TODAY ON ELECTION DAY

A proudly buoyant tour of Election Day in the U.S.A.

This spry salute to the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November generates a significant amount of positive energy. Only through active engagement in the process—informing yourself, going to the polling station—will you be tapping into the possibilities of the system. Everything else is just so much hot air. Stier neither belabors nor stints on the text. There is a decent amount of information to be imparted, if only to acquaint readers with political parties, campaigns, Congress, the history of the vote, Constitutional amendments, debates and voting, and it is done in an easy, if modestly didactic voice. It has the genuine ring of smart young students giving the oral presentation of their civics projects, sweet and serious. Stier situates the activity around the children's school, and Leonard makes the most of the setting, giving it the warm, watercolor cast of a small town, yet modern in its computer voting machines. And all ages are involved, young to old, with the finger squarely placed on the importance of 18-year-olds assuming this mantle of importance.

Future voters of the world, unite. The vote, Stier makes clear, is a great gift we have given ourselves.