Ken Burns - Grover Cleveland, again!: a treasury of American presidents

For my daughters: Sarah, Lilly, Olivia, and Willa

And my grandchildren: Lyla, Finn, and Jax

Presidential timber all

Ken Burns

THIS IS A BORZOI BOOK PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A. KNOPF

Text copyright 2016 by American Documentaries, Inc.

Cover art and interior illustrations copyright 2016 by Gerald Kelley

All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, an imprint of Random House Childrens Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.

Knopf, Borzoi Books, and the colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Burns, Ken. | Kelley, Gerald, illustrator.

Title: Grover Cleveland, again! : a treasury of American presidents / by Ken Burns ; illustrated by Gerald Kelley.

Description: New York : Knopf Books for Young Readers, 2016.

Identifiers: LCCN 2015043443 (print) | LCCN 2015046579 (ebook) | ISBN 978-0-385-39209-9 (trade) | ISBN 978-0-385-39210-5 (lib. bdg.) | ISBN 978-0-385-39211-2 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: PresidentsUnited StatesHistoryJuvenile literature. | PresidentsUnited StatesBiographyJuvenile literature.

Classification: LCC E176.1 .B9346 2016 (print) | LCC E176.1 (ebook) | DDC 973.09/9dc23

LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015043443

The illustrations were created using pencil and digital color.

July 2016

Random House Childrens Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.

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A NOTE FROM KEN BURNS

I have four daughtersSarah, Lilly, Olivia, and Willa. When they were little and had trouble falling asleep, I would recite the names of the presidents to them. (Yes, thats a historians idea of a lullaby!) After a while, they knew the names so well, we turned it into a memory game. Wed start with our first president and work our way up. Id say George and theyd say Washington; Id say John and theyd say Adams. Their favorite part was when we got to Grover Cleveland, the only president who had two non-consecutive terms. Id say Grover and theyd say Cleveland; Id say Benjamin and theyd say Harrison; then Id repeat Grover and they would giggle and say Grover Cleveland, again! I vowed to my oldest, now a mama of her own, that one day Id do a childrens book on the presidents called Grover Cleveland, Again! Its been almost thirty years, but Ive kept my promise.

Unlike my children, I didnt memorize the names of all the presidents as a child, but even in elementary school, history was my favorite subject. Then, when I went to college, I met a remarkable documentary photographer and filmmaker named Jerome Liebling. He showed me how a single still image could make history come breathtakingly alive by revealing the story within the history. Ever since then, Ive tried to use filmwhich is, basically, a sequence of individual imagesto reveal the whole complex history of America. Much of my work focuses on the experience of everyday people, because looking closely at their pictures can tell us so much about life back when they were living. So, in this book, in addition to describing the important things that the presidents did when they were in office, I talk about who they were as people. After all, presidents have birthdays and brothers and sisters and even pets, just like everybody else! There are also fascinating stories of things that happened to them on their road to the presidencystories that tell us a lot about their times.

How could someone who had never voted in an election become president? How could someone who had hardly ever gone to school keep the country from being torn in two? How could a man with dyslexia lead the country through a world war, and one with a serious physical disability guide us through another? How could the son of a peanut farmer bring together two countries whose people had been ancient enemies? This is amazing stuff!

Learning about American history might not teach a child how to become a famous scientist or the CEO of a major corporation. But it can make a huge difference in their lives. It certainly has in mine.

Theres much in our history that doesnt make me proud: the great stain of slavery and the entrenched racism that still haunts us, the forced imprisonment of American citizens simply because of their ancestry, the myriad disparities in criminal sentencing that plague our judicial system, andespecially as the father of daughtersall the ways that women have so often been relegated to second-class citizenship. (Note: there are no women in this bookyet!) We cannot forget these mistakes. But we must also remember the very many qualities of our nation that are worth celebratingin particular, our steadfast faith in the value of freedom and our fervent desire to right our wrongs. We shouldnt under-estimate the ability of our children to understand these principles, nor the effect that understanding can have on their lives: from the causes they support and the candidates they vote for to why its essential for us to be more tolerant of each other and our differenceswhich is, I believe, one of the most important things we can teach them.

I hope that, like my family, you enjoy getting to know Grover Cleveland and the forty-two other remarkable individuals who have held our nations highest officeand that maybe, just maybe, your children will become as fascinated by our history as I am.

Liberty, when it begins to take root, is a plant of rapid growth.

A mericans call GEORGE WASHINGTON the Father of Our Country. We do this for two reasons. He was the leader of our army during the Revolutionary War and he was our first president.

Washington never went to school but read and studied a lot on his own. He was especially good at math, and his first job was making maps. He also became a soldier in the Virginia Regiment. Back then, Great Britain and France were fighting over which country owned different parts of North America. We were still part of Great Britain, so Washington fought against the French. Thats where he got his reputation for being a really smart and brave soldier.

So, when the colonies decided to fight for their independence from Great Britain, the leaders of the American Revolution selected him to be the commander-in-chief of the Continental Army. In fact,