to beatify or demonize Obama, but Biskup refuses to take sides in this book, merely laying out things as they happened. Various “issues” (as they were touted in the media) are touched on, from the “…most famous fist bump in history” to Obama’s 30 minute promotion of his presidential bid are all treated the same – enough respect to alert the reader that there may be more to the incident, but not defaming or derogatory to participants either.

Final Thoughts  Given recent events in the real world, I had to really make sure my personal feelings about the subject matter did not taint my reading. Doing that, I was pleasantly surprised to read a book that was real researched, well written and well illustrated. The artwork in particular deserves a special mention, as it stays as true as possible to how the participants look in real life, without over-exaggerating or insinuating a preference for people (I’ve seen several books that villainize the other contenders just through the artwork alone). All in all, I found this book to be very illuminating, if a little dry, but well suited for the classroom or library.