Bringing Down A President: The Watergate Scandal

by Elizabeth Levy, Andrea Balis, Tim Foley (Illustrator)

Overview

A middle-grade retelling of Richard Nixon's downfall, Bringing Down A President: The Watergate Scandal is an inventive and timely look at one of the biggest scandals to ever rock our nation by Andrea Balis and Elizabeth Levy, featuring graphic novel style illustrations by Tim Foley.

Comprised almost completely of primary source quotes (good thing Nixon's recorder was on) and interspersed with contextual narrative, this captivating account of the trials and tribulations of the Nixon Administration has been rendered screenplay style offering an extraordinarily immediate narrative of one of America's most turbulent eras.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250176790
Publisher:	Roaring Brook Press
Publication date:	08/06/2019
Pages:	240
Sales rank:	1,059,874
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 8.90(h) x 1.00(d)
Lexile:	940L (what's this?)
Age Range:	10 - 14 Years

About the Author

Dr. Andrea Balis is a faculty member in the history department of John Jay College, City University of New York. Her specialization is twentieth century political history. She has also written extensively for the theater, and worked as a director. She is the author of What Are You Using: A Guide for Birth Control for Teenagers and a novel, PJ.

Elizabeth Levy is the award-winning author of over 100 fiction and non-fiction books for children and young adults. She is known for the humor and research that she brings to her subjects, from studying stand-up comedy for My Life as A Fifth Grade Comedian, to working with renowned historians for America's Funny but True History and If You Were There When They Signed the Constitution.

Tim Foley was born in Flint, Michigan, and attended college at the Kendall School of Art in Grand Rapids, Michigan. His has illustrated such books as Ben Thompson and Erik Slader's Epic Fails history series and Is it Safe to Kiss My Cat? Tim lives and works in Grand Rapids with his wife, Terri.

Table of Contents

Cast of Leading Characters ix

Introduction xiii

Part 1 The Game Begins

To Be a Fly on the Wall 3

The Gang That Couldn't Burgle Straight 6

The Plumbers 16

A Smoking Gun 24

Inside Nixon's Head 27

Struggle at Home and War in Vietnam 35

Part 2 The Cover-Up

Blackmail 45

Under the Bus: Part I 54

Four More Years! 60

The Story That Fades but Doesn't Go Away 65

Enemies, Enemies, Everywhere 75

A Big Win, but Nobody's Happy 80

Part 3 The Great Unraveling

Black Clouds: Without a Silver Lining 87

Fuzzy Eyebrows 93

Naming Names 97

A Cancer on the Presidency 101

Under the Bus: Part II 105

Impeachment on the Horizon 111

Archibald Cox to the Rescue 115

Everybody's Watching 119

Tapes, Tapes, Who's Got the Tapes? 126

The Law versus Richard Nixon 133

Saturday Night Massacre 140

Teetering on the Edge 147

Lull Before the Supreme Storm 155

Dying by Inches 162

Back to California 168

I Gave Them a Sword and They Stuck It In 178

Epilogue 183

Where They Are Now: People Who Went to Jail 187

Where They Are Now: The People Who Put the People in Jail 191

Timeline 193

Note on Sources 197

Source Notes 198

Bibliography 211

Acknowledgments 214

Index 216

Editorial Reviews

*"This valuable book reminds us that we can learn from the lessons of history and so avoid reprising the dark days of this national nightmare." —Booklist, starred review

From the Publisher

08/01/2019

Gr 7–10—Richard Nixon wrote a single sentence to Secretary of State Henry Kissinger on August 9, 1974. It read: "I hereby resign the Office of President of the United States." Nixon became the first president ever to resign from office. What led up to the resignation, including possible impeachment, is the premise of Balis and Levy's book that features well-placed illustrations by Foley. Organized in chronological order that introduces the cast of characters with the heading "The Game Begins," the presentation of the accounts of the Watergate scandal adequately brings the story to life with primary source materials. Yet there is one distracting element: the repetition of "fly on the wall" in the narrative. While Balis and Levy introduce the idiom in their introduction, it is an unnecessary and distracting addition to this straightforward nonfiction that reads like any captivating true crime novel. Idiom aside, breaking down the confusing sequence of events about this presidential cover-up from nearly a half century ago provides an opportunity for historical reflection that may have escaped the consciousness of teen readers. VERDICT The book's unbiased presentation is refreshing. Its focus on the human aspects of Watergate, equally so. Ultimately, Balis and Levy walk readers through the scandal with expertise. A compelling book that deserves to be on the shelf.—Alicia Abdul, Albany High School, NY

School Library Journal

2019-05-08
President Richard Nixon's downfall as a result of the Watergate scandal is vividly recounted in a screenplay-style narrative.

In Balis and Levy's narrative, contextual paragraphs identified as "Fly on the Wall" are separated from direct quotes taken from Nixon, his administration, the Watergate burglars, reporters Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, and members of Congress. The purpose of choosing this narrative format is never explained, nor is it readily apparent. Many of Nixon's lines and those of his staff come from transcribed Oval Office recordings. It's inventive all right, but there are some odd inclusions. Is it necessary to know that Howard Hunt urinated in a whiskey bottle while hiding in a closet? What use is it to know what John Dean's wife wore on each day during his weeklong testimony before Congress? Why do the authors need to identify who ate what when Nixon, John Mitchell, and Bob Haldeman met for lunch? Perhaps worse are the exclusions. In recounting Nixon's political career, the authors note he made a name for himself "fighting communists with Senator Joe McCarthy," but there is no explanation of how fraudulent and destructive McCarthy's anti-communist crusade was, nor that it was specifically Nixon's role in the Alger Hiss trial that got him noticed. In lieu of photographs and archival material are Foley's interpretive black-and-white illustrations, which bring a graphic-novel-esque flair to the design.

An intriguing but flawed attempt at narrative innovation. (timeline, source notes, bibliography) (Nonfiction. 10-14)

Kirkus Reviews