Who Was John F. Kennedy? by Yona Zeldis McDonough

Who Was John F. Kennedy? Reviews

• 
  Sophie Crane

  Great little book. We buy lots of Who Was books and use them for homeschool enrichment. Short chapters, larger font, and lots of pictures make these books an easy read. This was a great addition to our collection.
• 
  sarah eli

  a very pg version of jfks life lol
  
  also... very into jfk rn. i don't know why. this is simply my reality
• 
  Matt

  According to this book, John F Kennedy had many careers, Naval Captain and a politician. Yona was a great author and inspiring me in my political life. The way JFK was described as a hero and a great leader was amazing! I just can't wait to read more of these books!!For now I Just want to stick with history. I recommend this book to Political people.
• 
  Amanda

  This was roughly my 60th read from the Who/ What/ Where? series, and quite a disappointment.
  
  The illustrations are extremely subpar, the likenesses are poor (not likenesses at all). JFK and Jackie Kennedy are highly recognizable historical figures.. kids are hardly going to get an idea of what they looked like from this book.
  
  It's shorter than most biographies in the series, which are usually 112 pages long. This one ends on page 100 and felt even shorter. I'm positive there is more information that could have been offered on his life (and death) - the kind of information and further explanation I've come to expect from the series.
  
  It paints JFK in completely rose-colored light, and fairly insubstantial light at that (with the exception of the PT-109 section). Just a young man from a big family who was president for 1000 days. The Who books, despite their young target audience, usually do not shy away from tough facts and hard topics, a.k.a. the simple truth. Even the Who book on Jackie lets on that he wasn't a perfect husband. (I found Jackie's book much more informative.) This author suggests that JFK's life was extremely tame, all newspaper reading and rocking chairs. "It was a busy life, but a productive and happy one, too."
  Caroline's birth isn't even mentioned.
  
  This made me cringe:
  "ROSEMARY (WHO WAS RETARDED) WAS BORN IN 1918."
  This statement calls for better choice of words. Or just remove the note in parenthesis altogether. The majority of the other Kennedy siblings are mentioned no further than their name.
  And besides, from what I can gather, Rosemary was born with learning and developmental disabilities, later in life she had bouts of depression and seizures, but it was actually the lobotomy her father had done to her in her early 20's that incapacitated her.
  
  Another paragraph that irked me:
  "As president, John Kennedy eagerly supported American space exploration. He promised that by the end of the 1960's, an American would land on the moon. He was right. In 1962, John Glenn became the first American to orbit the Earth. It took him four hours and fifty-five minutes to circle the planet three times." (End of topic.)
  He was right? Support that statement with a moon landing! Let's set an example to kids on how to write!
  
  I've come to expect much better from these Who books. I'd suggest a rewrite on this one.
• 
  Joey Oborne

  This book was really good it had good facts on JFK like he was only president for 1,000 days and he was a WWII hero and he saved his shipwrecked crewman in the Pacific Ocean. JFK was the youngest man ever elected as president of the united states of America, and he was the first Catholic president of the united states of America. Some people did not like him so this one guy shout him in the car he was in and he fell and there was blood every were and people were sad and when the Kenny family was on the plane back to D.C the vice president of JFK was getting sawn in as president of the United states of America.
• 
  Luca Terrasi

  After reading Who Was Ronald Reagan, this didnt stand up to the pure gold standard set by that book. The story of JFK is both heroic, beautiful, and tragic, and this book captured all of those major points. However, the details on his assassination were profoundly vague. I understand this is a book for children, but I am also a strong believer in the teachings of history with nothing stripped away. For example, Christopher Columbus didnt just go to america and have a feast and danced around with the Indians. That is what everyone is taught in school these days. They take out the very significant fact that he murdered many of the Indians and was a greedy, and rude person, at least when it came to how he treated the American Indians. Getting back on the point, I think maybe a bit more detail of the assassination would be necessary, because children need to know that. History must be learned so it doesnt repeat.
  
  Anyway, I gave this book 4 stars because I overall enjoyed its clever yet easy to understand charm. I learned a lot about his early life, but once he was in office in the book, I just was reminded of his accomplishments I've known for a very long time. 4 stars, recommend to 5th graders and up who want to learn about presidents.
• 
  Chelsey Wilson

  A good read. There was definitely a lot that I didn’t know about JFK. I will say, this book didn’t seem as information packed as the other books of this series - maybe that’s just me. This was another book where I really didn’t like the inner illustrations of. Definitely too difficult for my students to read, so I’ll probably part with this book.
• 
  Lefess

  Meh. A good read for children but the illustrations were less than desirable.
• 
  Michaela

  Cute book. The illustration of jfk on the front isn’t very flattering…. Lol. I knew most of the things listed in this book- except for the fact that Jackie rejected JFK at first! Lol!
• 
  AMY

  106 pages. This was a very helpful book, explaining the very interesting life of a famous American President. I learned a lot about President Kennedy and especially liked the drawings and additional information about Irish immigration and Pearl Harbor. This would be a great book to read while students are studying WWII, 1950-60s or race to space. Highly recommended for Grade 5 and up.
• 
  Emily Byrd

  This book is all about John F. Kennedy or as many also knew him as, Jack. The book tells the story of his life, where he grew up, and what led him to become President. The book talks a lot about his large family and the influence his father had on him to get involved in politics. The book also lists many things that he was involved in before his tragic death in 1963. He was loved by many, and to this day many people are inspired by him.
  I really liked this book, it gave lots of great information about John F. Kennedys young life leading up to his presidency and everything in between. I also really liked how the book had many information pages throughout it that explained certain things like prohibition, pearl harbor, information about congress, and many more things. I found this to be very helpful especially for young readers who may not know as much about it. I would definitely recommend this book.
  I think this book would be great for a unit on presidents, great leaders from the past. This book also has so much information that could be put to great use in a project about Presidents.
• 
  Rosa Cline

