Through the Looking Glass Children's Book Reviews
Abe Lincoln Goes to Washington: 1837-1865
Nonfiction Picture Book
For ages 7 to 10
National Geographic, 2002 ISBN: 0792269063
This moving account of Abraham Lincoln's life from the time when he was a lawyer in Springfield Illinois to the day when he was assassinated in Ford's Theatre in Washington D.C. is a glowing, inspiring tribute to a man who changed the lives of millions of people. Here was a man who loved to indulge his little boys and let them run riot when he was trying to work. Here too was a man who could not set aside his conviction that a "house divided against itself cannot stand" and who saw himself as being the one who must try to unite this house for the good of all.
We are presented with a picture in words and through Cheryl Harness's wonderful illustrations of a loving family man who made fun of his own gangly, not too attractive appearance. He was man who suffered great loss both when his own little son died and when the sons and husbands of thousands of others also died during the civil war. Most of all we are left with the image of a President who believed that slavery was evil and that it could not be allowed to persist in a country that prided itself on offering "freedom and liberty for all." Here was a man that America can be proud of and in this very special book that pride comes through with great clarity and conviction.
