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A review by backonthealex
Noah Webster and His Words by Jeri Chase Ferris
4.0
So many times, I am sitting here writing a post and find myself needing to double check the definition of a word I am about to use. So I go to my trusty dictionary and look it up. What would I ever do with my Webster's Dictionary? But who is this Webster guy?
Born in Connecticut in 1758, by the time Noah Webster was a boy of 12, his father wanted him to become a farmer and follow in his footsteps. But Noah didn't want to farm, he wanted to go the school and study. Luckily for the world, his father was persuaded to send Noah off to Yale to study Latin and Greek when he turned 15.
During the American Revolution, Noah taught school, but all he and his students had were some old schoolbooks from England. When the war ended, Noah decided to write an American speller, a book that would no longer use British spellings- for example, favour would be spelled favor, dropping the British u. Not satisfied even after publishing an American grammar book, after marrying, Noah went to Paris, London and Cambridge to study 20 languages while collecting and defining all kinds of words, including where they originally came from. Eventually, this work became Webster's American Dictionary of the English Language.
Noah Webster and his Words is a wonderful multilayered biography and vocabulary builder. In what could easily have become a dry, dull biography, Ferris has tempered this picture book for old readers with humor and historical details from Webster's time, creating instead an interesting and very readable book. But, vocabulary builder, you ask? Yes, indeed. The book introduces the reader to new words and their meanings right in the text, for example: Noah was EC-STAT-IC [adj.: filled with pleasure; delighted; thrilled]! No flipping back and forth from text to back-of-the-book glossary here.
There is, however, information timeline that parallels Webster's life and the same years in American history, as well as a nice bibliography and websites for the curious, as even a bit more information about Noah Webster.
The illustrations do much from this text in visually presenting Noah life history and work. Using fun, whimsical, cartoon-like mixed media illustrations, Vincent X. Kirsch has given Noah a very large head, in comparison to his body and making me think that perhaps it was big because it was so full of words, but also extending the playfulness of the text.
America was still a young country when Webster began his work and, through his speller, grammar and dictionary, he certainly played an important part in giving the United States her own word personality.
An extensive discussion and activity guide is available for Noah Webster and his Words HERE
This book is recommended for readers age 4-8, but I have to disagree and recommend it for readers age 7+
This book was borrowed from the NYPL
This review was originally posted at Randomly Reading
Born in Connecticut in 1758, by the time Noah Webster was a boy of 12, his father wanted him to become a farmer and follow in his footsteps. But Noah didn't want to farm, he wanted to go the school and study. Luckily for the world, his father was persuaded to send Noah off to Yale to study Latin and Greek when he turned 15.
During the American Revolution, Noah taught school, but all he and his students had were some old schoolbooks from England. When the war ended, Noah decided to write an American speller, a book that would no longer use British spellings- for example, favour would be spelled favor, dropping the British u. Not satisfied even after publishing an American grammar book, after marrying, Noah went to Paris, London and Cambridge to study 20 languages while collecting and defining all kinds of words, including where they originally came from. Eventually, this work became Webster's American Dictionary of the English Language.
Noah Webster and his Words is a wonderful multilayered biography and vocabulary builder. In what could easily have become a dry, dull biography, Ferris has tempered this picture book for old readers with humor and historical details from Webster's time, creating instead an interesting and very readable book. But, vocabulary builder, you ask? Yes, indeed. The book introduces the reader to new words and their meanings right in the text, for example: Noah was EC-STAT-IC [adj.: filled with pleasure; delighted; thrilled]! No flipping back and forth from text to back-of-the-book glossary here.
There is, however, information timeline that parallels Webster's life and the same years in American history, as well as a nice bibliography and websites for the curious, as even a bit more information about Noah Webster.
The illustrations do much from this text in visually presenting Noah life history and work. Using fun, whimsical, cartoon-like mixed media illustrations, Vincent X. Kirsch has given Noah a very large head, in comparison to his body and making me think that perhaps it was big because it was so full of words, but also extending the playfulness of the text.
America was still a young country when Webster began his work and, through his speller, grammar and dictionary, he certainly played an important part in giving the United States her own word personality.
An extensive discussion and activity guide is available for Noah Webster and his Words HERE
This book is recommended for readers age 4-8, but I have to disagree and recommend it for readers age 7+
This book was borrowed from the NYPL
This review was originally posted at Randomly Reading