Vote for Me!

by Ben Clanton

Hey, you! Yes, you with the dazzling smile! The donkey wants your vote. So does the elephant. And each will do just about anything to win your support. Brag? Sure! Flatter? Absolutely! Exaggerate, name-call, make silly promises and generally act childish? Yes, yes, yes and yes. Soon, the tension mounts, and these two quarrelsome candidates resort to slinging mud (literally) and flinging insults. And what happens when the election results are in? Well, let's just say the donkey and the elephant are in for a little surprise—and a certain bewhiskered, third-party candidate is in for a first term.

Vote for Me! is a timely satire of American politics, but it's a story readers of all nationalities and ages will recognize. Comical, retro illustrations (in shades of blue and red, of course) are completely winning, and the duelling duo's insult-laden exchanges promise to have readers laughing out loud.

Genres: Picture Books, Childrens, Humor, Politics, Animals, Fiction, Storytime

40 pages, Hardcover

First published April 1, 2012

About the author

Ben Clanton is the author/illustrator of the Narwhal and Jelly series as well as a number of other books as IT CAME IN THE MAIL, MO'S MUSTACHE, and TATER TALES. When Ben isn't doodling up stories (and often when he is) he likes to cook, explore outdoors, and play basketball. Ben lives in Seattle, WA with his wife and kids. Find out more about Ben at www.benclanton.com.

Reviews

[Yousra · Rating 5 out of 5]

آه ... ماذا أقول وقد أعاد لي هذا الكتاب الكثير من ذكريات الدراسة في الكلية؟ ... نعم، أعادني لذكريات العامين الأخيرين في الكلية (الاقتصاد والعلوم السياسية) ومشاركتي في نموذج محاكاة الكونجرس الأمريكي

يعلم الولدان الكبيران هذا ويعلمان بسفري وتدربي هناك وقد لاحظا متابعتي للانتخابات الأخيرة فسألا العديد من الأسئلة من قبيل من هؤلاء الذين تتابعين؟ من يمثلون؟ هل لابد أن يكونا مرشحين اثنين فقط؟ هل هناك مستقلين؟ ما فرصهما؟ هل يكره المرشحان بعضهما؟ ماذا سيحل بالخاسر؟ هل يتعاون مؤيديهما لاحقا؟

أجبتهما ... أريتهما صورا لتيشرتات لدعم حملة هذا ضد ذاك ... ربما يوجد موديل أو اثنان فيهما تجاوز في حق الآخر! يتعجبان! وأشرح لهما كل ما هو غير مفهوم

وقررت أن أريهما هذا الكتاب الساخر بعنوان #انتخبوني من تأليف ورسوم الأمريكي #بن_كلانتون وأول ما سألا عنه هل اختيار الحمار والفيل من قبيل السخرية؟ قلت لهما لا بل هي رموزهما المعتمدة ... فهذا ليس أي حمار والآخر ليس أي فيل بل هما الحمار والفيل الرمزين الفعليين للديمقراطيين والجمهوريين 😁😁

الكتاب ساخر ولطيف حقا ورسومه مضحكة ويصلح لكل الأعمار كما يروج له كاتبه ويصلح للقراء من مختلف الدول فعلا فسيصبح حكاية مسلية فعلا عن حمار وفيل وفأر من الغابة ... ولكنني أجده مناسبا للسن الكبير ففيه رمزية وفيه الكثير مما يثير التساؤلات ... المرشحان هنا يركزان على نفسيهما وكل منهما لديه الأنا عالية ... يعاير أحدهما الآخر ... يتبادلان الاتهامات وبينما ينتظران النتيجة يفاجئان بفوز مرشح مستقل وهو الوحيد الذي عمل بصمت وأقنع الناخبين واطمأن الناخبون له

فعليا وفي الحقيقة لم يوجد سوى رئيس أمريكي واحد مستقل (غير حزبي) هو أول رئيس جورج واشنطن ... بينما كان هناك بعض الرؤساء ممن ينتمون لحزب تم حله مبكرا وأحزاب أخرى والباقين ينتمون لأحد الحزبين الرئيسيين

الكتاب في عمومه لطيف ومضحك وبسيط جدا وهو من إصدار #دار_نهضة_مصر

#اقرأ_مع_يسرا #اقرأ_لطفلك #اقرأ_مع_طفلك #أدب_الطفل #قصص_أطفال

[Lata · Rating 4 out of 5]

Though aimed at kids, does a nice job of summing up how candidates running for an election fail to act like mature individuals.
Simple, clean imagery, with a minimum of colours used, keeping one's eyes trained on the "dialogue" between the candidates.

