"The President Has Been Shot!"

December 1, 2013

Gr 7 Up-Marking the 50th anniversary of President Kennedy's assassination in November 1963, Swanson's compelling book (Scholastic, 2013) combines riveting narration by Will Patton with excerpts from Kennedy's speeches. Listeners learn about the president's early life, family background, his heroic service during World War II, and his time in the House and the Senate. After narrowly defeating Richard Nixon in 1960, JFK moved into the Oval Office and was tested by the Bay of Pigs invasion and the Cuban Missile Crisis. By fall of 1963, Kennedy had finally hit his stride and grown into the office. Ready to start campaigning for his 1964 re-election, Kennedy planned his fateful trip to Dallas. Swanson and Patton keep listeners on the edge of their seats with minute-by-minute details about the motorcade's route through Dallas and Lee Harvey Oswald's perch atop the Texas Schoolbook Depository. Though most listeners will already know the sad outcome, it's almost impossible to stop listening to Patton lay it out. A masterfully told piece of history.-Bernie Morrissey, The Harker School, San Jose, CA

Copyright 2013 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

whopper12 - Have you witnessed JFK's assassination or even seen the video on YouTube? Well what if you could see it happen in your mind from just reading a book? The book I read was The President Has Been Shot by James L. Swanson published in 2013, with the genre being nonfiction. I have not always been a big fan of non-fiction, but after reading this book it has shown me as a reader that non-fiction can be just as interesting as fiction. I give this book 5 stars for detailed information and the quality of the details. While reading the book I never felt that there was a part that did not have much detail. The author had to have spent a lot of time finding little but specific facts. The book is mainly about John F Kennedy's assassination, but also his early life of how he became President and the aftermath and chaos from the presidents death. A very interesting feature about the book is that it explains what Lee Harvey Oswald,(JKF's assassin) did to prepare the assassination attempt. The book has exact details because in just one example states,"The third bullet sliced through John Kennedy's thatch of thick reddish-brown hair. It cut a neat hole through his scalp and perforated his skull. The velocity, the pressure, and the physics of death did the rest. The right rear side of the president's skull blew out -exploded really-tearing open his scalp, and spewing skull fragments, blood, and brains several feet into the air where it hung for a few seconds, suspended in a pink cloud."(Swanson 113.) All though this is a disturbing example there is very extreme details which make the book very accurate and more interesting to read because at times like this you feel like you did or are witnessing JFK's assassination. Another example in the book states,"She pressed her cheek against his still warm face. She kissed his body. Then she removed her wedding ring and slipped it onto one of his fingers." This information and the details given are so precise because the author of the book knows every single small fact about the assassination and the aftermath. Some of the information doesn't even matter but it shows how absolutely nothing was left out of the book. The type of reader who would like this book is someone who is interested in American history or if they would like to learn about JFK.