Review: Your Presidential Fantasy Dream Team by Daniel O'Brien, illustrated by Winston Rowntree

Release date: June 28, 2016
Author info: Twitter | Facebook
Publisher: Crown Books for Young Readers
Pages: 272
Format: Paperback
Source: Publisher provided for review
Buy the book: Barnes & Noble | Amazon | The Book Depository

Fans of How They Croaked: The Awful Ends of the Awfully Famous and Kid Presidents can draft their own presidential fantasy team, based on these hilarious-but-true profiles of our past leaders.

What if a zombie apocalypse or a robot uprising threatened the nation and you had the power to recruit some of the nation’s finest presidents to help save the day?

By studying the most successful squads in history, Daniel O’Brien has identified the perfect ingredients for a victorious team.

Which president would you choose for: the Brain, the Brawn, the Moral Compass, the Loose Cannon, and the Roosevelt?

Choose wisely—the fate of the world is in your hands!

This book, y'all. I'm a big fan of Cracked, so when I saw it was by one of their writers, I knew I'd like the humor. But, so often, history books for kids are written so simply, or even written down to them, that it can't be fun for them, and it certainly wouldn't be fun for me. Perhaps you can tell by the title, but Your Presidential Fantasy Dream Team is not one of those books!

That's what works so well about it, too. It's laugh-out-loud funny for me, but it'll also be laugh-out-loud funny for kids. I also learned some stuff! A lot of the presidential facts were things I'd heard before, but there were many I hadn't heard. I mean, did you know John F. Kennedy was plagued by physical problems? I didn't!

The other huge, wonderful parts of the book are the illustrations. (I picked one of Grover Cleveland's to show because I'm related to him!) They're so original and different, while also highlighting the fun points and jokes O'Brien is making in the text. It's so fun to look at all the details.

The tone of the writing is perfect, too. It's conversational and comfortable, but, like I said, doesn't talk down at all. A kid would have so much fun trying to figure out which presidents they're going to put in their team--and it would be a hard decision! You think it's easy, until you read about some of the more obscure presidents who were actually pretty great.

You've gotten it, right? Your Presidential Fantasy Dream Team is pretty much awesome. I don't care if you like presidents, but you'll be into them by the end of this, kid or not.

About the author:

Daniel O'Brien is the head writer and creative director of video for Cracked.com, the most viewed comedy website. When Daniel isn't researching wacky trivia on presidents, he can be found playing with his dog, Jackson, who is named after a president. Your Presidential Fantasy Dream Team is his first book for young readers.