Kirkus Reviews QR Code
GEORGE WASHINGTON by James Cross Giblin

GEORGE WASHINGTON

A Picture Book Biography

by James Cross Giblin & illustrated by Michael Dooling

Pub Date: Sept. 1st, 1992
ISBN: 0-590-42550-1
Publisher: Scholastic

An overview, emphasizing Washington's love of home and family, plus his sense of duty to his country, and touching on significant personal and public events of his youth, leadership during the Revolution, and presidency. Dooling's oil paintings in dignified earth tones, impressionistically rendered but with a traditional flavor, are a fine complement to the text's warm, conversational tone. The brevity here skirts close to oversimplification, but Giblin wisely holds political material to a minimum—though he does mention Washington's ownership of slaves. Supplementary concluding material (``More About George Washington'') includes a chronology (however, days were removed, not added, in the calendar adjustment of 1752); the cherry tree myth; some of Washington's rules for behavior; and information about monuments and Mount Vernon. Index. (Biography. 5-8)