  This was a really well written biography, written in a 'storybook' format to hold the attention of the reader instead of just facts on a page. Started with his childhood and included events going on during Mr Kennedy's life. So many times authors leave that out so we as readers often forget these folks didn't live in 'our time' so adding in events such as World Wars and things help places them in their timeframe and the struggles they had to endure. In this book from time to time there are pages where the text is different and the author gives a half page to page 'History' lesson on something happening within the story. Such as she explains Irish Immigration,Prohibition, Hitler and War World II,Congress, etc. At the end she gives a time line of Mr Kennedy's life and on the next page across from it a timeline of events of the world so you can compare in a timeline. She also (which I LOVED) at the end she included a Bibliography.
  
  This book is very nice to sit and read if you have an intrest in learning about JFK. It's a wonderful book for students that may be needing to write a paper on anything from 1920-1960's. So much wonderful information in this book and presented in a pleasant wonderful way!
  
  I really appreciated the way Ms McDonough started this book, because she wrote about him being a 'hero' and saving a fellow military friend. Then took you 'back in time' and started telling about his birth and youth. So you already have an image in your mind of him and want to read more to find out the entire story. That was a nice beginning.
  
• 
  Whitney Boatright

  This was a very educational book. I found myself fascinated by JFK's childhood and learning about all his siblings. Also liked seeing how this book portrayed his death. :-) great book for kids in school, needing to know facts :-) reading it a second time found me understanding more and wanting me to take every detail about him in. One thing that I found interesting was that I didn't know presidents could vote. Very interesting!
• 
  Jillian

  *sighs* Honestly, why do we even bother teaching kids history if we're just going to glorify everything anyway? This book is a good example of that. None of JFK's womanizing ways are mentioned because we don't want to "scare" young kids. Well, guess what? The world's a big, scary, complicated place, and the sooner they learn that the better!
• 
  Shannon Clark

  Another great biography for kids!
  
  I never knew that JFK was sickly as a child. It's amazing the things I'm finding out about history as I've become older. Yet a lot of it I'm finding out by reading kids' books. :)
• 
  Alyssa

  I think this was a really good book but also very sad. Before I didn't know a whole lot about JFK but this book gives so many interesting facts I could hardly stop reading it.
• 
  Jason

  John F. Kennedy was the 35th president. He won his first battle when he was two and a half years old. He was youngest elected president.
• 
  Emily

  Have you ever wondered who was the first Catholic president!? Well, John F. Kennedy was! John F. Kennedy was also named Jack. Jack was a little boy in a big family. His brother Joe was the star of the family. All of Jack’s brothers and sisters admired Joe. Jack’s parents also admired him. Jack did not. Jack’s parents even had nine children, including Jack. Jack’s favourite sibling was her younger sister named Kathleen. Soon Jack even caught fevers, and diseases. His parents hoped he would not die, and he did not but he still stayed very ill. Soon when Jack got a little bit better his older brother Joe dared him to compete against him in a bicycle race. Joe was sure he could win the bicycle race. Joe was a star, and Jack was not. Even though Jack wasn’t a star he still competed against his big brother in the bicycle race. In the bicycle race Jack didn’t win. Instead he got hurt and went to the hospital where he needed to get a lot of stitches. When Jack was a little older Jack’s father also bought a nice white summerhouse. The summerhouse also had a lot of things, including a private tennis court, and a swimming pool. Later on as Jack grew up his brother, Joe began to be way better than Jack, and Jack didn’t like that. His brother was more and more like a star now, and Jack was not. At university or school Jack also doesn’t stand out that much as his brother, Joe. What will Jack do to stand out more than Joe!? READ THE BOOK!!!
• 
  M

  i think i prefer the Martin Luther King, Jr. book better.
  
  the same point i talked about in my review of MLKJ but worse. many things in his life were not discussed that i would rather the author did. i get that it's middle grade and maybe they cant talk about those things but still.
  the author was bias and said nothing but the best about him. i don't want to read about how much you like him. i want to read about him. but the pushing was only here and there, so it didn't really improve the reading experience but did hinder it (a bit). after reading the MLKJ's book, i feel like this is a lot less sad and painful. MLKJ's book wasn't sob-worthy, but the things discussed were shocking and heart-breaking.
  for a middle grade, i think it was well written and very understandable for the younger audience. it delivered the information in a simple way. i haven't read many non-fiction (MLKJ's was the first i've completed but not first read) and i think i would read more of the Who was series.
  
  3/5
• 
  Carly Stevens

  Biography
  Grades 4-6
  I loved this book! This series is easily becoming one of my favorites. It definitely qualifies as a WOW book for me for sure. I love history, and presidents and learning more about them. This was a great book for both! I think my favorite part was the extra pages it gave you about historical topics going on within Kennedy’s timeline. It was a quick read but full of information and nice illustrations. I would use this in my classroom if I were introducing a Civil Rights lesson. 5th grade talks about civil rights and this would be a good read to inform about the US while that was taking place. This would also be a good book to introduce the topic of perseverance or heroism. The life of John F. Kennedy was difficult but nevertheless he persisted. Through illness and through hardship. He also became a hero through being persistent. This was a wonderful book and I cant wait to read many more from this series!