It’s a question parents have wrestled with since the 2016 presidential election: How do we explain this political moment to our children? I, for one, was hoping the answer would not involve a book aimed at teenagers in which a candidate’s obscene reference to female anatomy appears on Page 2, but that is where we are. In UNPRESIDENTED: A Biography of Donald Trump (Feiwel and Friends, 384 pp., $19.99; ages 12 and up), Martha Brockenbrough provides an encyclopedic tale of the rise of Donald J. Trump. Brockenbrough’s version is, unapologetically, a liberal’s framing of events. Then again, I’m not sure if a nonpartisan book about Trump could grow out of the current climate. For now, there is this thorough, hard-hitting volume that seeks to explain Trump, from the time he was born with a silver spoon and “golden hair, pink cheeks and a tiny pucker of a mouth,” to his shocker of a presidential campaign (“candidates typically don’t insult the parents of soldiers who die in combat”).
The tone isn’t lighthearted, yet I laughed out loud in Chapter 4. Is there any more telling symbol of our bizarre (and yes, unprecedented) times than Roy Cohn appearing prominently in a young adult book, and not one about the bygone days of McCarthyism? Brockenbrough describes Trump’s infamous lawyer and fixer (or “attack dog,” as she calls him) in such stark, terrifying terms that he seems almost like a cartoon villain, a closeted Cruella de Vil “with weatherworn skin, dark eyes and a nose that looked like it had encountered many fists in his 46 years.”
Halfway through “Unpresidented,” I found myself craving a different type of children’s book, something that would enlighten kids about the current climate, educate them on the historical struggles that got us here, but also offer bipartisan hope. I wanted a respite from the partisan rancor, preferably with appealing illustrations that didn’t include a 2016 Electoral College map.
I found all of this and more in several immersive picture books about women leaders. The standout books of the bunch tell the stories of two remarkable women of color. In WHAT DO YOU DO WITH A VOICE LIKE THAT? (Beach Lane, 48 pp., $17.99; ages 4 to 8), a biography of Representative Barbara Jordan written by Chris Barton and illustrated by Ekua Holmes, we go from Jordan’s modest upbringing in Houston to her civil rights activism to the halls of Congress and back to Texas after a multiple sclerosis diagnosis takes her out of public life. All the way, Jordan’s distinct “big, bold, booming, crisp, clear, confident voice” guides us.
Appropriately, Holmes’s illustrations are big, bold, booming, crisp, clear folk art collages. The images — Jordan strumming a guitar against a starry sky, walking with a cane against the rowhouses of her youth — draw on Holmes’s prowess as a mixed-media artist. We learn about United States history in the process. “In 1960, America was not as free or fair a place as it could be. Barbara believed politics could change that,” Barton writes. “Her voice had made a difference.”
