A Kid's Guide to America's Bill of Rights.

• Author: Paulsen, Luke
• Position: Book Review

Book by Kathleen Krull (3)

1. INTRODUCTION

   A year or two ago, I was given this book. As soon as I saw the title, I liked it. Who would think that someone would write a book about law for kids? In fact, the answer may be "no one." I have a hunch it was written for adults too!

2. THE BOOK

   A Kid's Guide to America's Bill of Rights has 15 chapters, as well as "Suggestions for Further Reading," an introduction, and an index. Chapter 1 is about the Bill of Rights in general: some information about how it started and the complete Bill of Rights. Chapters 2-13 cover the amendments themselves. Each amendment gets a chapter, except for the First Amendment, which gets three. Chapter 14 lists the other amendments: 11 through 27. Finally, Chapter 15 talks about some problems with the Bill of Rights, like women's, African-Americans', and Native Americans' rights, which were ignored for years after the Bill of Rights was ratified.

   Each chapter from 2 to 13 focuses on one part of the Bill of Rights. Most of them start with fairly well known court cases that show some of the major points of each right. The author manages to be very neutral toward each one. Another amazing accomplishment is making a topic like this actually fun for kids. Now that is one good author.

3. RIGHTS AND KIDS

   School is one of the most common links between kids and the Bill of Rights. In public schools, all three First Amendment issues (freedom of religion, freedom of speech, and freedom of the press), as well as the Fourth Amendment, come into play. (4)

   The first part of the First Amendment (the establishment clause) is one of the most important parts of the Bill of Rights. A lot of the cases based on it have been over prayer in public schools. Freedom of speech also applies in school. Many censorship cases involve school newspapers or school libraries. That's an example of freedom of the press cases. The First Amendment is probably the #1 amendment that affects students. I'll go into more detail on this in Section IV of the book review.

   The Fourth Amendment also applies a lot in schools. Most of the cases about this involve drug testing. The students say their privacy is more important; the schools say safety is. Mostly, the courts say the schools are right, in some of my least favorite decisions of all time. I'll discuss these in Section IV too.

   The Fifth, Sixth, Seventh and Eighth Amendments deal with criminal trials, civil trials, and punishments. This doesn't apply to kids that...