"What did I know of freedom, of all the wild talk of independence that summer of 1776? Ned is just a boy helping his mother run their boardinghouse the summer that a tall, thin man named Mr. Jefferson comes to stay. He and other important colonists are there for the Congress in Philadelphia, to debate their charges against King George in England, which have erupted into a violent war. As Mr. Jefferson spends night after night writing in his room, Ned forgets the simple things he wants, like a new cap, and thinks instead about the extraordinary idea everyone is starting to talk about—freedom—and the incredible changes it might soon bring to their lives. With hauntingly beautiful words and historically accurate paintings, when mr. jefferson came to philadelphia combines the fictional character of Ned with authentic details about Thomas Jefferson's lodging during the writing of the Declaration of Independence to create a powerfully moving portrait of the spirit that fueled our nation's birth.
Author
Ann Turner, also known and published as Ann Warren Turner, is a children's author and a poet. Ann Turner wrote her first story when she was eight years old. It was about a dragon and a dwarf named Puckity. She still uses that story when she talks to students about writing, to show them that they too have stories worth telling. Turner has always loved to write, but at first she was afraid she couldn't make a living doing it. So she trained to be a teacher instead. After a year of teaching, however, she decided she would rather write books than talk about them in school. Turner's first children's book was about vultures and was illustrated by her mother. She has written more than 40 books since then, most of them historical picture books. She likes to think of a character in a specific time and place in American history and then tell a story about that character so that readers today can know what it was like to live long ago. Ann Turner says that stories choose her, rather than the other way around: "I often feel as if I am walking along quietly, minding my own business, when a story creeps up behind me and taps me on the shoulder. 'Tell me, show me, write me!' it whispers in my ear. And if I don't tell that story, it wakes me up in the morning, shakes me out of my favorite afternoon nap, and insists upon being told." (from: http://www.eduplace.com/kids/tnc/mtai...)
