Barack Obama Leads In Children's Books

I saw this article on foxnews.com this morning talking about the glut of Barack Obama children's books that seem to have invaded the market. The article asks the incendiary question:

Are children's book publishers seeking to indoctrinate impressionable young readers -- or are they simply obeying the laws of supply and demand?

Having had friends lose their jobs in the publishing industry recently, Fox News, I assure you that no one has the money to indoctrinate these days, so I'm going to go ahead and say "demand." Also, it's not like the publishers are handing these books out in the subway like some bizarre religious cult. They're selling them to willing buyers for as much as $32 a pop.

But it's not like Fox was wrong, you know? I have seen what seems to be an inordinate amount of Obama children's books recently. Fox didn't provide any data to back up this statement:

When the country elects a new president, publishers characteristically issue a biography or two geared toward young readers.

So it got me kind of curious and I checked it out using Amazon's search engine to see what was out there in terms of presidential children's books.

Please note, I only set my search for books published after the presidents in question won their election. There are way more than 29 Obama books, but the majority were published prior to November of 2008.

My full results are below the fold, and they are shocking. Here are some quick points of interest:

1. Barack Obama far and away leads the pack with books published during his first year in office. Obama claims 29 since he was elected. In a distant second place is George H.W. Bush who had 8 published in his first year.

2.The presidents with the most children's books written about them are:

George Washington - 357
Abraham Lincoln - 262
Thomas Jefferson - 139
John F. Kennedy - 112
Franklin Roosevelt - 87
Teddy Roosevelt - 86
John Adams - 75

It's a pretty steep drop after that. Obama comes in at #20, tied with James Monroe.3. From what I can tell, Richard Nixon was the first president to have a children's book published about him while he was in office.

4. Woodrow Wilson, Benjamin Harrison, and Martin Van Buren have the least number of children's books with 12 a piece. These all seem to be a part of a series that cover all the presidents.

5. This is a children's book.