My Name Is James Madison Hemings by Jonah Winter

This is a New York Times notable Book and a Junior Library Guild Selection. Recommended for children 5-9, this charming, yet thought-provoking and important, picture book tells the story of a slave born to Sally Heming and fathered by Thomas Jefferson. James Madison Hemings grew up at Jefferson’s plantation, Monticello, near Charlottesville, Virginia, but – unlike his mother – was freed upon Jefferson’s death and moved to Ohio where he worked as a carpenter, a trade he had learned from his uncle at Monticello. In 1873 he was interviewed by a newspaper and was the only one of has siblings to publicly address Jefferson’s paternity. The author of this picture book acknowledges the work of historian Annette Gordon-Reed in illuminating the Heming family. "Through a poignant first-person monologue, Winter imagines the peculiar upbringing of Virginia slave James Madison Hemings, son of Thomas Jefferson and his enslaved mistress, Sally Hemings.”—Bulletin, starred review. "This gentle, emotiona