Fifth Grade
Worksheets
Noah McCullough, Author
Noah McCullough published two books by the time he was thirteen years old. At the age of five, he became interested in politics. His first book, The Essential Book of Presidential Trivia, was published in 2006 by Random House publishers. Noah was only ten years old when his first book was published! His second book, First Kids: True Stories of All the Presidents' Children was published by Scholastic in 2008. He was also one of Scholastic's Kid Reporters. He wrote about the 2004 election and George W. Bush's 2005 inauguration for Scholastic.
Noah was a kindergartener in 2000 when his school held a mock presidential election. Before Noah voted, he asked questions. He asked his friends who they were going to vote for and why. They told him they were voting for the candidate their parents liked. He asked, "Is that the right reason to vote for a candidate? Is that how grownups choose a candidate? Do they ask their parents who to vote for?" He knew the answer to that was no.
Grownups find out what the candidate believes in. Then they vote for the candidate who will do the things in office that the grownup believes is important. As Noah went to vote in his school's mock election, he asked more questions. Was his vote going to count as a popular vote or an electoral vote? If Bush was elected president, what would he do about the issues? If Gore were elected, what would he do about the issues? The person Noah questioned didn't know the answers to his questions. Annoyed by Noah's questions, he banned Noah from voting in the school's mock election!
