The Kid Who Ran For President Chapter Summaries
Families: Here is a summary of each of the chapters in The Kid Who Ran For President. Please talk to your children about each chapter and use the guide to prompt discussion. Enjoy!
Before starting The Kid Who Ran For President, discuss expectations for the story. Ask your children what, why, who, where, and how questions. Spark their imagination and set time aside to talk about the setting, characters, plot and the moral of the story.
In the Prologue, you will meet Judson Moon, our protagonist. You will find out that he is 12 years old and running for president of the United States of America!
Moon and his friend Lane Brainard were playing pool and watching television when the two decided it would be cool for Judson to run for President.
In Chapter 2, Moon walks home from Lane’s house and stops to visit June Syers, his old babysitter. On her front porch, Moon asks Mrs. Syers about voting and we learn that she has only voted for one President, Franklin Delano Roosevelt. She tells Moon he is crazy to run.
In school, Moon tell his classmates that he is going to run for President. Former friend, Arthur Krantz, laughs at Moon and asks him about the various requirements to being President. Moon makes jokes and gets his classmates laughing. Then, he and Lane seek 2,000 signatures from adults in the town to get on the Wisconsin ballot.
At home that night, we learn that Moon’s mom is a carpet tile salesperson and his dad sells cardboard boxes for a living. Like most parents, they are tired when they get home and don’t always pay attention to Moon as much as they should. When Moon tells them that he has decided to run for President, they give their blessing but don’t realize what he has decided to do.
In Chapter 5, we meet Moon’s good friend Abby Goldstein. She has known him since he was in preschool and thinks he would make a wonderful President.
Moon and Lane met at their treehouse to discuss their campaign strategy. They discuss whether Moon is a Republican or a Democrat, the two main political parties. They decided Moon will run as an Independent. They talked about coming up with a catchy slogan to encourage people to vote for Moon. All candidates choose a running mate that would serve as the Vice President. They choose an adult, June Syers, Moon’s long time neighbor and friend.
In this chapter, Moon approaches Chelsea Daniels about becoming his “First Babe” because every President has had a First Lady. Chelsea is a beautiful popular twelve year old in his class. She agrees to support him.
Moon visits his neighbor, June Syers, and asks her if she would like to be his running mate.
The next phase of the election preparation was fundraising. Moon finds out that he needs $20 million to run for office. Running for President involves expensive television commercials, online ads, t-shirts, bumper stickers and more!
Lane calls a reporter, Pete Guerra, from a local newspaper The Capital Times, to tell him about Moon. He invites him to interview Moon about running for President.
Moon and Lane set up a lemonade stand to start raising money. During the sale, Moon was interviewed by The Capital Times. Lane said it was important to make the news so more people could learn about a kid running for President.
That night during dinner, Moon’s interview was on the television. His parents were astounded!! Once the news ended, friends, relatives and teachers called Moon about running for President. His parents told him he had to complete his homework before working on the campaign.
The next morning, Moon’s picture was on the front page of the newspaper. He became an instant celebrity and everyone was talking about the kid running for President. Even the Principal of his school was impressed and asked him to give a speech at an entire school assembly! Moon was really nervous about speaking in front of 350 students.
Moon was very nervous but started reading his speech in front of the whole school. Once he got started, the students were cheering him on and he loved it. His message is that adults are the ones responsible for the problems in the country today so only a kid can fix them. After the speech, Moon talked with another reporter
By morning, Moon was famous! Every newspaper and tv show wanted to talk with Moon. The press started camping out on his front lawn. A kid had never run for President before so it was
really exciting news. People all over the country mailed Moon money to run for President and he collected over $2,000!
Moon continued to receive more and more items in the mail, including a dog! Moon’s Dad sits down to talk with Moon about running for President. His Dad tells him he has to be a salesman and give the American people want they want. He said a President should be strong and exhibit a lot of good qualities.
Many more newspapers started to report on a child running for office. Some thought it was a joke. Many said that Moon couldn’t run because he wasn’t old enough. Lane told Moon that the Constitution could be changed to allow him to run. People across the country debated whether there should be an age limit for the President.
In this chapter, we learn about the other candidates running for office. In a poll, Moon already has 1% of the voters on his side. That is about 1 million people! Meanwhile, money kept pouring in for his campaign. Students (called “Moonies”) volunteered to help open mail and spread the word about voting. Soon Moon had enough money to run ads on television which helped him convince even more people to vote for him.
Moon went on Facebook, Twitter, and other social media to see what people thought of him running for President. To his surprise, he found that people all over the country were holding yard sells and selling lemonade to raise money for his campaign. People were sharing information about him and were promoting him online. He was happy to see that this was a free way to advertise that the other candidates weren’t using.
Lane signs Moon up to debate the other candidates. He prepares Moon to answer tough questions on important issues like gun control, immigration, healthcare, and taxes. Moon can see that both sides have good reasons to feel strongly about issues. Lane tells him that people want a President to have definite opinions so they can make policy to fix problems.
Lane and Moon flew to Chicago to attend the debate at a big convention center. Moon was amazed by the security guards and secret service agents. Moon was really nervous and was worried he would forget everything he prepared.
Moon suffers from stage fright and can’t remember his pre-planned answers. So he decides to do what he always does when he is stressed and make jokes! The jokes go over very well with the audience and Moon’s popularity goes up.
Everyone said that Moon had won the debate. The American people loved his responses to the debate questions. He was getting more and more popular by the day. Moon started to worry that he would actually win the election unless something disastrous happened!
In Chapter 24, we learn that Moon stole Krantz’ term paper in 4th grade when he was mad at him. The news made sure that everyone knew he had done a bad thing in his past. Everyone was upset with him. Lane told him the only way to fix it was to go on TV and read a statement he prepares. Moon agrees.
On TV, Moon admitted that he made some mistakes in the past but that he learned from them. Lane used language from a past President’s speech, Richard Nixon’s speech, to convince the American people that he was sorry.
Election Day arrived on the First Tuesday in November. Moon was nervous as adults poured in to vote for the next President. Lane explained how the voting process worked. Each state is given one electoral vote for every member of Congress including the state’s two Senators and the members in the House of Representatives. Lane explained that the candidate with 270 or more electoral votes wins the election. No spoiler alert here – you will have to read to find out if Moon wins the election!
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