THOMAS JEFFERSON'S BATTLE FOR SCIENCE

The story of Thomas Jefferson’s fury at a French scientist’s misinformation about the New World introduces young readers to the scientific inquiry process.

While Jefferson and the other American revolutionaries fought for independence from Britain, he undertook a lesser-known battle—against scientific misinformation. Jefferson loved the natural world: He collected fossils and bones and took pride in accurately measuring everything from air temperature to the weight of catfish. So it was galling to him when French scientist Count Georges-Louis Leclerc de Buffon published an encyclopedia declaring the New World “swampy and cold,” with small bears and “puny” wolves—inferior to Europe. Anderson cleverly juxtaposes Buffon’s faulty scientific claims alongside Jefferson’s colorful outrage: “Hogwash!” “Poppycock!” She succinctly lays out Jefferson’s critique: Buffon had never been to the New World—was he biased? Where did he get his information? To convince Buffon of his errors, Jefferson sought evidence—measurements of New World animals, pelts to prove their existence, even an actual moose. Holmes wittily presents Jefferson’s inquiries through comic-book panels depicting heads exploding with arguments set against sepia-colored notebook pages. In an author’s note, Anderson calls out Jefferson for his bias as the owner of enslaved persons and for his lack of forethought in how Americans’ exploration of the Louisiana Purchase would affect Indigenous people.

A delightfully enlightening account and a welcome antidote to our own time’s precarious truthiness.