Learning Day: American Presidents Children's Books (Patreon)

Here’s two cursed children’s books, published on the same day in July 2021:

Also: don’t worry. Don’t worry! My dearest Hotdoggers, I am not here to POLITICS at you. Thanks to my basic level of emotional intelligence, I understand you’re not here to argue about our teetering democracy. You are here to enjoy a bit of cursed media with your pals. Pals like me. I’m your pal! And as your pal, I’m thrilled to show you these books. They’re breathtakingly cursed, in ways so simple it’s apolitical. Or at least apolitical-ish. These books are a slapdash mess. They’re borne from flawed thinking about how all humans function – and your immediate “oh no not politics” feeling is exactly why they fail.

Put yourself in your own shoes. Imagine how you’d feel if I posted an article called “Fun Hot Dog Stuff Like Usual!” But then when you click that link, or tap that link, or command your iPad Lackey to finger-slave that link, BOOM: you do not get Fun Hot Dog Stuff. Instead, you receive a harrowing reminder of the January 6th Capitol attack. Imagine that experience. Have you imagined it? Good. How did it feel? Bad! Of course it felt bad. Now take that imaginary feeling, and increase it a whole lot. Because kids often don’t choose their books. They also get ordered to read, for its own sake, to get the reps necessary to become literate. Most children’s books happen to kids, for learning. And both these books want a spot in that learning lineup. They’re from a series called “Blastoff Readers”, with the explicit goal of helping children read better...

That is the entire goal. According to their publisher, these books are a mild practice tool. A harmless li’l vanilla scoop of the English language. A block of text to engage a child’s attention, and improve their reading comprehension, and teach them new–

…uh, new words. I was going to say “teach them new words.” Which is true! Your child might not know the words “QAnon” or “bison shaman” yet. But come on, Publisher Of These Books. You know better. We both know words describe anything. We can teach a child to read by providing words about any topic in the universe. Topics such as “the universe.” It’s so easy! Finding a children’s book topic is foolproof. It’s like that joke in Anchorman where a guy says he loves the first thing his eyes see. That lack of effort works here. “I Love Lamp” is a workable children’s book premise. It’s almost Goodnight Moon. It’s also a good premise in the sense that it is not a sudden revelation of domestic terrorism. No children’s book needs to be! So this publisher boggles my mind. Their company website promises to provide “The Best Non-Fiction For Beginning And Struggling Readers” – but they’re out here ambushing seven-year-olds with the concept of insurrectionists. They can’t handle that! Heck, I’m a grown person, not to mention a purty smart cookie [citation: my grandmother], but even I struggle to process word-news about The Nü-Confederacy.

Unlike every other reader who’s laid eyes on these books, I brought this on myself. I discovered these the same way cats die: I got curious. I wondered if anybody writes children’s books, for young young kids, about our latest Presidents. You know the ones. The ancient guy, and the marginally less ancient monster-guy. These two books answered my question. Their publisher, Bellwether Media, is the only one craven enough to print books for first graders about our latest Fogies-In-Chief. Their glossy tomes each run 24 pages, and maybe 100 words. They’re part of an “American Presidents” series, covering guys like John F. Kennedy and Abraham Lincoln and the classic type of problematic POTUS. So I’m sure that’s how they talked themselves into making these. That and making a buck. Bellwether Media hurried these things out the door, and boy does it show. For example, both books have a “Timeline” page, telling the story of their subjects’ administration. But they wrote these timelines before August 2021. Setting aside the recency of all things Cheeto Man, that publication date makes a President Joe Biden book difficult. They printed it almost immediately after “President Joe Biden” began.

As you can see, this timeline covers less than one month of his Administration. Which is…a non-timeline. There’s barely any time to line. And I know there are no rules or laws anymore, but I just kind of figured it’s not legal to publish something this lazy. Even Trump’s timeline is lazy. That page – and every page of the book – is made from the same Adobe InDesign template as the Biden book.

I dunno how Bellwether Media is doing. But I know these books are selling like hotcakes…in the sense that I wouldn’t purchase pancakes, or these books, from Amazon.com. If Amazon ever offers fresh hot breakfasts by mail, that’s probably a fun thing to write a Hot Dog piece about. I’ll even try to get footage of the blue van guy hucking pancakes into my mouth. But until that thrilling day comes, I’m poopin’ on bad books. And I bought both these poopables from Amazon. I don’t recommend that. These things don’t even deliver well. One arrived within two days. The other got delayed for nearly a month. So I had to sit in my work-from-home cubby with a picture of Donald Trump on my desk, for weeks. I also had to email Brockway and Seanbaby and tell them this is delayed, cause I was waiting for my other bad lazy book. A book about Joe Biden unpacking bankers boxes. I have no idea why the process went that way. I guess I really should write an Amazon review about that. But I will not. I refuse to disturb two of the most perfect Amazon review pages I’ve ever beheld. Each book has exactly one rating on BezosBooks dot biz. The rating scores match. I present them here without comment, and without labeling which book got which.

