The President's Stuck in the Bathtub

The President’s Stuck in the Bathtub: Poems About the Presidents

Written by Susan Katz

Illustrated by Robert Neubecker

Susan Katz, 2012

64 pages

Collection of Poetry

            The funny title of this collection of poems is exactly what drew me to pick it up.  Who would not want to read about a president that was stuck in the bathtub?  The president that the title is referring to is William Howard Taft; he was so large that he got stuck in the bathtub at the White House!  This poetry collection has many other fun facts about U.S. presidents written in poetic form.  Read The President’s Stuck in the Bathtub to learn little-known facts about each of the presidents in an amusing way!

            Robert Neubecker used India ink and digital color to wonderfully illustrate this collection of presidential poems.  Each poem has an illustration that corresponds to it, visualizing the fun facts about the presidents in an entertaining fashion.  Most of the poems and corresponding illustrations occupy only one page while some take up two pages.  Neubecker drew each president with enough detail so the reader can recognize him.  These illustrations added a lot of character to the poetry collection, and I really enjoyed looking at them.  Children will enjoy them too!

            This poetry collection could be used in a variety of ways in upper-elementary and middle school classrooms.  This collection could be used in a social studies/history class in many ways.  A teacher could read one of these poems at the beginning of class each day, thereby allowing the students to start out learning something new about the presidents every day.  The students could also use these poems while completing projects about the presidents.  They could gather fun facts about them by reading these poems.  This collection could also be used in an English class when studying different rhyme scheme or poem structure.  These poems do not all follow the same rhyme scheme or structure, so students would be introduced to a variety of ways poetry can be written.  Therefore, this poetry collection has many uses and would be a great addition to the classroom!