History Lessons

Thomas Jefferson: President and Philosopher by Jon Meacham, adapted for young readers by Sarah L. Thomson

Exciting to receive in the mail recently an advance reader’s copy of Thomas Jefferson: President and Philosopher. I got to adapt this young reader’s version of Jon Meacham’s amazing bio of Thomas Jefferson, and it will be out in September.

Lovely to see all the art in place–portraits of all the major figures, political cartoons from the day, photos from Monticello. It’s going to be a gorgeous book as well as instructive.

Writing and adapting books is how I get my history, these days, and it’s as good a method as any, although a little haphazard at times. (I know a lot about the Elizabethan theater, for example, but only up till 1593, when my book The Secret of the Rose was set. At the moment I’m busy getting a grasp on feudal Japan.) One of the great results of adapting Meacham’s work is that I have a new understanding not just of Thomas Jefferson, but of the American Revolution as a whole, and the way our history fits into the struggle between France and England for dominance of the New World.