Abraham Lincoln: Our Sixteenth President (Our Presidents)

Rating:
Summary: Getting beyond a basic introduction to Abraham Lincoln
Review: In the Our Presidents series the ironic rule of thumb is that the best volumes usually turn out to be those about the Presidents you know the least. Conversely, when you get to the cream of the crop, as with Sarah Bowler's look at "Abraham Lincoln: Our Sixteenth President," there is usually a problem with getting all of the information that is out there into less than three dozen pages of text. However, Bowler takes advantage of the format of the Our Presidents books to cram in as much information as possible.

The four chapters of the volume are devoted to A Frontier Childhood, which covers Lincoln's youth up to his journey down the Mississippi River on a flatboat to New Orleans; Law and Politics, which ends with his election as President in 1860; The Civil War, which only covers the period from Ft. Sumter to the Battle of Antietam; and Victory and Freedom, which begins with the Emancipation Proclamation and ends with Lincoln's assassination. The focus on the Civil War is not on specific battles, but rather on the main issues that confronted Lincoln as President. Consequently, Bowler gets points for trying to get beyond providing just biographical details about Lincoln's life. The only significant omission would be talking about Lincoln's suspension of civil rights in the early days of the war, but that is understandable since the context which made such actions a political necessity are fairly complicated and there is plenty of time for young readers to be confronted with the realities of power politics in the mid-19th century.

The volume is illustrated with historic photographs, etchings, posters, cartoons, and the like. Each chapter has a side bar devoted to a particular topic like the Lincoln-Douglas debates and the Gettysburg Address. The margins are usually filled with Interesting Facts about Lincoln's horse Old Buck and wife Mary Todd Lincoln having four brothers who served in the Confederate army. The back of the book includes a Time Line of Lincoln's life, Glossary Terms, a list of Our Presidents, and some Presidential Facts. Sarah Bowler provides a book that gets beyond a basic introduction to the life and times of Abraham Lincoln and starts to provide young students with some of the key details of his Presidency.

Rating:
Summary: Getting beyond a basic introduction to Abraham Lincoln
Review: In the Our Presidents series the ironic rule of thumb is that the best volumes usually turn out to be those about the Presidents you know the least. Conversely, when you get to the cream of the crop, as with Sarah Bowler's look at "Abraham Lincoln: Our Sixteenth President," there is usually a problem with getting all of the information that is out there into less than three dozen pages of text. However, Bowler takes advantage of the format of the Our Presidents books to cram in as much information as possible.

The four chapters of the volume are devoted to A Frontier Childhood, which covers Lincoln's youth up to his journey down the Mississippi River on a flatboat to New Orleans; Law and Politics, which ends with his election as President in 1860; The Civil War, which only covers the period from Ft. Sumter to the Battle of Antietam; and Victory and Freedom, which begins with the Emancipation Proclamation and ends with Lincoln's assassination. The focus on the Civil War is not on specific battles, but rather on the main issues that confronted Lincoln as President. Consequently, Bowler gets points for trying to get beyond providing just biographical details about Lincoln's life. The only significant omission would be talking about Lincoln's suspension of civil rights in the early days of the war, but that is understandable since the context which made such actions a political necessity are fairly complicated and there is plenty of time for young readers to be confronted with the realities of power politics in the mid-19th century.

The volume is illustrated with historic photographs, etchings, posters, cartoons, and the like. Each chapter has a side bar devoted to a particular topic like the Lincoln-Douglas debates and the Gettysburg Address. The margins are usually filled with Interesting Facts about Lincoln's horse Old Buck and wife Mary Todd Lincoln having four brothers who served in the Confederate army. The back of the book includes a Time Line of Lincoln's life, Glossary Terms, a list of Our Presidents, and some Presidential Facts. Sarah Bowler provides a book that gets beyond a basic introduction to the life and times of Abraham Lincoln and starts to provide young students with some of the key details of his Presidency.