Review by New York Times Review
CHILDREN, LIKE NATIONS, need heroes to call their own. Parson Mason Weems's "Life of Washington" rolled off the presses in Philadelphia in 1800, mere months after the death of the father of our country, with Weems's stated goal to inspire young Americans to emulate the great man's shining example. We have that book to thank for the compelling image of the rambunctious 6-year-old George chopping down his father's best cherry tree, then fessing up to his misdeed with the immortal words: "I cannot tell a lie." The irrepressible parson, we now know, invented the scene out of whole cloth, which is certainly a tad ironic. Yet less cavalier authors than Weems have wrestled with the question of whether, or to what extent in the seemingly special case of a biography for young readers, a touch-up job might be in order. The 1940 Caldecott Medal winner, "Abraham Lincoln," by Ingri and Edgar Parin d'Aulaire, ends with an illustration of the weary president resting contentedly in a favorite rocker, the Civil War having just come to a successful conclusion. You would never guess Lincoln had those theater tickets. Post-Sendak, picture book authors, biographers included, have had greater latitude for emotional candor than in previous generations. They have also grown far more adventurous in their choice of subjects, expanding the pantheon to include notables as varied as Jackie Robinson, Albert Einstein, the aviator Ruth Elder and the avant-garde composer Charles Ives. The trend was already well underway when Common Core national education standards began giving pride of place to nonfiction in the public school curriculum, greatly amplifying the demand for a broad array of such books. Ten years ago, "The Right Word," a picture-book life of Peter Mark Roget, inventor of the thesaurus, would have been a publishing non-starter - a project "too special" for the market to bear. Happily, all that has changed, and we now have this spirited portrait of the Swiss-born Victorian who found an ingenious way to help people say what they mean. Jen Bryant and Melissa Sweet, whose previous collaborations include biographies of William Carlos Williams and Horace Pippin, have done their homework and considered their audience. Bryant allows the early death of Roget's father, when the boy was 4, to stand for a whole series of family crises that turned him inward from an early age and prompted Roget to adopt obsessive list-making as a self-protective strategy long before it became his life work. The narrative moves swiftly, with Bryant deftly hinting that Roget's immersion in the English language's superabundance of synonyms had everything to do with his lifelong struggle to come to terms with his challenging - depressing? impossible? - family. Sweet's richly layered graphics frame the basic narrative drawings in collaged bits and pieces of calligraphy, antique engraving, archival maps, bookbinding remnants and other evocative oddments that collectively provide an attic-glimpse into the mind of a restless man whose vast vocabulary could barely keep pace with his curiosity. "Mr. Ferris and His Wheel" recounts the pivotal episode in the life of another inventor who made his mark. The engineer George Ferris won the competition to design America's answer to the Eiffel Tower, then - against staggering odds - built his monumental "Monster Wheel" in time for the 1893 Chicago Exposition. It is fascinating to learn that the Ferris wheel got its start in a whir of patriotic fervor and as a cutting-edge applied-science experiment that critics thought insane. While making these historical points might seem enough for one picture book, it is still too bad that in Kathryn Gibbs Davis's narrative Ferris never emerges as more than a stock character in a standard American morality tale of pluck, stick-to-itiveness and mechanical know-how. Gilbert Ford's stylish illustrations have their fine touches of humor and period detail but are similarly cool in color palette as well as emotionally. Missing is a humanizing spark like the one that must have ignited this driven man. In "Star Stuff," Stephanie Roth Sisson zooms in close on her subject's personal dimension from the start, portraying Carl Sagan, quite plausibly, as a wonder-struck schoolboy who grew up to become a wonder-struck - and hugely accomplished - astrophysicist and public figure. The author pinpoints childhood trips to his Brooklyn family's apartment house rooftop, the local library and the 1939 New York World's Fair as formative moments in a largely self-propelled quest that culminated in Sagan's habitual manner of thinking and acting on a cosmic