John, Paul, George, & Ben

John, Paul, George, & Ben

Author and Illustrator: Lane Smith

Published by Disney-Hyperion in 2006

40 pages

Genre: historical fiction, picture book

 

I am not a fan of history but when I saw this cute little book, I had to flip through it. I fell instantly in love with the illustrations and use of different texts. Most historical books are boring but this one is quite the opposite! It tells all about John Hancock, Paul Revere, George Washington, and Benjamin Franklin as children. It's very funny and had my class laughing out loud!

 

When asked about his artistic medium, Lane Smith says, "I like a little bit of everything. Mixed media is the best description. Sometimes I paint in oils and I collage bits of paper into the work. Sometimes I do charcoal or pencil drawings." Sometimes he draws the pictures in pen and ink and paints them digitally in Photoshop. Some of the textures are created with oil paints and scanned in later. The pictures really add interest and make the story come to life!

This story is appropriate for preschool to second grade. You could turn this book into a vocabulary lesson and talk about making inferences with context clues. You could learn about figurative language such as puns, onomatopoeias, and similes.  You could use it as a social studies lesson for President's Day and talk about the five presidents in the book. 

Lane Smith's books have been New York Times Best Illustrated Books of the Year four times. In 2012 The Eric Carle Museum named him an Honor Artist for lifelong innovation in the field of children's books. In 2014 he received the Society of Illustrators Lifetime Achievement award.