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ABRAHAM LINCOLN

Name: ABRAHAM LINCOLN
Author: Amy L. Cohn
ISBN: 0-590-93566-6

by Amy L. Cohn & Suzy Schmidt & illustrated by David A. Johnson ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 1, 2001

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“See that tall, tall man in the tall black hat? Know who he is? That’s right, he’s the man on the penny—Abraham Lincoln, sixteenth president of the United States,” who here receives a thoroughly humanizing picture-book treatment. Editor and compiler Cohn teams with one of her contributors to From Sea to Shining Sea (1993) to craft a narrative that borrows freely from the American tall-tale tradition in style but that succeeds beautifully in turning the monument into first a child and then a man. Anecdotes and quotations are sprinkled liberally throughout, allowing Lincoln’s humor and forthrightness to speak directly to the reader. From the first to the last page, the text refers the reader to the illustrations, which complete the humanizing task in fine style. Johnson’s (Old Mother Hubbard, 1998) muted ink-and-watercolor washes frequently allow their subject to break the frame, emphasizing his gangling length and enormous feet and hands. One illustration of Lincoln as a young lawyer features a dramatically foreshortened Abe at his desk, looking out from behind his paper in mid-story, gigantic feet and bristling quills dominating the foreground. A later illustration depicts the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation: Lincoln’s careworn face stares directly at the reader over a rumpled tie, a quill in one huge hand. Less a formal biography than a biographical story, this offering depends upon previous exposure to Lincoln’s career—the term “Confederate” is introduced toward the end with no previous contextualizing, for instance—but as a literary overlay to that history, it succeeds magnificently. A timeline is appended, but there are neither source notes nor suggestions for further reading. (Picture book/biography. 7-11)

Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2001

ISBN: 0-590-93566-6

Page Count: 40

Publisher: Scholastic

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2001

Categories:

CHILDREN'S GENERAL CHILDREN'S

- BOOK REVIEW
FROM SEA TO SHINING SEA
edited by Amy L. Cohn & illustrated by Molly Bang

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THE YEAR OF MISS AGNES

by Kirkpatrick Hill ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 2000

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In 1948 the unorthodox Miss Agnes arrives to teach the children of an Athabascan Indian Village in remote Alaska. Ten-year-old Fred (Fredrika) matter-of-factly narrates this story of how a teacher transformed the school. Miss Agnes’s one-room schoolhouse is a progressive classroom, where the old textbooks are stored away first thing upon her arrival. The children learn to read using handmade books that are about their own village and lives: winter trapping camps, tanning moose hides, fishing, and curing the catch, etc. Math is a lesson on how not to get cheated when selling animal pelts. These young geographers learn about the world on a huge map that covers one whole schoolhouse wall. Fred is pitch-perfect in her observations of the village residents. “Little Pete made a picture of his dad’s trapline cabin . . . He was proud of that picture, I could tell, because he kept making fun of it.” Hill (Winter Camp, 1993, etc.) creates a community of realistically unique adults and children that is rich in the detail of their daily lives. Big Pete is as small and scrappy, as his son Little Pete is huge, gentle, and kind. Fred’s 12-year-old deaf sister, Bokko, has her father’s smile and has never gone to school until Miss Agnes. Charlie-Boy is so physically adept at age 6 that he is the best runner, thrower, and catcher of all the children. These are just a few of the residents in this rural community. The school year is not without tension. Will Bokko continue in school? Will Mama stay angry with Miss Agnes? And most important, who will be their teacher after Miss Agnes leaves? A quiet, yet satisfying account. (Fiction. 9-11)

Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2000

ISBN: 0-689-82933-7

Page Count: 128

Publisher: McElderry

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2000

Categories:

CHILDREN'S GENERAL CHILDREN'S

- BOOK REVIEW
BO AT IDITAROD CREEK
by Kirkpatrick Hill ; illustrated by LeUyen Pham

- BOOK REVIEW
BO AT BALLARD CREEK
by Kirkpatrick Hill illustrated by LeUyen Pham

- BOOK REVIEW
DO NOT PASS GO
by Kirkpatrick Hill

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THE SINGING ROCK & OTHER BRAND-NEW FAIRY TALES

by Nathaniel Lachenmeyer ; illustrated by Simini Blocker ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 18, 2019

Alert readers will find the implicit morals: know your audience, mostly, but also never underestimate the power of “rock”...

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The theme of persistence (for better or worse) links four tales of magic, trickery, and near disasters.

Lachenmeyer freely borrows familiar folkloric elements, subjecting them to mildly comical twists. In the nearly wordless “Hip Hop Wish,” a frog inadvertently rubs a magic lamp and finds itself saddled with an importunate genie eager to shower it with inappropriate goods and riches. In the title tale, an increasingly annoyed music-hating witch transforms a persistent minstrel into a still-warbling cow, horse, sheep, goat, pig, duck, and rock in succession—then is horrified to catch herself humming a tune. Athesius the sorcerer outwits Warthius, a rival trying to steal his spells via a parrot, by casting silly ones in Ig-pay Atin-lay in the third episode, and in the finale, a painter’s repeated efforts to create a flattering portrait of an ogre king nearly get him thrown into a dungeon…until he suddenly understands what an ogre’s idea of “flattering” might be. The narratives, dialogue, and sound effects leave plenty of elbow room in Blocker’s big, brightly colored panels for the expressive animal and human(ish) figures—most of the latter being light skinned except for the golden genie, the blue ogre, and several people of color in the “Sorcerer’s New Pet.”

Alert readers will find the implicit morals: know your audience, mostly, but also never underestimate the power of “rock” music. (Graphic short stories. 8-10)