Review of There Once Was A Man From the USA-50 State Limericks by Joshua Kraushar

Today I received the book There Once Was A Man From the USA to read and review.
Since it was a short book, I thought I would just go ahead and review it today as well.

I am a history buff by nature and thought this book would be interesting in that it was reviewing all 50 states in rhyme and tell a little about each one. After all, the author is a now retired high school social studies teacher and should know what he is talking about. Right? At least, that is what I thought.

The fact is, I was far from what I thought. In fact, this book was indeed about all 50 states but other than the name of the state, that is where it begins and ends. The author, Joshua Kraushar, introduced each state and then made up a limerick for each one. Most of the time the limerick has absolutely nothing to do with the state itself.

Disappointment number one!

To make matters worse, the very first state that was in the book had the 'character' killing someone. The book just went downhill from there.

Disappointment number two!

If this book was meant to be for children to remember states then Mr. Kraushar missed the mark. This book should not be read by young children at all as some of the wording and subject matter is very adult and could only be understood by an older student or adult. One could certainly not memorize states this way.

Disappointment number three!

In essence, I wasted the whole five minutes of my time it took me to read this book. Obviously, I do not recommend this book at all. I am generously giving this book 2 stars only because the limericks did rhyme.

~Naila Moon