Noah Webster's Fighting Words

Gr 3–5—Maurer and Catusanu have created a wonderfully clever and humorous depiction of Noah Webster as an outspoken, driven man who endlessly advocated for weaning Americans from British influence by producing a lexicon of truly American words with American pronunciations. For example, at that time, the terms skunk, hickory, and chowder did not exist outside the United States. Born in 1758, Webster was a young Yale student during the tumultuous times of the Revolutionary War, and he used his words as weapons to fight against British cultural dominance. Two qualities of this picture book combine to make it engaging and amusing: Webster is introduced to readers right on the cover, where he establishes himself as editor of the content. Throughout, his "fictional ghost" adds playful editorial comments to what the author has related about his life and accomplishments. The fictionalized Webster marks out statements made about him that he doesn't like, adds his own perspective on his actions, and inserts comments here and there to provide further context to a situation. The second element that makes the title so delightful is the collaged illustrations, which incorporate archival images and excerpts from primary documents in a visually appealing, lighthearted way. Many of the people shown in the artwork have speech bubbles coming out of their mouths containing popular opinions of the time. A time line of Webster's life and notes at the back confirm the extensive research the author did to verify the information.