Newbery Review #67 (Lincoln: A Photobiography, Freedman, 1988)

Russel Freedman’s 1988 Newbery winning book, Lincoln: A Photobiography is a great biography (with lots of photographs) of Abraham Lincoln. Even though one of my first quasi-dates with my husband Evan in the spring of 2006 was to the Lincoln museum in Springfield Illinois, I don’t think of myself as having an above average interest in our sixteenth president. So I was not really looking forward to slogging through a biography of him for Newbery #67, but I was pleasantly surprised. This was really well written, and engaging. I was sad that it ended. Lincoln’s death is so abrupt and tragic. If only he could have lived to steer America through Reconstruction.

What I liked. I thought that Russell Freedman really did such a solid job of keeping things moving and distilling such a big topic into a manageable and readable volume with great visuals. (Photography was really getting off the ground around the Civil War, so we have so many more photographs starting then.)

What was interesting. I thought it was fun to see Lincoln’s handwriting, especially of some of the more famous speeches that he’d given. He has rather good handwriting for the time. I’m not very good at paleography, but I could figure out nearly all of what he was saying. I also thought the way that Russell Freeman organized the narrative of Lincoln during the war to show how Lincoln had such a hard time finding a good general was something that I hadn’t really thought much about before.

Also, it was kind of upsetting to see Lincoln portrayed so negatively in political cartoons from his detractors, but also somehow a reminder that all the really negative politician rancor that we find ourselves in now isn’t really all that new.

What were some limitations. I thought the book ended a bit abruptly without a lot of focus on Lincoln’s legacy, but then again Lincoln died awfully abruptly, so perhaps that is fitting.

Similarity to other Newbery winners. It is a lot better than the biography of Daniel Boone, and it had considerably more source material to go on than the other (and similarly much more readable) biographies Amos Fortune, Free Man , Carry On Mr. Bowditch, or Invincible Louisa. In terms of a book set in Civil War America, it is most similar to Rifles for Watie. (Caddie Woodlawn is also 1860s, but not much about the Civil War).

What it teaches me as a writer. I think one of the draws of biography is its ability to weave the small, intimate, quirky details of someone’s life into the grand sweeping moments of bravery and fame and destiny. I liked all the small tracing of Lincoln’s early starts, his home life, as well as the history-changing speeches, victories and tragedies of his life. Telling a hero’s tale, whether in biography or novel form, means keeping in mind the importance to the audience of feeling like they are there, experiencing both the small and the great moments of the hero’s journey.

Have you read Lincoln: A Photobiography? What are your favorite biographies for kids?

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