Thomas Jefferson: Letters from a Philadelphia Bookworm

Dear Mr. President

by Jennifer Armstrong

An educated, inquisitive young girl in Philadelphia corresponds with President Thomas Jefferson about current events, including the Lewis and Clark expedition, new inventions, and life at Monticello.

Genres: Historical Fiction

128 pages, Hardcover

First published September 30, 2000

About the author

Jennifer Armstrong learned to read and write in Switzerland, in a small school for English speaking children on the shores of Lake Zurich. The school library had no librarian and no catalog – just shelves of interesting books. She selected books on her own, read what she could, and made up the rest. It was perfect. As a result, she made her career choice – to become an author – in first grade. When she and her family returned to the U.S. she discovered that not all children wrote stories and read books, and that not all teachers thought reading real books was important. Nevertheless, she was undaunted. Within a year of leaving college she was a free-lance ghost writer for a popular juvenile book series, and before long published her first trade novel, Steal Away, which won her a Golden Kite Honor for fiction.

More than fifty additional novels and picture books followed, and before long she also tried her hand at nonfiction, winning an Orbis Pictus Award and a Horn Book Honor for her first nonfiction book, Shipwreck at the Bottom of the World. In late 2003 she will travel to the South Pole with the National Science Foundation to do research for a book on ice.

Reviews

[Courtney · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fun, interesting book with a glimpse into the 1800s and Jefferson's presidency and accomplishments.

[Miss Amanda · Rating 1 out of 5]

gr 5-7 112pgs

1803. Correspondence between President Thomas Jefferson and a young girl. The two spend a lot of time discussing the Lewis and Clark Expedition.

I gave this book a low rating because some of the letters are hard to read since they are printed on a page showing a photo. I think a reader interested in the Lewis and Clark Expedition would be more interested in reading a historical fiction book of the expedition instead of correspondence about the expedition between two people who weren't on the expedition.

[Jessika Caruso · Rating 3 out of 5]

A brief but informational collection of letters from a scholarly girl to president Thomas Jefferson. I enjoyed Amelia's heartfelt and inquisitive personality and Thomas Jefferson's formal but tender replies. This will help young readers learn about the early 1800s, especially the Lewis and Clark expedition. Real photos and etchings are included throughout. However, some of the maps used for a background make the text unreadable! The formatting was poorly executed and I had to skip some illegible pages. Five stars for the writing and one for the design.

[erica · Rating 3 out of 5]

part historical fiction, part biography, the imagined correspondence between Thomas Jefferson, then President of the united states & a young girl in Philadelphia.
and a time line of Jefferson's life overall.
°a lowered star rating due to the several unreadable pages of writing; the background image was far too dark to read the printed words.