Jonah Winter is the award-winning author of more than forty
nonfiction picture books that promote environmental awareness and
social and racial justice. Among them are The Snow
Man; The Little Owl & the Big Tree: A Christmas
Story; Oil; The Secret Project; Ruth Bader Ginsburg:
The Case of R.B.G. vs. Inequality; My Name is James Madison
Hemings; Barack; The Founding Fathers!;
and Lillian’s Right to Vote, a Jane Addams Children’s Book
Award recipient and Kirkus Prize finalist.
Barry Blitt’s illustrations have appeared on more than eighty New
Yorker covers and have also graced the pages of The New York Times
and Entertainment Weekly. He is the illustrator of Once Upon a
Time, the End (Asleep in 60 Seconds) by Geoffrey Koske and The
Adventures of Mark Twain by Huckleberry Finn by Robert Burleigh, as
well as other picture books. He lives in Roxbury, Connecticut.
Fourteen of the men who somehow separated from one country and
cobbled together a new one despite their differences are presented
in a lively celebration of politics and personalities. Each gets a
two-page spread with a full-page portrait (name, sobriquet and
dates included) along with a casual, colloquially phrased summary
biography and then lots of stats presented briefly and
intriguingly: height, weight, political leaning, education, wealth,
and religious belief, in addition to hobbies, nickname and position
on the Boston Tea Party. This last, notes Winter in an excellent
addendum/glossary, was by no means a political action supported by
all the founders. Winter addresses the question of ownership of
humans directly, noting what his subjects' expressed views were on
slavery as well as which of these early Americans owned slaves.
Winter's folksy narrative manages to give each of the founders both
dignity and humanity. Blitt's signature style is perfectly suited
to this droll enterprise. His Benjamin Franklin multitasks, his
Patrick Henry emotes. The witty, energetic illustrations include
clever references and a couple of sly anachronisms. Endpapers offer
oval portraits of the entire lineup, with Washington, Franklin and
Jefferson among the seven on the "Varsity" team, and Hancock,
Marshall and Paine among the "Junior Varsity" faces. Author's notes
and a resource list are included, but frustratingly, the book lacks
pagination and indexing. Wonderful for future constitutional
scholars and other curious young readers.
*November 15, 2014*
Pointing out that the expression “Founding Fathers” sounds like the
name of a rock band or baseball team, Winter looks into who 14 of
these men really were, warts and all: “Thomas Jefferson was sort of
a mixed bag. Dude wrote that ‘all men are created equal.’ But then
he also wrote that blacks were inferior humans!” Winter includes
quotations from each man, as well as lists of stats with categories
including their wealth, political party, “Stance on France,” and
“Opinion on Boston Tea Party” (Benjamin Rush was a “huge fan”).
Blitt’s pen-and-ink caricatures are right in line with Winter’s
playful tone, as he pokes fun at Washington, Franklin, Paine, and
others, while giving readers a strong understanding of why these
figures’ contributions to the developing nation were so
significant.
*December 22, 2014*
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