After a few introductory chapters, Khizr Khan provides an easy-to-read modern-day "translation" of the Constitution, paraphrasing the original text article by article, section by section, using every-day words that are easy to understand. There's a bit more summarizing with some of the amendments, but the idea is the same. There are also a few sections about landmark Supreme Court cases that shed light on how the Constitution has been interpreted over the years.
I wanted to be able to say that I've actually read the Constitution, so I made the dubious decision to read the original text - which is included in full towards the end of the book - alongside Khizr Khan's "translation". What a slog. :P It was hard for me to parse, and I couldn't figure out what some of the phrases meant. Khizr Khan's version was indispensable in helping me to actually understand the Constitution.
In a book geared towards middle schoolers that carefully explains a number of words, I was a little bothered that "tyranny" and "tyrant" weren't explicitly defined. Also, the "translation" could have been a little clearer in regards to one part of the 12th Amendment; I was confused because the original text referenced a date of March 4, but the paraphrased version stated January 20. I did a little Googling, and it turns out, the date of March 4 (as the start of the new president's term) was changed to January 20 in the 20th Amendment. So both dates were "correct", but the use of January 20 in the "translation" assumes knowledge of the 20th Amendment.
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