(3) 4-6 Illustrated by Monica Vachula. As much a history of American language as it is a biography, this picture book shows how Noah Webster "believed that Americans could and should use their own language to break free totally from England." Though Webster is best known for his lexicography, the engaging text and detailed illustrations present a complete portrait of a driven patriot who helped form a nation. Reading list, timeline, websites. Bib., ind.

Reviewer: Chelsey Philpot

(3) 4-6 Illustrated by Monica Vachula. What looks like homespun beige cloth is the background for historically accurate paintings illustrating Longfellow's famous narrative poem. Each boxed image faces a page of verse featuring a smaller visual vignette. Despite the pressing matter at hand, the somber tones and the quiet, almost still-life depiction of the scenes leave the reader as observer, not participant, in this handsome new version of a classic.

Reviewer: Carolyn Shute

(4) K-3 Illustrated by Monica Vachula. This account (based on historical facts but with some fictionalizing) of a young girl's relationship with the seventy-one-year-old Smith is a readable, if not riveting, biography of the founder of the Massachusetts women's college. Vachula's oil paintings offer interesting perspectives and plenty of period detail, but the figures are stiff. An author's endnote separates fact from legend.

Reviewer: Pamela McCuen