[La Coccinelle · Rating 2 out of 5]

I don't really understand the point of this book. Maybe it would've been more amusing back when it was first published, but I think the whole world is suffering from American politics fatigue at this point. There's literally no story here except for a donkey and an elephant running for office, and the escalating mud-slinging that they engage in. They have no platforms. They're both unappealing. They both deserved to lose to the third-party candidate. (If only life could imitate art sometimes...)

I'm not sure who this is supposed to appeal to. It's pretty boring.

[Abigail · Rating 3 out of 5]

Author/illustrator Ben Clanton explores the world of American party politics in this amusing picture-book, as Donkey and Elephant - the symbols of the Democratic and Republican Parties - square off against one another. Each one contends that they are the better candidate, and that the voter should choose them. Soon their championing of their own virtues leads to mudslinging, and pointing out their opponent's vices. Unbeknownst to them, however, a third party has gotten involved...

Simple enough for a young picture-book audience to understand - children may not know about the electoral college, but they know ALL about name-calling, after all! - but clever enough to entertain adult readers - I think we'll all recognize these behaviors - Vote for Me! is an excellent introduction to the nature of party politics and electioneering in the USA, pitfalls and all. I enjoyed the narrative, which I found quite amusing, and thought the artwork captured the humor of the story perfectly. Clanton has managed to distill some home truths about our political system here, presenting them in an entertaining way. Recommended to anyone looking for fun picture-books to explains American party politics and elections to younger children.

[Etienne · Rating 1 out of 5]

What can be seen has a political satyr isn't working that well here because of the execution but also by the targeted readers. Who want to read political satyr book to 5 years old children? I'm not sure! But I'm sure I'm not!

[Morris · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm not sure kids will find this funny for the same reasons I did, but it does a great job of pointing out how ridiculous politics can be at times.

This unbiased review is based upon a complimentary copy provided by the publisher.

[Samantha · Rating 3 out of 5]

I almost feel like this should be required reading for every candidate...

[HadiBadi Books حادي بادي · Rating 5 out of 5]

استطاع بن كلانتون عرض مفهوم ديمقراطي مهم من خلال عرض طرق وخطوات العملية الانتخابية وطرح العديد من الطرق المختلفة التي يلجأ إليها الناخبون في المناظرات وجذب الناخبين بطرق معنوية ومادية.
للمراجعة الكاملة
اhttps://wp.me/paMrp9-sf

[Emily Duncan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Vote For Me written by Ben Clanton tells the story of a feuding donkey and elephant trying to persuade the reader to vote for them. This picture storybook is a good representation of the government parties in America. The donkey and elephant go back and forth bickering over who is better and why you should vote for them. Out of nowhere a clever mouse comes in to steal the show. After a name calling, spit ball flying fight, the elephant and donkey realize there hurtful words and actions will get them no where. This book is great to introduce the party systems in a History lesson and would be age appropriate for fourth or fifth graders. The illustrations go great with pictures, on each two page spread there is one blue page behind the donkey and a red page behind the elephant. When the two sides come together the background color changes to purple, blue and red mixed together. This is a cute book to help readers see the multiple party systems in America.

[Heather · Rating 4 out of 5]

SOOOOO CUTE! And the winner is....the INDEPENDENT MOUSE! HAHAHA! I love this picture book...

[♥Sabulous ♥ · Rating 5 out of 5]

Super cute political explanation for children!

Granted that there are jokes in this book that I don't think that a younger audience would get but they will still enjoy the illustrations and the twist ending.

[Sara · Rating 2 out of 5]

Too on the nose without actually saying anything. Just that two sides will argue and neither will be the good choice? Also literal mud-slinging? Really? Okay.

[MeganRuth - Alohamora Open a Book · Rating 4 out of 5]

Such a great book, especially for school aged kids, about how easy it is for political things to become crazy. This book truly brings the madness of politics to a kids level. It's silly and entertaining as well.

[Jessica Calaway · Rating 4 out of 5]

3 - 7 years

[Heidi-Marie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book made me laugh so hard just from its cover, so I had high hopes it would be good. I was not disappointed. A complete tongue-in-cheek book that is perfect at this election year. Shows two candidates in an election, and what seems to happen--total childish behavior complete with mud-slinging. (I thought that hilarious.) Children may not get so much of the humor in this, but I think they can at least see that both donkey and elephant are wrong in their behavior. Maybe that will stick with them as they see political candidates all over the place acting wrong. Oh, I'm sorry--is my political jaded-ness showing? Sorry. I'm all for political science, and statesmen. But I'm very against politicians. So, yes. I think this book is a great. Might read it in a jr high/high school storytime or more politically conscious school-age. Otherwise I would mostly recommend this to adults with an occasional attempt to see how the child perceives it.

