about the book
Maybe you’ve used an English thesaurus in the past to find just the right word. If you have, then you owe a lot to Peter Mark Roget, a nineteenth-century physician and lover of words!
When he was a young lad, Peter was very shy, and he loved books as if they were his friends. After his father died and his family moved around a lot, real friends were hard to come by, so books were the obvious choice. They can be carried with you, after all.
Soon Peter began writing his own book, not of stories, but of lists of words, words he loved, words he found interesting, and words for which he found it useful to know synonyms. This became the famous Roget’s Thesaurus, and it grew and grew until now scholars call it one of the most important reference works of all time!
Peter Roget did not want his reference book to be read only by scholars, nor by only doctors, politicians, or lawyers. He thought a thesaurus should have a democratizing effect. A thesaurus should be accessible not just to the highly educated, but also to the lesser-educated of his day, like fishmongers, cobblers, and factory workers.
It looks like Roget succeeded!
about the author
Born in Easton, Pennsylvania and growing up in Flemington, New Jersey, little Jen Bryant loved stories even before she could read. Her mother would read Green Eggs & Ham to her, along with popular fairytales. In grade school, Jen’s mother took her to a horse farm for riding lessons, and from that day on, Jen was obsessed with horses and especially books about horses!
At Gettysburg College, Jen studied French and German, and after graduating, taught both languages to high school students. She was also a waitress, a bank teller, a cross-country coach, a college professor, member of a road crew, retail clerk, picture framer, and probably a few others jobs she might have forgotten!
After having children, Jen discovered her love of writing. She left teaching and began writing biographies, later turning to children’s books and young adult novels. In total, this Caldecott Honor winner has penned 25 books. She says she never has to go searching for a topic. The ideas that inspire each book find her!
Jen lives in northern Chester Country, Pennsylvania, with her husband Neil, daughter Leigh, and their energetic Springer spaniel, Sam. In her spare time, Jen is a “HUUUUUGE” Philadelphia Phillies fan and enjoys working out at the Y and chatting with people. (Writing is a very solitary career!) She also loves to travel and visit museums. The Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington DC and the American Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore are two of her favorites.
Source:
Author website
Also by Jen Bryant:
A Splash of Red : The Life and Art of Horace Pippin. Knopf Books for Young Readers. 2013.
Abe’s Fish : A Boyhood Tale of Abraham Lincoln. Sterling Publishing. 2009.
Georgia’s Bones. Erdmens Books for Young Readers. 2005.
about the illustrator
At 100 illustrated books, Melissa Sweet has made a name for herself in the children’s book world, and she shows no sign of stopping now!
When she was a kid, she was always doing paint-by-number artworks, making paper dolls, using Spirographs and Colorforms (if you don’t know what these are, don’t tell her, it makes her feel old). She says, “My whole world was about making stuff so it never occurred to me to do something else.” By seven, she was selling woven pot holders and cookies. Needless to say, school was a bit difficult for this restlessly productive little girl.
Her first art lessons came from watching painter Bob Gnagy on TV in the 1960s. By high school she was taking lots of art classes. Melissa went to Endicott College and then studied art at the Kansas City Art Institute.
Her first jobs were in commercial art, making posters, handmade books, and greeting cards. She broke into the children’s book illustration world with the Pinky and Rex easy reading series with her signature watercolor art. Now, she both writes and illustrates children’s books.
Melissa lives with her husband and step-daughter in Maine near a harbor. They have two dogs, Rufus who inspired the book Carmine and Nellie, who is really a ninja pretending to be a ballerina!
Sources:
Illustrator website
Illustrator biography: IndieBound
Illustrator biography: Toys Are Tools
Also by Melissa Sweet:
Firefly July : A Year of Very Short Poems by Paul B. Janeczko. 2014.
Little Red Writing by Joan Holub. Chronicle Books. 2013.
A Splash of Red : The Life and Art of Horace Pippin by Jen Bryant. Knopf Books for Young Readers. 2013.
Mrs. Harkness and the Panda by Alicia Potter. Knopf Books for Young Readers. 2012.
A Giant Crush by Gennifer Choldenko. Putnam Publishing. 2011.
Rubia and the Three Osos by Susan Middleton Elya. Hyperion Press. 2010.
Day Is Done by Peter Yarrow. Sterling Publishing. 2009.
A River of Words : The Story of William Carlos Williams by Jen Bryant. William B. Eerdman’s. 2008.
Tupelo Rides the Rails. Houghton Mifflin. 2008.
Chicken Joy on Redbean Road : A Bayou Country Romp by Jacqueline Briggs Martin. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. 2007.
Carmine : A Little More Red. Houghton Mifflin. 2005.
The Boy Who Drew Birds : A Story of John James Audubon by Jacqueline Davies. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. 2004.
read more!
Emma’s Poem : The Voice of the Statue of Liberty by Linda Glaser
In the 1880s, the privileged Emma Lazarus, moved by the plight of the immigrants arriving in New York City, helped them get housing and jobs. To raise money to build the base for the Statue of Liberty, she and other revered writers were asked to write poems. Her stirring words offered hope and refuge for all to gaze on the symbol of America’s promise.
Noah Webster : Weaver of Words by Pegi Deitz Shea
For his time, Noah Webster was quite learned and inclusive in his thinking. He knew 20 languages and advocated for the education of slaves and women, and even for further education for adults—a new idea back then. This is the story of how Webster invented his dictionary, with a mind to create an “American Language” containing the words and idioms of all immigrants.
A Splash of Red : The Life and Art of Horace Pippin by Jen Bryant
The grandson of a slave, Horace loved to paint, often adding a splash of red. He was forced to take menial jobs, but people also asked him to make pictures. When he was injured in the war, he was unable to paint, but he kept practicing, his arm recovered, and now his art work hangs in museums all over the country!