What Does the President Look Like? by Jane Hampton Cook and illustrated by Adam Ziskie

Reviewed by Miss Dewey at Orenda

Five paw prints.  Did you know there was a time when people didn't know what their own United States president looked like?  It's true.  There were no televisions, movie theaters, magazines,and very few newspapers.  Very few people knew what George Washington looked like.  It wasn't until his portrait was displayed in public in Philadelphia that people knew how serious he looked.  James Polk may have been the first president to have his photograph taken while in office, but because it wasn't easy to reproduce photos in newspapers, no one saw it and it wasn't until Abraham Lincoln was president almost 20 years later that many people knew what a photograph of a president looked like.  This book was extremely interesting.  It really wasn't about the presidents and what they look like; instead it was about the history of technology while using the United States presidents to show how technology has changed during the history of the country.  In less than 300 years the technology has moved from painted portraits, to film, to digital.  This is a great book to read whether you like history or technology.  Oh, in case you don't know what all the presidents look like, visit http://www.whitehouse.gov/about/presidents.