Okay I lied about the “without comment” part. Sorry! My awe is irrepressible. I’m astounded by how much these reviews match. To be clear, these reviews are not good things. They’re further evidence the American electorate will grapple itself into knots, forever, in a perma-polarized knife fight. Also one of these reviewers is a childless adult, inventing a prop kid. It’s fake. It’s gotta be. It’s a new varietal of that "Ruthkanda Forever" tweet, or anytime somebody claims their toddler said The Perfect Clapback. It’s like if I told you my one-year-old waxed rhapsodical, in adult English, about Pierce Brosnan’s 2024 Oscar chances. Obviously fake. Just like that Amazon review is fake! It’s less of an review and more of a text-based Grey Gardens. But still: I see hope here. I see a silver lining in the unity of these review pages. They suggest us Americans are the same after all. We’re sawed-off and mad at similar frequencies. So we still make sense as the population of one country. We’re like the "Ducks Fly Together" speech, but for how bonkers a group of humans can become. Also, other great news: there’s just the one review for each book. That is very few Amazon reviews! Especially for a pair of products built to win a Google search. I’m so glad about that. That means these two thoughtless kids’ books aren’t reaching more than a few people. Their publisher isn’t chucking the following grenade into the laps of more than a few families:

Good Lord. Good heavens. You can’t spring that star-spangled question on an American parent in the 2020s. Admittedly, it’s a medium-normal question. But every U.S. adult is now primed to explode, Live Wire-style, about politics. And then you stack that stress on top of parenting? Forget it. Immediate freakout. Instant teeth-grinding. Even I know that. I have no children. I have no cause to read these books to a child. But seeing that page makes me want to pontificate about our gerontocracy to the nearest toddler. That’s bad! The life-affirming milestone of teaching your child to read should not spiral into fury about The Bad Crime Bill. Also: do you remember that part before, where we found out these books used exactly the same design template? They did. The set of page structures match precisely. For example, they do the same “favorite things grid” for each fella:

Hot tip: there should be punctuation between “pasta” and “chocolate chip ice cream.” Your kid will need clarification. Otherwise they’ll dish up the exact dinner from Elf. On the plus side, these books’ laziness caused a tacked-on footer section that captures the importance of the American Vice Presidency:

I expected more text there, about what a Vice President is. Especially because Joe Biden used to be one. But I guess this publisher’s vocabulary-learnin’ goals do not include the words “warm,” or “bucket,” or “piss.”

Worst of all, we gotta circle back a bit. Because there was that QUESTION before about Joe Biden. The answer: our system is flawed. For example: “President Donald Trump.” Speaking of that big dumb lug, he gets a QUESTION page too. When I read these books, I read the Biden book first. So as I read Trump’s book, and noticed it matched up, I wondered ahead. I wondered what his QUESTION could be. And as I wondered, I felt ready. I figured they’d ask something or other about democracy. But no: this book asked a bigger question. The question psychologists will ponder for centuries.

No! Stop it! Do not ask me to break down the childhood of our nation’s most warped adult. That question is a heartbreaker. Also, answering it is a helluva lift. Where do you friggin start? Remember: this is a question in the context of teaching a child to read. Helping a child learn to read should not veer into a discussion that makes me sigh, and crumble, and mutter “I dunno kid, how much time do you have?” I can’t imagine explaining Donald Trump’s range of psychological traumas and personal frailties to a kid who just wants to play Roblox. It’s an out-and-out tragedy. In this horrendous children’s book no one should read, you have to address that tragedy, and talk your child through it, before you even start the impeachment pages.

Honestly? I’m proud of them for touching that topic. It’s the right thing to do, I guess. That brave statement of “a procedural motion happened” garnered massive blowback for the publisher, in the form of one negative Amazon review. However, they leave other concepts under-explained. The Trump book forces you, The Parent, to flesh out “taxes” and “Paris” and “the looming climate crisis.”

The Biden book is even less describable. There’s nothing to describe. It’s a book about a couple months as a governmental janitor. The book does mention Biden’s childhood stutter and his efforts to overcome it, which is the one page with value beyond word comprehension drills. But they clearly ran out of material halfway through. For example, one page shows the brown-on-brown facade of the Syracuse University College Of Law.

That building is unmemorable. It’s so unmemorable, I didn’t remember what it looks like, even though I went to college at Syracuse. For four years. With no car! I hung around that campus 24/7, and still didn’t remember the Joe Biden School Of Law-Learnin’. Also, what a missed opportunity for free joy! This book could’ve printed a picture of Syracuse University’s anthropomorphic orange mascot. He rules. He even spends his free time teaching children to read. But no. This ding dang publisher used a picture of basically the DMV. And speaking of humorless walls, this Biden book runs itself straight into one. Its story dries up fast. It’s like word-learner purgatory. Any kid given both these books would become a fan of Donald Trump, because that wacky character does a thing or two. By the end of Biden’s book, they’re so desperate for stuff to say, they teach the word “Cabinet” to readers who probably don’t know the kitchen meaning.

That reminds me: both these books are full of difficult words. Because, oh wow, the details of American President-ing are too advanced for first graders. If you teach kids to read with, say, the story of a caterpillar eating, none of the vocabulary interrupts the skill-building. These books are different. They ask kids to plow through a boring/sad President slog, and then drill a glossary in the back.

There’s also a final page encouraging you to learn even more online, at Factsurfer dot com. A perfect website name. Remember how people called it “surfing” the Internet, thirty years ago? Seven-year-olds remember! Because they were alive in the early 1990s. Wait, do I have that math right? Who cares! It’s time for a tubular visit to the world wide website Factsurfer dot com. A website I do appreciate. It is a good idea. It’s meant to be a safe way for kids to google. And it achieves safety, by virtue of not working.

So there you have it: Joe Biden and Donald Trump were both American Presidents. Your child can learn to read by reading anything else. And if you reach for a different children’s book, please: don’t make it the one by Alex Rodriguez.

Alex Schmidt is a real treat and Jeopardy! champ. He hosts the Secretly Incredibly Fascinating podcast on the Maximum Fun network.

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