[Barbara · Rating 2 out of 5]

They're at it again, the Elephant and the Donkey, and they want your vote. As each animal tries to make a case for why you should vote for him, their arguments and word-slinging escalate to the point of hurting one another's feelings. While the book has possibilities for providing examples of propaganda techniques and helping future votes be more critical during election time, both animals were rather annoying. I'm assuming they stand for the Republican and Democratic parties, but even if they don't, readers can form their own conclusions about the limited choices being offered by both candidates. The pencil and watercolor illustrations are simple and allow the ferocity of the adversaries to fill the book's pages from beginning to end.

[Josephine Sorrell · Rating 2 out of 5]

Hey, you! Yes, you with the dazzling smile! The donkey wants your vote. So does the elephant. Can you imagine? Each will do just about anything to win your vote. They boast, name call, make dumb promises, exaggerate and act like ill behaved children? As the tension mounts, and these two annoying candidates resort to slinging literal mud balls and tossing insults. Suddenly, the election results are in! Our mud slinging candidates are in for a little surprise as an unknown rises to the position.


While this picture book is a timely satire of American politics, I don’t see an audience among children. Although neither elephant or donkey get what they wanted, is it okay to act as they did?

Put this one on the quirky adult satire shelf.

[Samantha · Rating 1 out of 5]

Not funny. Overall, annoying. Yes, this is an election year, but I think kids can do without this book. It goes on for too long and it's all about arguing, even once it looks like the characters resolve their tiff the last page ends with more arguing. There are much better ways of writing politics into books that kids will actually respond to.

[Paul Hankins · Rating 2 out of 5]

Obvious tie-ins with an election year to include the color of the speech bubbles attached to each of the characters. I think the insults in the book get in the way for me to make a recommendation of this title to younger readers. It's just not subtle enough. . .

[Laura Z · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book will teach children nothing about politics or voting. It will only teach them about name-calling and mud throwing--literally. Adults may get a little more out of it--maybe. I don't recommend it for children or adults.

[Bri · Rating 1 out of 5]

Not educational and it's unlikely a child would understand the "humor." The concept's amusing (for an adult, anyway) but the execution is lacking.

[Holly Griffin · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book depicts a donkey and elephant representing two different parties in a seemingly political race. The book for the most part places the donkey one the left blue pages and the elephant on the red right pages, each stating their artificial points as to why one should vote for them. The two animals quickly begin to use bribes and insults in order to win enough votes and just when both have reached the point of overboard offense and anger, the two resort to slightly vicious name calling and the throwing of mud at one another. Eventually the two seemingly decide to put their differences aside and the elephant then asks the reader, "so who do you vote for?" and the two soon find out that the "independent mouse took home the big cheese," and won the race, which soon resurfaces the donkey and elephant's competitive and hurtful views of one another. Overall, the book seems to aim at comically depicting the typical republican and democratic candidate race in a way that children can begin to grasp; however, the book was not what I initially expected and left me wanting a different ending. The name calling, while using terms to appeal to children like "booger" and "belching" came across rather harsh and blatantly hateful. Overall, I wanted to enjoy the book, but found that the lack of storyline and overly-used name left me wanting more. I appreciate what the book may have intended to do and overall would not vote for any of the animals within the story.

[Runa]

*sigh* I don't know.

If adults can't figure out how to function without dehumanizing each other, it's hard to try to translate that concept to children (though I do generally believe children to be much more open-minded than their adult counterparts.....) We know that making friends with others across the political aisle can often be a moral issue, when they refuse to acknowledge our rights to exist, so like, I kinda worry about impressionable young marginalized children thinking that they need to sit back and take it, because it's coming from "a friend".

If anything, it's clearly good material for a discussion, and kids *notice* these things. They make up a significant and important part of our human population, and to think they aren't impacted by the adults around them arguing and name-calling about these defining issues is naive. So I guess I would want to see this book used as a model to *start* a discussion, rather than one to *end* it, if that makes sense.

Like, of course we want to have these conversations in a developmentally appropriate way, and this book can facilitate that, but it doesn't deal with the fact that this book only really has to exist because of how grown-ups can't figure out their own crap and their cruelty leaks out and impacts our kids.

[Lesa Dierking · Rating 4 out of 5]

I received this book through LibraryThing Early Reviewers.

The first time I read this book, I wasn's sure I really liked it. I think the reason primarily was because I was still employing my adult brain to this picture book, being so fed up with the "real life" politics we are currently living through, that I just couldn't see the attractiveness of this book, with the "mud slinging" etc.

