George Washington Carver

            George Washington Carver: The Peanut Wizard is an entertaining children’s biography written by Laura Driscoll and illustrated by Jill Weber. The story begins with a letter from a fictional teacher named Mrs. Brandt. In the letter, she tells students that she is excited to read their reports about famous scientists. The remainder of the book is written as though it were a student report about Dr. George Washington Carver. Each spread is a unique scrapbook page of writing, drawings and photographs collected by a student named Annie. In her writing, the student provides specific facts about George Washington Carver including his birth, childhood, and early adult life. Facts about his childhood describe his early interest in plants and eagerness to learn. Facts about plants are weaved into the story though child-like drawings and diagrams.  Many of the drawings include comic-like thought bubbles. The story continues to describe Dr. Carver’s college experiences and his work at Tuskegee Institute. Dr. Carver’s commitment to education of local farmers about producing healthy crops is highlighted.

            While this book is informative and interesting, the text design is complicated and sometimes confusing. Older elementary-aged children familiar with a variety of texts will be able to navigate the unique scrapbook layout, but might need prompting. Specifically, the placement of a science activity and peanut recipe interrupt the flow of the story about Dr. Carver’s life. Still, these interesting activities for children help students connect Dr. Carver’s work with their own lives. The scrapbook layout also makes it difficult to discern the order in which to read the text. The scattered layout of text would make this book difficult to read aloud also.

            While the complex nature of the text design limits its use, the unique scrapbook layout will definitely engage mature readers. This would be an excellent book for the classroom library in an upper elementary classroom. It would also be an informative book for children to read when they have time to study each page for understanding. While the complex layout is challenging, this picture book presents detailed facts about George Washington Carver’s life in a way that will encourage many children to reach for this book as though it were a comic.