Honest Abe

President's Day celebrates, in part, the birthdays of both Abraham Lincoln and George Washington. There have been loads of books for kids published about Abraham Lincoln, in particular, so in honor of his recent birthday and today's President's Day, here are some solid reads about Honest Abe. I've given the first title more description since it's just out this spring and won't be as well known. (For a couple of other Lincoln books, see Emily's post at Redeemed Reader.)

Lincoln's Grave Robbers
Steve Sheinkin
Scholastic, 2013

Hitting store shelves this spring is Sheinkin's latest fascinating peak into history (Sheinkin is author of the recent heavily-awarded Bomb). True to Sheinkin's reputation, Lincoln's Grave Robbers is fast-paced and reveals some little remembered historical facts along with a fantastic attempt by some men to actually steal Lincoln's bones! Crazy.

The story opens with an examination of the widespread counterfeit operations going on during the second half of the 19th century (it's amazing how much money in circulation was fake!!). Did you know the Secret Service was started for the specific purpose of tracking down counterfeit money folks (from the engravers to those passing it in the street). When a highly skilled engraver gets put behind bars, the folks who depended on his next-to-impossible-to-detect counterfeit bills panic. What can they do to get him back? I know! Steal Lincoln's bones! That will teach that mean government who's boss. They don't put it in those words, but that's the sentiment behind this desperate plot to steal Lincoln's bones and essentially demand the engraver in return for the bones. Thanks to a "rover" (a "mole" in today's parlance), their plot is hindered--but the Secret Service men fail to capture the bad guys! A series of small things-gone-wrong drags the story out, but justice is finally served.

Kids will enjoy this peak into a part of history often left out of the history books. Sheinkin's gift for narration keeps the story moving, and he continues his usual well-balanced musings (wondering who's "fault" some things are, for instance). He also does an excellent job of sprinkling in historical slang without making the book obscure. All in all, a fun and informative read. Recommended for 4th grade and up (this one is not as complex as Bomb).

Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass: the Story Behind an American Friendship
Russell Freedman
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2012

Thoughtfully reviewed by Janie over at Redeemed Reader, this book is essentially a dual biography from a well known and awarded author. Freedman is no stranger to Lincoln, and his name will come up in this list again! Worth checking out for those middle grades students.

Lincoln: a Photobiography
Russell Freedman
Sandpiper, 1989 (originally published 1987)
Newbery Medal

Freedman's earlier biography of Lincoln was a landmark book in children's publishing. His blend of photography with text was remarkable, and it's one of the few nonfiction titles to ever win a Newbery Medal (this year, 2013, Sheinkin's Bomb garnered an honor). Comprehensive, well documented, this book is a standard among biographies for the middle grades set.

Abraham Lincoln
Ingri and Edgar Parin D'Aulaire
Doubleday, 1939
Caldecott Medal

Another noteworthy book about Lincoln that also was a landmark book in terms of awards--one of the first Caldecott winners and in color! The D'Aulaires are standards in the field for children's biographies and their adaptations of things like the Greek Myths for children. This biography is accessible to elementary school children, does a nice job of bringing Lincoln's character (including his funny side) to life, and gives a thorough look at Lincoln's childhood and young adulthood.


Thanks to my local library for all books save Lincoln's Grave Robbers which I received via netgalley; cover images from goodreads.

Home Front Girl

Home Front Girl
Joan Whelan Morrison
Chicago Review Press, 2012


Remember Anne of Green Gables' delightul, dramatic, so-very-intense-and-everything-is-so-of-the-moment-and... voice? That's what this collection of real diary entries reminds me of. Joan Whelan was a teenager in Chicago in the years leading up to WWII. Her daughter collected the entries, edited them down, and produced this book which is a fun peek into the world of teenaged girls in the late 30's. And you know what? Some things never change. Sure the culture has evolved. We have different national issues (actually, they're remarkably the same but the particular details are different). We have different pop culture icons. We have TV (!) and even post-TV entertainment (!!). But, as Joan shows us in the pages of her long ago diary, teenagers are much the same at heart.

Speed to Glory: the Cullen Jones Story

Speed to Glory: the Cullen Jones Story
Natalie Davis Miller
Zonderkidz
2012


As I mentioned in my review of a Dominique Dawes biography, one of the Olympic sports I really enjoy watching is the swimming. Cullen Jones is just that: an Olympic swimmer. In fact, he's on the 2012 U.S.A. Olympic team for the upcoming London Olympics! You might consider this, then, a partial biography of Cullen Jones since his career is very much in progress.

I like what Zondervan seems to be doing in these middle grade biographies: profiling famous people who claim that their faith is important to them. If Jones' and Dawes' biographies are any indication, they are fairly well researched, easy to read, full of extra information on the sport (or career) in question--including nice bibliographies, and seem to cover a wide variety of interests (sports, politics, etc.). Jones, like Dawes, is now involved in reaching out to communities, trying to encourage kids to be more active physically. He is trying to use his gifts for good. He had a unique start to his swimming career (a near drowning at a water park at age 5), but once he got started swimming, he kept it up.

What I am less pleased about in these biographies is the generic quality of the faith of the person in question. There are occasional references to how much the person's "faith" means to them, and in both Dawes' and Jones' backgrounds, there was frequent church attendance, perhaps mention of a conversion experience, and parents who seemed to place a priority on going to church. But there was no mention of Christ nor much text devoted to object of the person's faith.

All in all, this Cullen Jones biography will be an interesting read for those kids interested in swimming (and/or professional athletes), and it will be a "safe" read and a mildly inspiring one. But it will not be terribly inspiring in terms of Christian faith.

Book is on sale now.

