The grainy black-and-white television ad shows a young girl in a flower-filled meadow, holding a daisy and plucking its petals, which she counts one by one. As the camera slowly zooms in on her eye, a man's solemn countdown replaces hers. At zero the little girl's eye is engulfed by an atomic mushroom cloud. As the inferno roils in the background, President Lyndon B. Johnson's voice intones, "These are the stakes -- to make a world in which all of God's children can live, or to go into the dark. We must either love each other, or we must die." In this thought-provoking and highly readable book, Robert Mann provides a concise, engaging study of the "Daisy Girl" ad, widely acknowledged as the most important and memorable political ad in American history. Commissioned by Johnson's campaign and aired only once during Johnson's 1964 presidential contest against Barry Goldwater, it remains an iconic piece of electoral propaganda, intertwining cold war fears of nuclear annihilation with the increasingly savvy world of media and advertising. Mann presents a nuanced view of how Johnson's campaign successfully cast Barry Goldwater as a radical too dangerous to control the nation's nuclear arsenal, a depiction that sparked immediate controversy across the United States. Repeatedly analyzed in countless books and articles, the spot purportedly destroyed Goldwater's presidential campaign. Although that degree of impact on the Goldwater campaign is debatable, what is certain is that the ad ushered in a new era of political advertising using emotional appeals as a routine aspect of campaign strategy.

The popular Social Studies Connects series links history, geography, civics and economics to kids’ daily lives. Featuring stories with diverse characters who face situations young readers can relate to, these books support reading and social studies skills including researching, inferring, comparing, and communication. An activity to stimulate curiosity about the world is included in each book! Pete and Joey are best friends, until they run for class president—and discover that it takes more than speeches and posters and promises to win an election. (Social Studies Topic: Civictions/Elections)

It’s the fall of 1964. Bloody turmoil over civil rights is spilling onto the streets. A fearful ideology is growing from the conservative right. The threat of nuclear war is palpable. And a little skirmish in the far-off nation of Vietnam just won’t go away. With a presidential election looming, a group of “ad-men” working for Lyndon Johnson unleash the most devastating political commercial ever conceived, the “Daisy ad.” Based on true events, DAISY explores the moment in television history that launched the age of negative advertising, and forever changed how we elect our leaders. War was the objective. Peace was the bait. Everyone got duped.

Ten-year-old Daisy Martinez is excited to begin fourth grade! Daisy and her BFF Blanca are both in room 210 with the wonderful new teacher, Ms. Lilly. When Ms. Lilly calls her class super smart superstars, Daisy decides she's going to prove that she's both. Join Daisy, Blanca, Raymond and all their friends for an exciting year in fourth grade!

When bossy Madison is the only one to run for fourth grade president, much to the dismay of Daisy and her friends, Daisy finally decides she will have to run, too.

Diary entries and letters from Franklin D. Roosevelt and his private secretary Margaret Suckley offer unique insight into the character of the president and his struggles with disability.

"She was born during the Jazz Age and grew up in Paris and the American Midwest after her father's death on the polo field and her mother's later suicide. As a young war reporter, she waded ashore on Omaha Beach and witnessed the liberation of Dachau. She spent the 1950s hobnobbing in Hollywood with Marlene Dietrich and Gene Kelly. She went to West Africa as an ambassador's wife as the New Frontier dawned. She comforted a distraught Lyndon Baines Johnson in Washington, DC, as the Vietnam war turned into a quagmire. And today? Today, it's June 6, 2006: Pamela Buchanan Murphy Gerson Cadwaller's 86th birthday. With some asperity, she's waiting for a congratulatory phone call from the president of the United States. Brother, is he ever going to get a piece of her mind"--Publisher description.