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The Bulletin
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Worst
of
Friends: Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and the True Story of an
American Feud
by Suzanne Tripp Jurmain; illus. by Larry Day
Those Rebels, John & Tom
by Barbara Kerley; illus. by Edwin Fotheringham
Well before children understand the intricacies of the American
Revolution and the early Federalist period, they understand quite a bit
about friendship. The unlikeliest people can bond over a shared
project; disagreements between friends can boil over when others fire
up the drama; distance and pride make reconciliation difficult;
restoring a broken friendship feels great. Kids who hold these truths
to be self-evident will be cheered to learn through this pair of
picture-book histories that even two of our celebrated presidents, John
Adams and Thomas Jefferson, found managing a friendship as hard as
launching a nation.
Kerley’s Those Rebels, John & Tom tracks the friendship through its
glory days. When the men initially meet at the first Continental
Congress, John Adams—a short, rotund, disputatious New Englander of
modest means—is initially skeptical of Thomas Jefferson—the tall,
reticent, well-to-do Virginian (“How could anyone who cared that much
about American sit silently by?”). Jefferson, in turn, can’t understand
how anyone could love to argue as much as Adams. Nonetheless, each
quickly recognizes the other’s commitment to the Colonial cause, and
they are soon lauding each other’s character and amiability. They agree
that by combining their skills of written and oral persuasion they
could bring an indecisive Congress around to a vote for independence
from England. Jefferson handles the writing, Adams supplies the
oratory, and after some significant editing by the delegates, the
Declaration of Independence is adopted. The newly minted statesmen had
“formed a surprising alliance, committed treason, and helped launch a
new nation.”
In Worst of Friends, Jurmain picks up the story—of Adams and Jefferson,
and of the newborn country—almost exactly where Kerley leaves off. For
children who haven’t gotten much beyond Fourth of July fireworks and
George Washington, this should be the proper ending to the patriotic
tale. We defy King George, we win the Revolution, Adams and Jefferson
get to be president, and American lives pretty happily ever after, at
least until the Civil War. Sorry, no. While George Washington (who,
incidentally, does not even make a cameo appearance here) conducts his
presidency, good friends Adams and Jefferson arrive back home after
diplomatic missions in Europe with very different ideas on how their
great project, the United States, should be governed. Adams supports a
strong central government, while Jefferson favors states’ rights. The
Federalist and Republican parties diverge similarly, and the erstwhile
friends’ private quarrels turn to nasty name-calling (Jefferson deems
Adams “vain, suspicious, irritable, stubborn, and wrong” while Adams
counters by labeling Jefferson as “weak, confused, uninformed, and
ignorant”). Vilification turns to violence (“Some Republicans and
Federalists actually battled in the streets”). The friendship that had
spurred independence falls into shambles as each man takes on the
presidency and publicly criticizes the wrong-headedness of his rival.
Years of silence follow, and finally, as the men settle into retirement
away from the turbulence of political life, Adams sends Jefferson a New
Year’s greeting, which is warmly received and leads to renewed
correspondence: “After eleven years there was so much to say, and Tom
and John could hardly write letters fast enough.”
It’s unusual to find such happy synergy in a pair of picture books
released within a few months of each other. Kerley and Jurmain use the
theme of friendship as an entry point for exploring the hard, messy
work of nation building, both in building colonial consensus for
independence and in taking its first steps on the world stage. Each
author approaches her respective chapter of the Adams/Jefferson story
with a light-hearted but eminently humane touch, allowing the books to
be read in tandem with scarcely a tonal shift. Both titles boast
illustrations that underscore the odd-couple humor of the texts. For
Those Rebels, Fotheringham employs a style reminiscent of political
cartooning, with colonists lining up to drop their taxes in a bucket
labeled “Royal Tariff,” while King George shakes a windfall of coins
out of his piggy bank; Jefferson attacks the king with a feather pen
the size of a spear. The broadly comedic style is marred only by the
overbearing use of red, white, navy and powder blues, and dull gold
which, when relentlessly juxtaposed, seem strangely muddied. Day fares
better, overall, with his line-and-watercolor paintings in Worst of
Friends, which pay thorough attention to period details even as they
capture the humor of Adams sneaking his furniture out of the White
House to avoid meeting up with his incoming ex-friend, and Jefferson
pulling on his Adams’ coattail to keep him from pummeling a haughty,
rude King George at court.
George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Theodore Roosevelt tend to
monopolize the picture-book spotlight. If they have reached their term
limits in your Presidents Day celebrations, here’s your opportunity to
put Adams and Jefferson on the ballot.
--Elizabeth Bush, Reviewer
Cover image from Worst of
Friends: Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and the True Story of an
American Fued
©2011 by Larry Day. Used by permission of Dutton.
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This page was last updated on January 1, 2012.
