The Right Word: Roget and His Thesaurus 

Author: Jennifer Fisher Bryant

Illustrator: Melissa Sweet 

Genre: Non-fiction

Grade level: K-4

Award: Caldecott Honor and Sibert Medal

There is a young boy named Peter Roget. He loved making lists. It starts out in Switzerland. He makes lists to help him remember his school lessons. It takes us through his life in England and Scotland as well. His mother never understood his love for list making.  He never let that get in the way of his passion. He writes his own books of list words that have the same meaning. This is what we know now as a synonym. He does exceptionally well in medical school and eventually earns a good job. Eventually all his collections get put into a thesaurus and he continues his list making because that is his passion. 

This book can be used to teach about thesaurus's. It is a good to know where it comes from and the history of a thesaurus in order to truly appreciate it and know how to use it. It is an interesting untold story that students can research about. 

The illustrations were amazing. There is a lot of precision and color in the illustrations. The illustrations are mixed-media illustrations and convey Roget's list making perfectly. The illustrations are not like the traditional illustrations they look more abstract than normal.