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George Washington's World

genevieve foster joanna foster

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1942 Newbery Honor Title

The period measured by the life of George Washington, 1732 to 1799, was one of revolution and change in many parts of the world as Enlightenment thinking took hold in the minds of men. Prolifically illustrated with intriguing line drawings and detailed timelines, Foster's telling of the life story of George Washington does justice to the man it celebrates.

When George was a young man, Benjamin Franklin was the most well-known American, Louis XV was on the throne of France, and George II was king of England. Father Junipero Serra had just arrived in Mexico to work with the Panes Indians. Mozart and Bach were writing their immortal music and Voltaire warred with his pen against Ignorance, Injustice and Superstition. The young nobleman Lafayette watched the feisty American colonies with fascinated interest as they stood up to Mother England when she sought to tax them unfairly. James Cook was sent by the Royal Society of London to Tahiti where their team of astronomers might observe a total eclipse of the sun and thereby accurately measure the distance between the earth and the sun.

These are just a few of the wonderful narratives explored by Foster in this engaging biography.

357 pages, Paperback

First published January 1,1941
Literary awards
newbery medal, 

This edition

Format
357 pages, Paperback
Published
April 10, 1997 by Beautiful Feet Books
ISBN
9780964380349
ASIN
096438034X
Language
English

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About the author

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genevieve foster

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Genevieve Foster (1893-1979) wrote and illustrated nineteen books of history and biography before her death on August 30, 1979. In 1922, she married Orrington Foster, and they had two children: a boy (named after his father but called Tony) and a girl, Joanna, four years later.

Ms. Foster was fascinated by the idea of looking at history "horizontally" and seeing how events and the lives of people interconnected. "History is drama," she once wrote, "with men and nations as the actors. Why not present it with all the players who belong together on the stage at once rather than only one character on the stage at a time?"

Though she had graduated from the University of Wisconsin and then studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Chicago, she felt her knowledge of history was patchy and so as she often pointed out, "it was my own need to understand how things connected that led me to write my first book, George Washington's World."

This was enthusiastically received and was followed by Abraham Lincoln's World, and then four other "world" books: Augustus Caesar's World, The World of Columbus and Sons, The World of Captain John Smith, and The World of William Penn.

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Community Reviews

Rating(4 / 5.0, 100 votes)
5 stars
34(34%)
4 stars
31(31%)
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35(35%)
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100 reviews All reviews
Profile Image for Kimberly .
reallynotraven
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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This was a very thorough and interesting look at history. We enjoyed very much the way it was broken into 5 parts and then comprehensively detailed the goings on all around the world during that period. We also appreciated that each section was short and we were never overloaded with dates and details. This is a very enjoyable way to read World History.
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0IIch0ps
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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For a history book, it was pretty good. It had lots of detail, and lots of interesting little bits about George Washington you might not hear other places. It would be good for making a time line, studying on, and also figuring out what was going on while George Washington was alive.
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plisetskytrash
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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I really enjoyed this parallel world history. It helps put into perspective what was going on elsewhere while revolutionary war was going on. 12yo found narrative format engaging for learning history.
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namename1
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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I really enjoyed this book of world events that occurred concurrently with various points in George Washington's lifetime. Each chapter was a short glimpse of what other people were doing, including childhood snapshots of Napoleon, and Marie Antoinette, as well as major events (Storming of the Bastille), and it really rounded out our study of American History during the colonial period and early years of the country.
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lzsncr
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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Again, global in extent and engaging with a storylike narrative. An excellent text for advanced elementary school or middle school students.
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NMAis4losers
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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I thought this was a really cool idea for a bioghraphy, because it was also a world history of Washington's time period. Reading this book through the school year was also fun because you see the world slowly changing and developing.
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