I read it again a little later, and I still wasn't ready to write a review. I let it lie for a couple of weeks, and picked it up again. This time, I really enjoyed it. The donkey and elephant representations, the unfortunate relatability of the scenarios in the book to real life, and then, at least in the book, that the tactics didn't work for the donkey & elephant. It was a nice way to basically show that when you are mean to others you won't necessarily win (too bad that wasn't what happened in real-life adulthood). In the end, in fact, they basically became friends. What a nice way to come together after not being nice ... to forgive each other. I wouldn't read this to really little kids, such as preschool, because I don't think it should be very relateable to wht they know...I'm not sure.

[Vidya Tiru · Rating 4 out of 5]

My Thoughts
This book is one of those that evoked mixed feelings for me. I truly loved the artwork, the timeliness(though based on what I see, this is a timely reprint), and the concept of the book. So while we could possibly use the book to introduce younger readers to the bitter side of politics, and the words used in the mudslinging contest between the donkey and the elephant here are sure to get some giggles, I am not too sure if the book is intended to be a truly children’s picture book (because the political undertones can go over their heads) or if it should be a political satire book for adults in picture book format.

Conclusion: It is cute and giggle-inducing, and the illustrations are simply adorable! I would lean towards it being political satire for adults who have young kids so they could use it to read to their young ‘uns(after they have read it)!

Disclaimer: Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for the digital review copy of the featured books. These thoughts are my honest opinions of the books.

[Jill Jemmett · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a great picture book to teach children about political elections.

In this story, Donkey and Elephant are both running for president. They want to convince the reader to vote for them. They use promises and bribes to try to convince you. Then they have a fight and call each other names. In the end, they realize they don’t want to be mean to each other. The election results were a surprising twist at the end.

This story introduces the idea of elections to children. It is based on the donkey and elephant representations of American political parties, but the same idea can be applied to any political parties. The two animals display the same behavior of name calling and bribes, so it doesn’t favour one party over the other. I especially liked the surprise ending.

I really enjoyed this children’s book.

Thank you Penguin Random House Canada for providing a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

[Wayne McCoy · Rating 4 out of 5]

'Vote for Me!' with words and pictures by Ben Clanton is truthfully hilarious book about a donkey and an elephant who want your vote.

The reader is urged, on alternating pages, to vote for either the donkey or the elephant. Their pleas get more urgent and eventually lead to name calling and mudslinging. Who will the readers vote for?

Ben Clanton writes hilarious books for young readers, and even though young readers might not get all the meanings here, it's still a fun read, and grown ups should be laughing right along with them. The drawings are cute and it's the perfect book for an election year.

I received a review copy of this ebook from Tundra Books, Penguin Random House Canada, and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you for allowing me to review this ebook.

[Sue.the.very.busy.reader · Rating 3 out of 5]

Vote For Me by Ben Clanton is a great book to help young children to understand the voting process. This is an important election today. I’m sure we are all aware. Even our children are feeling the pressure of the election. Lucky teachers and librarians are able to access wonderful books to help children understand the craziness of the voting process. This is a new
book that Kris @wildpeachesbooks and Tara @trureads put on my radar. It has simple illustrations and speech bubbles. I really enjoyed the expressive faces. The surprise ending is my favorite part of the story. Another fun book for the Election day is Duck for President by Doreen Cronin and Betsy Lewis. That was the one I always read to my kindergarteners and then we had an election between Clifford and Spot to see who would be our class dog.

[Erin *BookDragon_Library* · Rating 3 out of 5]

Same simple illustration feel as Clanton’s Narwhal and Jelly. And obvious political satire with Elephant and Donkey. Their disagreements escalate to literal mud-slinging. It is a decent talking point for two parties running against each other and making promises that are unrealistic. Might be more funny in a different political environment. Probably funny to kids but hits too close to home for adults suffering political fatigue.
NOTE: My 8 year old thought it was HILARIOUS. I wouldn't use it on its own for a school lesson on voting or democracy. But it might add an element of fun for kids to a serious topic if balanced with a factual book. There are better choices like "Grace for President" or "Duck for President" etc. But this is not specific for the presidency.

[Becky B · Rating 2 out of 5]

Donkey and Elephant are trying to get the reader to vote for them. When the competition heats up, will they say things they regret? And will mudslinging really get them the voters?

This is definitely a tongue-in-cheek commentary on American political campaigns. It's also a lesson that when you are mean to others, it wins you no popularity points. And that you need to be careful with your words. Donkey and Elephant still have some things to learn by the end, but they have made a little step toward how to disagree civilly. Not my favorite picture book, but I'm sure some will find it hilarious.