President's Cabinet and How It Grew

The book starts out with a drawing of a dresser and the comment "This is not the president's cabinet." After a general description of what the cabinet is and its relation to the president under the constitution, single pages are devoted to the first cabinet and each significant change in the cabinet, metioning, e.g., the first secretary of the interior and the historical context in which that office was introduced. This continues up to the elder George Bush's cabinet. Then there are summaries of the current (as of the early 90's) roles of each department and secretary. There are some related statistics and maps as well. I read almost all of this to my seven year old daughter and added a bit of a verbal update to the info. I don't think she was bored. The illustrations are well done. A reader might perceive a slight political bias (though I'm not really sure there is one)---Reagan's role, late in his term, in creating the Dept. of Veterans Affairs is called an obvious political move, and some of the statements about the importance of various welfare state programs etc. might be disputed by some but could just be understood as presenting the rationale of the relevant department's mission. Father and daughter both learned by reading this book; it's too bad to see that it's out of print.