Thomas Jefferson Builds a Library - Hardcover

Barb Rosenstock is the author of several award-winning true stories for children: Fearless: The Story of Racing Legend Louise Smith; The Littlest Mountain, a Sydney Taylor Honor Book; and The Camping Trip that Changed America, a Parents' Choice silver medal book and one of Booklist's Top 10 Books on the Environment for Youth. She lives outside Chicago with her husband and two sons. Visit her on the web at barbrosenstock.com.

John O'Brien has illustrated nearly 100 books for children, including Poof! and Look...Look Again!, which he also wrote. And for more than twenty years, he has contributed cartoons to The New Yorker. When he is not creating books or cartoons, he can be found playing the banjo or concertina or serving as senior lieutenant in the North Wildwood, New Jersey, Beach Patrol. He lives in Delran, New Jersey.

Gr 1-5–It is no small feat to entertain children in a book about loving books (an increasingly crowded shelf), but this duo succeeds admirably through well-chosen facts, staggering statistics, an interactive text, and humor. Readers glimpse Jefferson's childhood, adolescence, fatherhood, and presidency through his obsession with reading. There is levity and energy in O'Brien's ink and watercolor scenes. Jefferson's horse has a book-shaped saddle; young Tom fiddles while reading the music from a book mounted to the bridle. There is also sadness, when Jefferson reads to his wife on her deathbed. The full-spread compositions are supplemented by insets shaped like open books that contain quotes by or about Jefferson and his times or interests. In one, a slave remembers that his master might have 20 books surrounding him on the floor. Another describes his revolving bookstand holding five volumes, so he “never needed to stop writing to read or stop reading to write.” Rosenstock details the man's substantial and ongoing involvement in developing and contributing to the national library. The final scene shows Jefferson opening a large book portraying modern and Colonial visitors mingling at the Library of Congress; a minor disappointment is that O'Brien drew generic bookcases instead of the splendid reading room. An author's note adds more information, including context for the fact that the author of the Declaration of Independence owned about 600 enslaved individuals throughout his life. This is a unique portrayal of the life and passions of the third president.–Wendy Lukehart, District of Columbia Public Libraryα(c) Copyright 2013. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.