Lincoln and His Boys
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- $12.99
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
Historians claim him as one of America’s most revered presidents. But to his rambunctious sons, Abraham Lincoln was above all a playful and loving father. Here is Lincoln as seen by two of his boys: Willie, thrilled to be on his first train trip when Lincoln was deciding to run for president; Willie and Tad barging into Cabinet meetings to lift Lincoln’s spirits in the early days of the Civil War; Tad accompanying him to Richmond just after the South’s defeat. With the war raging and the Union under siege, we see history unfolding through Willie’s eyes and then through Tad’s -- and we see Lincoln rising above his own inborn sadness and personal tragedy through his devotion to his sons. With evocative and engaging illustrations by P.J. Lynch, Rosemary Wells offers a carefully researched biography that gives us a Lincoln not frozen in time but accessible and utterly real.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Inspired by a 200-word fragment written by one of Lincoln's sons, Wells (Mary on Horseback) introduces the legendary president through the perspectives of his youngest children, Willie and Tad. Nine years old when the book opens, in Springfield, Ill., Willie accompanies his father to Chicago, where, as Willie puts it, "spiffed-up men with soft hands" decide that Lincoln should run for president: "It's a derby race, and I've got a plow horse's chance," Lincoln tells his son. The family vernacular will win readers quickly, as will Lincoln's readiness to indulge his boys and let them see him at work. Darkness enters gradually: on the train to Washington, Pinkerton agents whisk Lincoln off, in disguise ("a lot of shicoonery," he tells the boys), to foil an assassination plot; the outbreak of war grieves Lincoln; and then the death of Willie in 1862 devastates Mary Lincoln. Wells ends as Lincoln and Tad return from a trip to Richmond, Va., at the close of the Civil War, and Lincoln orders the Union band to play "Dixie." Rarely does a biography so robustly engage the audience's emotions. Final art, in color, not seen by PW. Ages 8 12.
