  | Full Text Reviews: School Library Journal - 09/20/2024 K-Gr 4—Thomas Jefferson loved to observe the natural world and meticulously took notes on it. However, when a French author, Count Georges-Louis Leclerc de Buffon, published an encyclopedia of the American natural world, Jefferson was outraged. The French author had never visited America, and yet he presented America's wildlife as inferior in his book. Along with facts about American history, Anderson tells how Jefferson proceeded to use the scientific method to prove the count wrong. The illustrator uses a comic book format with look-alike scientific journal pages to illustrate the battle between the French and American naturalists. The quirky illustrations will appeal to elementary students, highlighting the scientific inquiry process. Story time discussions could include the topics of presidents, the scientific method, and the pursuit of truth. The book is well researched and includes a bibliography and time line of Jefferson's life. VERDICT This enlightening account of a president and his study of the natural world is a needed addition to the elementary library.—Nancy Hawkins - Copyright 2024 Publishers Weekly, Library Journal and/or School Library Journal used with permission. Booklist - 04/15/2024 *Starred Review* With theatrical flair, Anderson and Holmes lay out a historical contretemps between Jefferson, who took “supreme delight” in science and was an eager observer of the natural world, and renowned French naturalist Buffon over his unsupported claim that, with the mammoth extinct, the New World’s wild creatures were uniformly smaller and weaker than those of the Old. Scarlet-faced and with steam blowing out his ears (at least in the illustration), the founding father sets out furiously to prove Buffon wrong, not only by gathering data to disprove such outrageous errors but by sending the pundit tangible evidence, like a whole dead moose and “an enormous panther pelt.” The illustrator underscores the narrative’s droll, punchy tone by pinning cartoon figures in period dress, images of wildlife, leaf, and bone specimens with handwritten labels, and sheets and scraps with quotes on ruled or raw wooden backgrounds for an untidy scrapbook effect. In the end, Buffon dies before he can publish his promised corrections, but he turns out to be right about the mammoths, to Jefferson’s great disappointment. Still, readers will come away knowing more about the multifaceted character of the man who, a few years later, sent out the Lewis and Clark Expedition and, oh yes, became our third president. - Copyright 2024 Booklist. Loading...
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