What’s the Big Deal about First Ladies by Ruby Shamir (review)

’Tis the season to freshen up the shelves with the latest books about all things presidential, and a title by an ex-White House staffer and the ever entertaining and illuminating Matt Faulkner sounds like a winner. A poorly organized Q&A format, however, results in a tangle of trivia whose sprightly illustrations can’t make up for the chaotic spillage of information that doesn’t fully adhere to the question under consideration. Pat Nixon’s trip to China is offered as the sole answer to “Did first ladies do anything outside the White House?” rather than in the travel section. Under that same travel question, though, appears Nixon’s gutsy encounter with a leprosy patient (country unmentioned), but not under “Have first ladies tried to help people who were sick or hurt?” Some observations are misleading: Lucy Hayes’s reputation for offering lemonade libations “because of a ban on alcoholic drinks at the White House” leaves kids wondering whether that ban was historic or ongoing. Other remarks simply miss the question entirely, such as Florence Harding’s “firsts”—voting for her husband, getting Secret Service Protection, riding in an airplane—in answer to “What else do first ladies teach us?” The pre-pub galley leaves a cliffhanger of “final page to come after November 8th . . .” but whatever the outcome, the update is unlikely to elevate this effort to must-have status for a library purchase. A list of presidents, their terms, and their spouses, as well as selected resources, is included.