So You Think You Know the Presidents? Fascinating Facts About Our Chief Executives

Once again Meltzer (The Thinker's Thesaurus) remixes the reference book, this time offering a buoyant twist to American presidential history. The book reads like a transcript to a popular quiz show. It's jam-packed with trivia, both well-known and rare, about all of the Presidents: Who's the only one from Indiana? Benjamin Harrison. Which is the only one Queen Elizabeth II didn't meet during her long reign? Lyndon Johnson. Who are the five Presidents who weren't elected to that office? John Tyler, Millard Fillmore, Andrew Johnson, Chester Arthur, and Gerald Ford. The content is divided into sections about the Presidents' pets, families, educations, and inaugurations, among 25 or so topics, and while a few sections, such as a chapter on rankings, devolve into a stream of statistics, most are involving, since the author makes it a point to fully explain the answers to every question unlike other quiz books on the topic. A fun addition to the American history buff's bookshelf. B&w photos. (Dec.)