scale. Sisson's intimate, sketch-like drawings suit the early, coming-of-age part of the story particularly well. But a later image of deep space and the unmanned space probes Sagan helped to put there does not quite make the leap into pictorial awesomeness, and the vast sliver of the universe Sagan explored ends up looking a bit cramped in this 40-page volume. IT TURNS OUT that a picture-book biography can have a hero with four legs and a fearsome bark. Emily Arnold McCully's "Strongheart" unearths the little-known (except to die-hard movie buffs) story of the dog who became a silent-film star before Rin Tin Tin. Strongheart - the screen name of Etzel von Oeringen - was a purebred German shepherd descended from a line of champion police dogs. Etzel had the chops to perform daredevil deeds on command, to quickly master new tricks and even to display a repertoire of three-hanky emotions for the camera. How did stardom come his way? McCully points to a devoted director/trainer who, with his screenwriter wife, built a powerful bond with the dog, then made the films that brought them their fleeting fame. McCully, the 1993 Caldecott Medal winner for "Mirette on the High Wire," has done a meticulous job of recreating the quicksilver world of that bygone media age. The megaphones, bobbed hair and jodhpurs are all here. And in Etzel, a dog born and bred to be strong and brave, she has given young readers a rare portrait of a Hollywood hero who was just as heroic off-screen as on. LEONARD S. MARCUS is the author, most recently, of "Randolph Caldecott: The Man Who Could Not Stop Drawing."
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [November 2, 2014]
Review by Booklist Review
*Starred Review* Bryant's and Sweet's talents combine to make the lowly thesaurus fascinating in this beautifully illustrated picture-book biography of Peter Mark Roget. Born in the late eighteenth century, shy Roget was prone to wandering alone and began keeping lists of words at a young age. Even as he went to medical school and became a talented and respected physician, he still kept his book of word lists, gradually improving on the concept until he published his first thesaurus, classified thematically rather than alphabetically as it is today, in 1852. Echoing Roget's obsession with words, Sweet's intricate and elaborate collage illustrations made out of textbooks, graph paper, maps, fabric, typewriter keys, and other found objects put words on center stage. Lists in wildly expressive handwritten fonts along with cut-paper assemblages stuff the dynamic pages, even the appended time line and endpapers, with arresting detail. Pivotal moments in Roget's life get a similar treatment: terms related to plants bloom in tendrils around a watercolor illustration of Roget on one of his many walks. In brilliant pages teeming with enthusiasm for language and learning, Bryant and Sweet (A Splash of Red, 2013) joyfully celebrate curiosity, the love of knowledge, and the power of words.--Hunter, Sarah Copyright 2014 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
The award-winning team behind A River of Words takes on the story of British physician Peter Mark Roget, author of the eponymous thesaurus. Bryant draws a clear line from the dislocations of Roget's youth-the death of his father in 1783 and the family's frequent moves thereafter-to his need for order as he starts making lists of words. "Words, Peter learned, were powerful things. And when he put them into long, neat rows, he felt as if the world itself clicked into order." Yet Roget wasn't merely a reclusive scholar. He meant for his thesaurus to have a democratizing effect: "I want everyone to be able to use my word book, not just doctors, politicians, and lawyers, but cobblers, fishmongers, and factory workers." Sweet envisions Roget's work as a shadow box crammed with the wonders of the natural world, adorned with exuberant hand-lettered typography. Together with Bryant's sympathetic account, Sweet's gentle riot of images and words humanizes the man behind this ubiquitous reference work and demystifies the thesaurus itself. Ages 7-up. Author's agent: Alyssa Eisner Henkin, Trident Media Group. (Sept.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by School Library Journal Review
