Imagine finding an old journal in the attic, a journal with pages worn and brown with age and written by Abraham Lincoln. That’s the feeling readers will have when they pick up this handsome volume that tells the story of young Abraham Lincoln’s voyages up and down the Mississippi, his pride at earning money by his own “honest labor” and his horror at witnessing slaves being taken to auction in New Orleans. Waldman read Lincoln’s speeches and studied his writing style in order to approximate the first-person voice for this work, and he indicates in brown italics his occasional use of Lincoln’s actual words. Verisimilitude stops with the subtitle, however, since Lincoln detested the nickname “Abe” and always went by Abraham. The narrative is slight, but the art is striking, images rendered in watercolor, pen and ink, pencil and acrylic contributing to the antique appearance of the volume. A good match with Candace Fleming’s description of these events in The Lincolns: A Scrapbook Look at Abraham and Mary (2008). (author’s note, annotated sources) (Nonfiction. 10 & up)
