The Right Word: Roget and His Thesaurus (Incredible Lives for Young Readers (ILYR))

I need Roget's Thesaurus to think of enough adjectives for this amazing book. Jen Bryant can certainly write a great children's biography, engaging, poetic, and fun! My daughter and I enjoyed Six Dots: A Story of Young Louis Braille but this book is even better. We love words at our house so this book is even more meaningful. As an adult I am especially pleased when I also learn new facts from a children's book and it turns out I really did not know much about Dr. Roget at all.Jen's writing style is fabulous and her words flow off the tongue when reading this aloud. My favorite sentence just from the standpoint of an amazing impact on the reader- "Baby Annette slept in Mother's arms, a small pink blossom against a wall of black." I can visualize the scene perfectly from that one sentence. You can feel it even. You just know that Peter's mother must be in mourning because his father died. On the next page you find that is exactly the case. The entire book is amazing like that. I read one beautiful passage and then my daughter wanted to read it as well. It really is fun to say the beautiful words out loud!In addition to Bryant's inspired prose, Sweet's art is also fabulous. I am not sure how to describe it, maybe scrapbook style? There really are a lot of interesting things going on in the pictures that's for sure. So, we loved both reading and looking at this wonderful book. We highly recommend it!

The things we discover as adults! I loved this biographical account about the man who was behind the thesaurus. Obviously, I never knew it before. Not only are the illustrations just beautiful and interesting, but the story itself is inspiring. How wonderful to get children thinking of things they like to do, and how this transfers into the adult world. At the same time comes an introduction into the definition of and use of this handy tool for writing.

One of my favorite books of 2014, The Right Word, takes a look at the creation of Roget's Thesaurus and the man who created it. Not only are the illustrations remarkable (which I would expect from Melissa Sweet), the text is beautifully integrated with them to present a striking book that is both informative and appealing. This book would be a great tool for helping children learn how to use a thesaurus and to develop an understanding of the power of having just the right word to use. Roget strikes me as a rather interesting man to study with his word fascination as well as interest in many aspects of science so I found the author's and illustrator's notes at the end thoroughly intriguing. The list of references and resources is also helpful and indicates the large amount of work that went into making this book. It was also really interesting to see a copy of one of the pages from Roget's notebook. A great book and a great resource and very possibly a soon to be award winner.

A most beautiful book and so informative. As a writer I have used Roget's Thesaurus for many years. In fact, I have 3 copies — two of them now rather battered, but loved. But I never knew anything about Roget himself. This book tells not only about how Roget researched and wrote his Thesaurus, but also about his other achievements, which were many. The book is actually for children, which I didn't know when I bought it — but it is so full of fascinating information about Roget, a rare genius, that it is suitable for anyone to read. It would be inspiring for children. In fact, I have already decided to buy another copy for a young boy I know, who will be very interested in it.

Great pictures

I love this book -- and last night I had the pleasure of watching a nine-year old boy lose himself in it. He read it to himself, slowly (explaining that he wanted to really look at the pictures). He laughed when Peter said, "Mama, I'm fine." And when I looked over to see what had made him laugh, pointed to that and the black cloud over Peter's head in the next picture.His only comment at the end was that they really knew how to make it interesting to kids.They did. They do -- and rarely if ever have I seen a picture book biography in which the words and the art become one whole in this way, even when the same person did them both. I wish *I* could think of one right word for this book -- beautiful, moving, funny, well-written, how did they do it? And get so much into 40 pages? If I had to pick just one word, though: ILLUMINATING.After I read the book (and I am still reading it, over and over and over) I bought Roget's Thesaurys, the 1933 one with the word still arrange his way.Thank you Jen Bryant and Melissa Sweet!

I'm 67 years old and I LOVE this book!!! The quality of the paper, the illustrations!!!!!!!IT IS A DREAM to read. And after that go back and look at every page again!!!!

I wish this book were more well known. Its two awards are an indication of its excellence. The design and illustrations alone make it worth the read. But the biography unveils a fascinating history. After reading this book, I finally knew what a thesaurus actually was--not an online source of synonyms, or words that mean the same thing, but a treasure house of ideas and words that belong together topically. After reading this I ordered Roget's International thesaurus (it is as big as 2 Bibles), and my children and I delight in purusing at the lists of gem stones, fields of chemistry, types of stories, and complex webs of related ideas to a concept like "guild".

Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases, Classified and Arranged so as to Fascilitate the Expression of Ideas and Assist in Literary Composition（1852）の著者で、シソーラスの祖とされるロジェの伝記は評者の知る限りは下記の3部が発行されているが、Emblen, D. L. 1970. Peter Mark Roget；The Word and the Man, Rennison, N. 2007. Peter Mark Roget: The Man Who Became a Book, Kendall, J. 2008. The Man who Made Lists: Love, Death, Madness, and the Creation of Roget’s Thesaurus,いずれも、専門者向けで入手も難しい。本書は子供向きの絵本で､　挿絵や写真を楽しみながらロジェの生涯とシソーラス誕生の経緯を知ることができる。なかでも最終頁の手稿本（1805）（existenceの項）の写真は見る人を圧倒するだろう。また年表の中でPiozziの British Synonymy Or an Attempt at Regulating the Choice of Words in Familiar Conversation(1794)をロジェのシソーラスの先駆としてあげているのも興味深い。ロジェのシソーラスは実用的に使うには手に余る。折に触れて参照して英語と英語の文化・論理を身につけてゆくのが最も良いと思われる。その前にロジェの伝記をまず読むとよい。

Jen Bryant and Melissa Sweet did a wonderful job portraying Roget and his penchant for words and lists. This picture book is an apt/suitable/fitting telling of a remarkable life.

Interesting for children

caldecott winner!