Duel!: Burr and Hamilton's Deadly War of Words

To me, it has always been those who dealt with words and ideas -- such as Jefferson and Franklin and Hamilton -- who are so much fun to study and who are so central to gaining an understanding of what America is really all about. That Alexander Hamilton's life ended during his forties was clearly tragic for the nation in that it forever deprived us of the continued wisdom and perspective of one of the great minds behind the founding of America. Even back before I became familiar with Hamilton's writings, it just seemed so terrible that his life had ended in a duel. (Just think about how much more civilized life is in the Twenty-first century: Today he and Burr would have been dissing each other on competing cable talk shows and blogging scurrilous tidbits about one another online.) "The next day Burr lost the election for governor. He was furious that Hamilton's name-calling had again played a major role in his defeat. "Burr could have written a newspaper article blasting Hamilton or asked to meet with him to iron out their differences. Instead Burr sent Hamilton notes demanding that he apologize for his remarks -- or fight a duel. "Hamilton could have apologized or arranged to meet with Burr to make peace. Instead he accepted Burr's challenge." One of the benefits of great, nonfiction picture books for older readers is that they can turn us on to new topics and catch our interest without our having to invest more than a few minutes. The book should sell itself with its eye-catching cover featuring the extreme close-up perspective of being just behind Hamilton's coat and gun, as he faces Aaron Burr. While we may not have an interest in reading at length about Alexander Hamilton or Aaron Burr before learning about their deadly altercation in DUEL! BURR AND HAMILTON'S DEADLY WAR OF WORDS, there will certainly be a few readers who are enticed to go on to learn all about the philosophy and writings of Alexander Hamilton thanks to Dennis Fradin and Larry Day's storytelling. "Then they hear, 'Present!' -- the signal that they can aim and fire." Or, perhaps, in a few years, a reader of DUEL! will be doing research for a project in American history and say to himself, "Oh yeah, that Vice President who shot his buddy while they were out hunting." Err...whoops...no...That's a different Vice President-with-a-gun story...