Gr 2-5-Those who have relied upon a thesaurus (meaning treasure house in Greek), either in print or through the tool menu of word processing software, will gain a greater appreciation for the reference tool in this beautifully designed picture book biography of its creator, Peter Roget. Bryant describes bibliophile Roget, taking him from a timid, studious child who was always compiling lists to an accomplished doctor who by 1805 had compiled the beginnings of the first thesaurus. Busy and exuberant, Sweet's charming watercolor illustrations, layered over collages of vintage images and fonts, capture Roget's passion for classification while also providing readers new opportunities for discovery (Latin translations of animal names, mathematical terms, and a plethora of synonyms). Expertly researched and well written, Bryant's narrative not only details the creation of the thesaurus; it also conveys a sense of Roget the man: his shy nature, his keen intelligence, and his passion for knowledge. There truly was a particular blend of artistry and intellect that went into Roget's book, as evidenced from a reproduced page from the original thesaurus. The book contains extensive back matter, including an incredibly detailed time line that goes into the man's other inventions (the slide rule, the pocket chess set) and an author and illustrator's note, as well as Roget quotations that are sure to inspire if not a love of language then at least a search for the perfect turn of phrase. An excellent illustrated biography.-Joanna K. Fabicon, Los Angeles Public Library (c) Copyright 2014. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Horn Book Review
Apt language and ingenious imagery combine to tell the life story of Peter Mark Roget, creator of the thesaurus. A solitary, though not unhappy, child, Roget spends his time keeping lists and ordering the natural and cultural wonders he finds in abundance. He studies to become a doctor, teaches, joins academic societies, raises a family, and continues to capture and classify the universe, eventually publishing his Thesaurus, a catalog of concepts ordered by ideas, in 1852. Bryant's linear telling follows Peter closely, expressing his curiosity, sensitivity, and populist spirit in language that is both decorous and warm. Clever book design and visionary illustration add layers of meaning, as images come together in careful sequence. On the cover a cacophony of iconographic ideas explodes from the pages of a book. The opening endpapers arrange these same concepts in a vertical collage that recalls spines on a bookshelf. The title spread features the letters of the alphabet as stacked blocks, as a child manages them, and from there the pages grow in complexity, as Roget himself grows up. Sweet embellishes her own gentle watercolors with all manner of clippings and realia, corralling the pictures into order according to concept, number, or color. A timeline and detailed author and illustrator notes follow the narrative, with suggested additional resources and a facsimile page of Roget's first, handwritten book of lists. And the closing endpapers, with the comprehensive classification scheme of the first thesaurus, fully realize the opening organizational promise. thom barthelmess (c) Copyright 2014. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
After award-winning collaborations about poet William Carlos Williams and artist Horace Pippin, Bryant and Sweet return to investigate the life of Peter Mark Roget. Born in London in 1779, Roget was plagued by lifelong setbacks. His father died early; his mother was unstable. Frequent moves and pronounced shyness engendered solace in books. Partial to classifying his knowledge and experiences, Peter composed his first book of lists by age 8. Inspired by the taxonomy of Swedish physician and botanist Linnaeus, teenage Peter studied medicine in Scotland, eventually establishing a practice in London, and he worked on a book of word classifications, completing it in 1805 for his own reference. Roget lectured, invented (the slide rule and the pocket chess set) and, inspired by the publication of several contemporary, inferior books of lists, returned to his own. His Thesaurus, published in 1852 and nurtured by his descendants, has never gone out of print. Bryant's prose is bright and well-tuned for young readers. She goes gently, omitting Roget's darkest traumas, such as witnessing his uncle's suicide. Sweet tops herselfagain!visually reflecting Roget's wide range as a thinker and product of the Enlightenment. Injecting her watercolor palette with shots of teal, scarlet and fuchsia, Sweet embeds vintage bits (ledger paper, type drawers, botanical illustrations and more), creating a teeming, contemplative, playfully celebratory opus. In a word: marvelous! (chronology, author's and illustrator's notes, selected bibliography, suggested reading, quotation sources, photograph of manuscript page) (Picture book/biography. 6-10) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
