No Storybook Ending Here

Once upon a time, there was a girl who wanted to fly among the planets and stars. She had blond locks, pink cheeks and (says this storyteller) blue, blue eyes. Her name was Hillary, and she tried to fly to the highest office in the land. The children's book is called "Hillary Rodham Clinton: Dreams Taking Flight," and author Kathleen Krull finished it in December—just as Clinton's dreams began plummeting back to Earth. But Krull kept the faith through Iowa, the Bosnia flap, the Bill blow-ups. "I really thought she was going to win," says Krull. As Hillary tried to resuscitate her campaign (which was not involved with the book), Krull revised her draft, still hoping. Even after Clinton conceded, Krull refused to change the book's last words: "Was the land ready? No matter—she was propelling her way into history."

It's hard to create a best seller out of a book about a failed presidential candidacy, so what's a publisher to do with a title that only a few months ago seemed like a sure bet? "We just have to roll with whatever the political climate is," says Simon & Schuster's Paul Crichton, who's been tasked with promoting the book. For Clinton, that means sharing the stage once again with you-know-who. Come convention season, "Dreams Taking Flight" will be displayed at Barnes & Noble alongside another S&S title, "Barack Obama: Son of Promise, Child of Hope." (The imprint will also release a picture book about John McCain, written by his daughter, former NEWSWEEK intern Meghan McCain.)

The Obama book has been updated with an additional page about his primary win, but Clinton's won't change—unless Obama offers her the veep spot, says Krull, something she's "optimistic" about. But if that doesn't pan out, all is not lost. Back when Bill Clinton was in the White House, Krull had written another children's book profiling the past presidents. Her illustrator drew Bill in running shorts, toting a saxophone. His wife's portrait looms above. And in the corner of the page, the Clintons' cat, Sox, hoists a sign: CHELSEA IN 2016.