My 10-year-old son Daniel is a lover of history and
historical fiction. I share the same love and it’s fun to read books
together. Daniel loved Chasing Lincoln’s
Killer by the same author, James L. Swanson, and was eager to read The
President has Been Shot about the Kennedy Assassination.
Daniel came into this book knowing nothing about the
Kennedy assassination. We talked about
this being a defining event of his grandparents’ childhood. Not brought up in
the book, but something I always thought was interesting was comparing the
Kennedy and Lincoln assassination. How
they were almost 100 years apart, how Kennedy had a secretary named Lincoln and
Lincoln had a secretary needed Kennedy, etc.
Daniel really liked that.
I liked that the book started off about John F.
Kennedy’s life and childhood, and a general summary of his presidency. That was important for a ten-year-old like
Daniel who didn’t’ really know much about Kennedy at all. The book then detailed the assassination,
pursuit of Lee Harvey Oswald, and Kennedy’s funeral.
Both The President Has Been Shot and Chasing Lincoln’s
Killer were marketed as Young Adult.
Daniel is an advanced reader and had no problem with Chasing Lincoln’s
Killer. The President Had Been Shot was
a higher reading level with many large words, and Daniel had a harder time with
it. Daniel also had a hard time with the
violence of the assassination. Lincoln’s
was much “cleaner.” The book describes
how Kennedy’s brains were basically blown out and all over the car and Jackie
and it comes up a few times. Daniel and
I usually flip flop read where he will read a page and then I will read a page,
but I read through the entire assassination and edited it to take out the
brains. He already looked queasy about
it all.
Daniel had a moment while reading the book. He read and saw a picture of JFK in his
office with his children. John-John
wanted to go with him to Texas and JFK left a paper to sign when he got
back. Daniel said, “But he’s never
coming back,” and he pushed the book aside and looked really sad. History hit him at that point. JFK was a real man, a father with children
who left and never came home. Daniel
also was upset at the funeral when John Jr. asked “Where’s my daddy” and Jackie
started to cry. “He’s only three and he
probably doesn’t understand what happened to his Daddy,” said Daniel and then
he had another moment of sad contemplation.
He looked ready to cry. I was emotional
reading that scene as a wife and mother as well.
Daniel really like reading about the pursuit of Lee
Harvey Oswald and he also really liked all of the pictures and graphics. In particularly he liked the maps showing the
motorcade and Oswald’s escape route. He
also liked the graphic showing where they found Oswald’s finger prints. He thought Oswald was not a very good
assassin compared to John Wilkes Booth.
I didn’t remember details of the pursuit and arrest at all so it was
interesting to read it again. I only
remembered that Oswald was himself assassinated. Daniel had no idea that was going to happen
and he was shocked.
I also didn’t know that President Lyndon B. Johnson
wrote two handwritten letters to JFK’s two children the night of the assassination. I was touched.
Favorite Quotes:
“For the rest of their lives, people would remember
where they were when they first heard the news that President Kennedy had been
shot.”
“It was done.
Four days of blood and death, of mourning and drums, were over. America would never be the same.”
Overall, The President Has Been Shot was a fascinating
look into the life, presidency, and assassination of John F. Kennedy. It’s a good book for kids to learn history,
but it really is a young adult novel – ten was too young for Daniel to read on
his own. Reading it together I was able
to explain vocab words and edit out some of the more disturbing descriptions of
the association that would be fine for a young adult.
Book Source:
Amazon.com
