Can’t get enough of Hamilton ? Think the British were the only ones we squabbled with during the Revolutionary War? Think again! A unique look at how the founding fathers settled their differences in their quest to settle a nation. George Washington vs. King George. Benjamin Franklin vs. his son William. John Adams vs. Thomas Jefferson. Alexander Hamilton vs. everyone ! Join author Anne Quirk and illustrator Elizabeth Baddeley as they referee four fascinating historical throw-downs between the founding fathers . . . and prove that the United States of America is a place worth fighting for. A Junior Library Guild selection

ldquo;Want to make the story of our founding fathers relevant and interesting? One way is to produce a groundbreaking, award-winning Broadway rap musical. Another solution might be to offer this slim tome, a summary of four fractious early American relationships.”  -- Booklist
 
“Readers will be pleasantly surprised not only by the nuggets of history they’ll learn but also the lesson that heated debate isn’t necessarily bad – it can even be wildly productive.” -- School Library Journal
 
“Briskly paced, humorously illustrated.” – Horn Book

Autorentext

Anne Quirk; illustrated by Elizabeth Baddeley

Klappentext

Can't get enough of Hamilton? Think the British were the only ones we squabbled with during the Revolutionary War? Think again! A unique look at how the founding fathers settled their differences in their quest to settle a nation.

George Washington vs. King George. Benjamin Franklin vs. his son William. John Adams vs. Thomas Jefferson. Alexander Hamilton vs. everyone!

Join author Anne Quirk and illustrator Elizabeth Baddeley as they referee four fascinating historical throw-downs between the founding fathers . . . and prove that the United States of America is a place worth fighting for.

A Junior Library Guild selection

Zusammenfassung
Can’t get enough of Hamilton? Think the British were the only ones we squabbled with during the Revolutionary War? Think again! A unique look at how the founding fathers settled their differences in their quest to settle a nation.
 
George Washington vs. King George. Benjamin Franklin vs. his son William. John Adams vs. Thomas Jefferson. Alexander Hamilton vs. everyone!
 
Join author Anne Quirk and illustrator Elizabeth Baddeley as they referee four fascinating historical throw-downs between the founding fathers . . . and prove that the United States of America is a place worth fighting for.
 
A Junior Library Guild selection

Leseprobe

GEORGE

 

WASHINGTON

 

VS.

 

KING

 

GEORGE III

 

The War of the Georges

 

 

 

1789: London and New York

 

It hurts to be on the wrong side of history. Winners, like George Washington, have great cities named for them and spiky monuments built in their honor. Losers, like King George III, are the butt of jokes. They lose the respect of their people. They lose power.

 

They can even lose their minds.

 

In the summer of 1788, nearly seven years after he lost his American colonies, fifty-year-old King George III started acting very strangely. He did not, as some insisted, mistake an oak tree for the king of Prussia. But he did talk for hours on end to no one in particular, pausing only for the occasional breath. He stopped sleeping. He barked orders at people who were long dead or completely imaginary.

 

“I am going to be mad,” he reportedly told one of his sons, then sobbed.

 

Physicians from across England were summoned to the palace. Leeches were attached to the king’s forehead. His scalp was shaved and blistered. He was placed in a straitjacket, his legs tied to his bedposts.

 

Parliament discussed replacing King George with his oldest son, the prince of Wales. Few were enthusiastic about this idea besides the prince of Wales.

 

After several months of treatments, the king improved--probably despite his doctors’ efforts, not because of them--and he was pronounced cured in March 1789, at least for a while. Parliament stopped discussing the possibility of pushing him off the throne. Balls were held in his honor. Queen Charlotte issued a “Prayer of Thanksgiving upon the King’s Recovery.” Even the French ambassador celebrated, despite France’s long tradition of going to war against English kings.

 

George Washington, however, had other things on his mind.

 

He had just been elected the first-ever president of the United States. “I was summoned by my Country,” he said in his inaugural address, given on April 30, 1789, “whose voice I can never hear but with veneration and love.”

 

The country now summoning Washington was America. The voices he now loved were American. But his first country had been England. His first loyalty had been to King George’s grandfather, George II. Long before George Washington was an American citizen, he was an English subject.

 

No wonder George III fell apart. One of his own had turned against him.

 

 

 

Virginia: 1732–1775

 

 

In the winter of 1732, King George II probably hadn’t heard that a new George had just been born in Virginia, one of England’s colonies on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean. Like most kings, George II was a busy man. He ruled over a growing empire that reached from England to America, India, and Africa. He shared his power with a parliament, an assembly of lawmakers who were elected by the English people. He also had nine children of his own, including an especially troublesome eldest son.

 

But George II didn’t need to know little George Washington personally to know that the baby was English. The baby’s parents, Mary and Augustine Washington, were English, too, and so were their neighbors along the Potomac River. The colonists up in Massachusetts were English. The colonists down in Georgia were English. America was just another place where English people lived. That’s what the king thought. That’s what most people in America thought.

 

Little George Washington grew up sitting on English chairs and eating off English plates. He pulled English-made pants over his lanky legs. He would have been educated in England, too, as his older brothers were, if his father hadn’t died young.

 

When Washington was in his early twenties, he served as an officer in the army of King George II. England and its longtime enemy France were at war, battling each other in Europe and in North America, where France had colonies of its own. In America, the conflict came to be called the French and Indian War. In Europe, it’s known as the Seven Years’ War. No matter its name, the war ended with an English victory.

 

The young American colonel won fame on both sides of the Atlantic for his bravery. By now, King George II knew the name George Washington. So did his grandson, King George III, who took the throne after his grandfather’s death in 1769. (His father, the troublemaking eldest child of George II, had died earlier, much to the relief of many.)

 

Washington resigned from the army after five years and married a wealthy widow, Martha Custis. He inherited land and slaves, and he grew richer and richer. His property stretched far into the American wilderness. He was elected to the Virginia Assembly, where he mostly kept his mouth shut during political debates. But he was tall and strong, and heads turned whenever he walked into a room.

 

As the years passed quickly for George Washington, something inside him was slowly changing.

 

The more he thought about his king and the E…