In Genevieve Foster's inimitable style, she brings to life the dawn of the 19th century with all its wonderful advancements in transportation, communication, and technology. This is the age of Napoleon, Jefferson, Toussaint, Livingston, Robert Fulton, Richard Trevithick, Beethoven, Lewis and Clark, Sacajawea, Dolley Madison and many more. Foster's use of "horizontal history" weaves these stories together by delightful retellings and whimsical illustrations.

About the Author:

Genevieve Foster began her career as a commercial artist, illustrator, and advertiser. In the late 1930s it occurred to Foster to write about history in a "horizontal" versus "vertical" fashion, i.e., that national histories should not be taught in isolation from one another. She said that the way history was traditionally taught was "about as dull and unsatisfying, as a play might be, if only one character appeared upon the stage, while the others faintly mumbled their lines in the wings, out of sight of the audience."

She was at the forefront of this new method of historical writing, which viewed history as a cross section of intertwined events and looked at a person in their worldwide historical context. In her books, she integrated global historical events into the telling of a person's life. Her purpose was to make historical figures "alive for children". During her career she wrote 19 nonfiction children's books. Foster traveled extensively and most of her books were translated into 12 languages and were distributed by the U.S. State Department.