Thomas Jefferson-A Picture Book Biography

       Thomas Jefferson-A Picture book biography was written by James Cross Giblin and was illustrated by Michael Dooling.  Both the texts and the images help to get a vision of what life was like when Thomas Jefferson lived.  It is hard to get to know someone when you can’t picture what they looked like or where they lived.  This book opens that doorway to children instead of just presenting dry facts…it makes the life of Thomas Jefferson come alive.

         Young Thomas Jefferson studied law and designed his own home from studying books of architecture.  He was shy in school.  But he loved to learn.  He married and had children and grew up in a time when slavery was common in the south.  He became a writer who went on to write some of the greatest writings that this country has come to treasure; such as the American Declaration of Independence.  He became an important part of our country’s history.

         He was a very interesting man.  Some of the things he did seemed to conflict with the very things he wrote about.  He didn’t believe in slavery…but he owned slaves.  That is still hard to understand. 

         He was govenor of Virginia, he was an ambassador to Paris, he was a writer and a person who studied law, he was a plantation owner, he planned the school system in Virginia…he planned for children to be able to attend high school for free, and even helped to plan the construction of the University of Virginia; and eventually he became the president of the United States of America.  He was a complex and interesting person and this book gives the readers a glimpse of the man behind the public person that we hear about.

        Before she died, Thomas’ wife inherited slaves from her father…one of them was even rumored to be her half sister…Sally Hemings.  She helped him with getting his youngest child Polly to Paris.  Sally was fourteen at the time herself.  When she came back from Paris she gave birth to her first child.  He resembled Thomas Jefferson.  Later, through DNA testing…it was proven that at least one of Sally’s children was conceived with Thomas Jefferson as the father. 

        Many people did not want to believe that Thomas Jefferson would have fathered children with one of his own slaves but was rumored to be true for a long time; the DNA testing proves it to be true.  What role Sally Hemings played in Thomas Jefferson’s life is a bit unclear…but relationships of mixed heritage were not often publically acknowledged in those days.

       This book is interesting to read because it gives more information on areas of Thomas’ life than what is generally taught.  The publisher was Scholastic Paperback Nonfiction an imprint of Scholastic.  The book is a hardcover picture book but i do think that it should be for older elementary children or middle school readers.  It was copyrighted in 2006.