Abe's Honest Words: The Life of Abraham Lincoln

by Doreen Rappaport, Kadir Nelson (Illustrator)

Overview

Told in Doreen Rappaport's accessible, absorbing prose, and brought to life in powerful illustrations by Kadir Nelson, Abe's Honest Words is an epic portrait of a truly great American president.

From the time he was a young boy roaming the forests of the unsettled Midwest, Abraham Lincoln knew in his heart that slavery was deeply wrong. A voracious reader, Lincoln spent every spare moment of his days filling his mind with knowledge, from history to literature to mathematics, preparing himself to one day lead the country he loved towards greater equality and prosperity. Despite the obstacles he faced as a self-educated man from the back woods, Lincoln persevered in his political career, and his compassion and honesty gradually earned him the trust of many Americans. As president, he guided the nation through a long and bitter civil war and penned the document that would lead to the end of slavery in the United States.

The passion for humanity that defined Lincoln's life shines through in this momentous follow-up to Martin's Big Words and John's Secret Dreams.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781484749586
Publisher:	Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Publication date:	01/12/2016
Series:	A Big Words Book , #3
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	48
Sales rank:	1,111,574
Product dimensions:	9.90(w) x 10.80(h) x 0.20(d)
Lexile:	AD820L (what's this?)
Age Range:	6 - 8 Years

About the Author

Doreen Rappaport has written numerous award-winning books for children, including Freedom Ship and The School Is Not White (both illustrated by Curtis James); Martin's Big Words: The Life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., a Caldecott Honor Book and Coretta Scott King Honor Book illustrated by Bryan Collier; and John's Secret Dreams: The Life of John Lennon, also illustrated by Bryan Collier.

Kadir Nelson is the illustrator of many books for children, including Moses: When Harriet Tubman Led Her People to Freedom by Carole Boston Weatherford, an NAACP Image Award winner, a Caldecott Honor Book, and a Coretta Scott King Illustrator Award winner; Ellington Was Not a Street by Ntozake Shange, a Coretta Scott King Illustrator Award winner; Please, Baby, Please and Please, Puppy, Please, by Spike Lee and Tonya Lewis Lee; and Will Smith's Just the Two of Us, also an NAACP Image Award winner. He is also the author/illustrator of We Are the Ship: The Story of Negro League Baseball.

Editorial Reviews

Gr 3-6

Written in prose as elegant and spare as that of its subject, this distinguished book takes readers from Abe's backwoods boyhood in Kentucky to his first harrowing witnessing of slavery in New Orleans, on to the Illinois legislature and the presidency. Each half-page of generously spaced text appears against a white background. Rappaport's carefully chosen words are both accessible and effective: "The war dragged on./Lincoln grew sadder and sadder/as more men died." Until, "The South finally surrendered./The job of healing the nation began./But Lincoln was not there to help./An assassin's bullet ended his life." Corresponding quotes from Lincoln appear in italics, e.g., "The moment came when I felt that slavery must die that the nation might live!" Handsome, larger-than-life paintings fill the remaining page and a half of each spread with powerful images-of Abe as a strong, lanky youth with a book or oar in hand, then later as a lawyer with unkempt hair, feather pen, and midnight candles burning. Readers see the somber, resigned faces of slaves-young and old-first in chains, then picking cotton under a blazing sun, and later the proud faces of an all-black regiment of the Union Army. From Lincoln's striking countenance on the cover-scruffy dark hair tinged with gray, big ears, bright eyes, and benevolent face, lined with worry and age-to the end, this is one Lincoln book that all libraries will want to have.-Barbara Auerbach, New York City Public Schools

School Library Journal

This collaboration between Rappaport and Nelson provides a sweeping arc of Lincoln’s life, jumping from his humble beginnings and his early political career through his struggles to preserve the union and to help abolish slavery. Rappaport writes in a very free verse, and on each page echoes her narrative with prescient samplings of Lincoln’s words... This exceptional art, along with Rappaport’s and Lincoln’s words, makes this a fine celebration of a man who needs little introduction”—Booklist

“With language as lean as our sixteenth president, Rappaport brings to light the major influences on and turning points in Lincoln’s life…Some of Nelson’s handsome portraits glow with background light and luminous skin tones, evoking the remote majesty of the statue at the Lincoln Memorial. At other times, he lets Lincoln walk down those stairs and portrays an unassuming man reading under a tree or cajoling political leaders with a story or two.”—The Horn Book

From the Publisher