So You Want to Be President

The familiar vice of Stockard Channing narrates the primer, “So You Want to be President?” It’s one of several animated shorts on American history for the grade school set, collected on a Scholastic DVD to be released Feb. 9 in time for President’s Day. Based on the Caldecott winning children’s book by Judith St. George, “So You Want” is a collection of fun facts about the first 42 Presidents—number 43 was just named by the U.S. Supreme Court when the short was made and Barack Obama was unknown beyond Chicago’s South Side. For adults, “So You Want” is great trivia material. The oldest President ever inaugurated was Ronald Reagan and the youngest is still Theodore Roosevelt. The tiniest was the diminutive James Madison, at 100 lbs. and 5’4. The fattest, the 300 lb.-plus William Howard Taft, required a special White House bathtub to accommodate his bulk.