Thanks to Zonderkidz (via Netgalley) for the ARC of the book; cover image from Zondervan

Amelia Lost

Amelia Lost: the Life and Disappearance of Amelia Earhart
Candace Fleming
Schwartz & Wade Books
2011

This book received a lot of blogger buzz last year, but it didn't receive much awards attention (OK, none, really) when the Caldecott/Newbery/et. al. were announced earlier this year. Now that I've read it, I can see why the buzz!

Fleming tells us the story of Amelia Earhart in an engaging, readable format. Amelia's biographical story is broken up into chapters and interspersed with "chapters" of her disappearance and subsequent rescue attempts. I liked this dual plot thread which all coalesced at the end of the book. Knowing she is missing heightens some of the details Fleming gives us about her character and her decisions in her earlier life.

Fleming manages to give us a very likable and sympathetic heroine--but also a very real one, complete with faults and poor decision making. This is a true story of a brave woman, but it is also the true story of a human being like the rest of us. There are mild feminism undertones, but they are also reflections of a time during which women did need to gain a bit more independence (i.e. the right to vote!).

Indian Captive

Indian Captive
Lois Lenski
Originally published 1941
Newbery honor
Re-issued multiple times, most recently by Open Road Media in e-book format
e-book date 2011


Megan should really be writing this review since she did her thesis on Lois Lenski's "historicals," as they're often called. Lenski was a prolific author/illustrator, illustrating such works as the Betsy-Tacy series, creating multiple picture book series (we're big fans of the Papa Small books around here!), and writing quite a few novels.  Her novel Strawberry Girl earned her a Newbery; Indian Captive earned her a Newbery honor. In addition to her historical novels, she also did a series of novels about different regions of the country (Strawberry Girl is part of that series, I believe). If you're unfamiliar with her work, you need to remedy that!

If you're unfamiliar with her work, though, this e-book from Open Road may be just the place to start. In addition to reproducing Lenski's original text and illustrations, the Open Road folks have also included a nicely done short biography of Lenski complete with several photos of the author and her family.

I was delighted with how approachable this book still is for today's audiences. Published in 1941, this book is more than 70 years old--how would its treatment of Native Americans, for one, translate to today's sensibilities and politically correct emphasis? Quite well, actually. This is a wonderful novel based on the true story of a young girl taken captive in the 1750s by Indians the day before her family was killed by the same group of Indians; after two years in captivity with the Seneca Indians, Molly Jemison, aka Corn Tassel, chose to stay with them. She'd learned much from her Indian family, had grown to love them, and realized that she could indeed make a life as a white girl amongst an Indian tribe. They accepted her as their own, even though she'd been technically a captive. The Seneca Indians are shown to be a hard-working, beauty-loving, stern-yet-loving people; they are also caught between the French and English as they battle for control of the continent. By the end of the novel, the reader can't help but affirm Corn Tassel's decision to stay with her new family.

All of Lenski's original illustrations are also in the e-book format. She not only draws the characters but illustrates multiple examples of Indian crafts and tools. Lenski clearly did her research into the time period and its cultures.

I've labeled it historical fiction partly because I think it would be shelved with fiction in a traditional library; it's really closer to a biography covering 2 years of Mary/Molly Jemison's extraordinary life. This would be a great option for a book lists for students doing outside reading on different periods in history; upper elementary and middle school students could read it on their own, but it could be read aloud to younger students, too.

Elizabeth Prentiss: More Love to Thee

What I'm drinking: House Specialty Chai

Mrs. Elizabeth Prentiss is best known for her best-selling novel, Stepping Heavenward. More devoted readers may be familiar with Aunt Jane’s Hero and the thick biography compiled by her husband, More Love to Thee: The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss. The biography by Sharon James is a welcome addition to this collection as both an introduction to the life of a godly writer and a commentary on her achievements.

Elizabeth Prentiss was a nineteenth-century Christian who was familiar with both blessings and heartaches from the hand of God. She was raised in a Christian home, enjoyed a blissful marriage with her husband and was talented with a pen, yet she experienced the mundanity of housekeeping, severe illness, and the loss of precious young children. Although her most popular work, Stepping Heavenward is not entirely biographical, the voice of its heroine came naturally to a woman who was candid with her own experience. For this reason, the universal response of women since its original publication has consistently been “‘It seems to be myself that I am reading about.’” (James, 145) The Prentiss family was familiar with grief and grace, with noble intentions and apparent failure, but all these were recognized without bitterness as lessons in the school of Christ. Readers who have experienced frustration and disappointment in the home or in relationships will find encouragement with Mrs. Prentiss’s perseverance and zeal for her Lord.

The length of the original biography, More Love to Thee, can be daunting. Drawing heavily from this material, however, Mrs. James places her findings from other primary and secondary documents, including family histories, in historical and literary contexts. Using quotations from letters and summaries of events, she creates a beautifully smooth narrative. The text comes alive with Mrs. Prentiss’s voice while Mrs. James gently asserts her own observations on her subject’s character and the strengths and weaknesses of Mrs. Prentiss’s literary work. Future reading of these works will be illuminated by such insights into her life and convictions.

My only consolation in finishing Sharon James’s biography is that I am motivated to indulge in the complete More Love to Thee with better understanding, and to locate the other novels by Elizabeth Prentiss that reflect her life experiences and spiritual growth. Those who are already enamored with her greatest bestseller, Stepping Heavenward, or are familiar with Aunt Jane’s Hero, will learn greater appreciation for the trials she faced and the God she so humbly served through them. Those who have not yet been introduced to her extraordinary fiction will be eager to follow the discovery of this godly woman with their own creative expressions of life and faith.