An Inconvenient Alphabet
Ben Franklin & Noah Webster's Spelling Revolution
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- $10.99
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- $10.99
Publisher Description
“Delightful, relatable, and eye-catchingly illustrated.” —School Library Journal
“Deelytful and iloominaating for noo and seesuned reeders alyk.” —Kirkus Reviews
“Thought-provoking and entertaining.” —School Library Connection
“Engaging...A comprehensible, lively read.” —Publishers Weekly
Do you ever wish English was eez-ee-yer to spell? Ben Franklin and Noah Webster did! Debut author Beth Anderson and the New York Times bestselling illustrator of I Dissent, Elizabeth Baddeley, tell the story of two patriots and their attempt to revolutionize the English alphabet.
Once upon a revolutionary time, two great American patriots tried to make life easier. They knew how hard it was to spell words in English. They knew that sounds didn’t match letters. They knew that the problem was an inconvenient English alphabet.
In 1786, Ben Franklin, at age eighty, and Noah Webster, twenty-eight, teamed up. Their goal? Make English easier to read and write. But even for great thinkers, what seems easy can turn out to be hard.
Children today will be delighted to learn that when they “sound out” words, they are doing eg-zakt-lee what Ben and Noah wanted.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Anderson's debut picture book details the origins of Noah Webster's first American English dictionary and the struggles of Webster and Benjamin Franklin to help unify the new country through language in the 1780s. After laboring alone to streamline American English, the men meet and agree that the dawn of a new nation should also mean the dawn of a new kind of English for its citizens one that would allow them to understand one another. "Some spoke like the king of England, others like backwoodsmen, and many barely spoke English at all." The pair join forces over what proves a near-impossible task. Lighthearted illustrations by Baddeley (I Dissent: Ruth Bader Ginsberg Makes Her Mark) feature large, colorful letters that are juggled, balanced, passed around, and left in a crumpled heap as a befuddled citizenry questions and scorns the men's proposals. Other touches, such as the changing expressions of the cameos hanging on Webster's wall, keep the story engaging. With back matter that includes an extensive bibliography, this history succeeds in distilling the sophisticated subject of early American English lexicography into a comprehensible, lively read. Ages 4 8. Author's)
