My Fellow Americans: A Family Album

by Alice Provensen

In this fascinating compendium, Alice Provensen creates an album that reveals the words and deeds of fellow Americans in elegant pictures brimming with lively detail. An eclectic sampling of Americans is represented-from Pocahontas to Henry Ford, Sojourner Truth to Jim Henson, and Al Capone to Dr. Seuss. By showing us the myriad personalities who have influenced our lives, Mrs. Provensen provides remarkable insight into what it means to be a part of the American family. “Inspiring is the best adjective to describe this very personal book.”-USA Today

Genres: Picture Books, Childrens, Nonfiction

61 pages, Hardcover

First published November 15, 1995

About the author

Alice Provensen collaborated with her late husband, Martin, on numerous highly acclaimed picture books, including the Caldecott Medal-winning The Glorious Flight and Nancy Willard's Newbery Medal-winning A Visit to William Blake's Inn, which was also a Caldecott Honor Book. The Provensens have been on the New York Times list of the Ten Best Illustrated Books eight times.

Reviews

[Miriam · Rating 3 out of 5]

Each page spread is focused on a group of people who influenced a certain area of history. However, there isn't much information on each person other than what they all influenced.

Free Spirits:
Henry David Thoreau (poet, naturalist, social critic, rebel)

Rebel Voices:
Clarence Darrow (defender of Unpopular causes - defended over 100 persons charged with murder. none were ever sentenced to death.)
William Jennings Bryan (orator, 3x presidential candidate, the great commoner, defender of the faith)
John Thomas Scopes (The Tennessee "Monkey" trial, Scopes found guilt of teaching Darwinism)

Pilgrims and Puritans:
Edward Winslow (founder of Plymouth colony 1620)
Miles Standish (solder, defender of the colony against suspect Indians)
John Winthrop (1st governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony 1630)

Quakers and Shakers:
William Penn (1681: founder of the peaceable kingdom and the city of Brotherly love, the Delaware Indians, the most powerful tribe of all the Algonquians, sign an agreement with Penn that lasted until Penn's death.)
mother Ann Lee (1776: Founder of the first shaker community in america at watervliet NY)

Maverick Ministers
Mennonites (the principle of nonresistance)
Norman Vincent Peale ( the power of positive thinking)
Sam "Preacher" Jones (Root hog or die poor)
John Eliot (apostle to the Indians, translated the bible into the algonquian language 1661)
Joseph Smith and Brigham Young (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints)
George Ripley transcendentalism, organizer and founder of brook farm, a cooperative community)
Madame Blavatsky, William Quan Judge, and Henry Steel Olcott (theosophy)
Mary Baker Eddy (christian science)
Billy Sunday and Angelus Temple (Evangelism)

[Deanna · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a very informative social studies book for 4th through 6th grade. This piece of literature is a bit overwhelming as a sit down read, but it is a wonderful resource for students. It is stuffed full of pictures, portraits, quotes, and quick facts.

[Kari · Rating 3 out of 5]

a little too much for my 5 year old. But I would like to come back to it in the future.

[Bree · Rating 1 out of 5]

Notes:
I like Provensen as an illustrator but I'm not sure the point of this book; a bunch of portraits and a few quotes with a fun fact here and there; who is this book for??

[Joya Threalkill · Rating 5 out of 5]

very informative! Learned about so many people I didn't know about who helped America prosper!

[Danielle]

What a fascinating book.