Ben and Me

On December 28, 1732, the first issue of Poor Richard’s Almanack was advertised in the Pennsylvania Gazette. Published from 1733–1758, this brainchild of Benjamin Franklin has been imitated and copied many times. Franklin, like so many of the Founding Fathers, was a Renaissance man—inventor, printer, ambassador, and the delight of the French ladies. He has been the focus of countless biographies for adults, and one slightly irreverent one for young people. In Robert Lawson’s Ben and Me, we see the great man from the point of view of the mouse, who resides in his fur hat.

In the book Lawson claims to have discovered an old manuscript, lodged in a secretary desk, where Amos “with pen in paw” sets the record straight about Franklin—a man who could be overenthusiastic about himself. In this story the Revolution and its heroes get examined from a mouse-eyed view. Of all the figures, Amos prefers Washington: “Not only was he a magnificent figure of a man and a soldier, but the wheat grown at Mount Vernon was of a superb quality.” While he spins his tale, Amos educates readers about Philadelphia, printing presses, electricity, Franklin stoves, and the tendency of the Founding Fathers to spend excessive time in committees.

After completing the illustrations for Mr. Popper’s Penguins, Lawson was asked by Little Brown to suggest a subject for his next book, preferably a biography that someone else could write for him. He came up with an outline for Ben and Me; his editor thought it was such a cockeyed story that only Lawson himself could create it. Published in 1939, the book has imparted humor, history, and wisdom to generations of American children. In Everything I Need to Know I Learned from a Children’s Book, Pulitzer-Prize winning historian David McCullough presents the virtues of this book: “I met my first revisionist historian when I was six…. Lawson understood the details of Franklin’s life and the world of Franklin’s travels and work, which give the book its great charm. In the writing of history and biography, one has to call on imagination…. This I learned early from Ben and Me, a book I still read for my grandchildren and for its enduring pleasure.”

Here’s a passage from Ben and Me: