Mr. Lincoln's Boys

Sub-Title: Being the MOSTLY True Adventures of Abraham Lincoln's Trouble-Making Sons, TAD and WILLIE
Author: Staton Rabin
Illustrator: Bagram Ibatoulline
Year: 2008
Publisher: Viking Press
Pages: 36
Reading Level: Intermediate (ages 9-12)

Genre: Picture Book/Historical Fiction
Location: White House, Washington, D.C.
Time Period: Civil War (1860's)

Plot: Tad and Willie live with their parents, Martha and Abraham Lincoln, in the White House in Washington, D.C. Even though their father is a very busy man, the President of the United States always makes time for his sons. The boys are also mischievous, and they often get into trouble. They have a toy soldier that they frequently charge for some violation or another, then they come up with a different way to execute and bury the doll. SPOILER! During one of these execution plays, The gardener finds Tad and Willie digging in the flower bed to bury the toy soldier. Furious, the gardener chases Tad and Willie away. Unable to carry out the execution, Tad and Willie must figure out what to do with their doomed doll. They take the problem to their father, who is the middle of a meeting, and ask for a pardon. The President awards the doll a pardon, and it is shown that the President's stressful life is made easier by watching his son's antics.

Comments: When you're writing about events that really happened in world history, it's easy to stick to facts and take all of the emotion and story out of it. Staton Rabin does an excellent job focusing on that emotion and story, and successfully creates a tale not just about Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War, but about fathers and sons and the importance of making time for family. Rabin is open about the fact that he changed the way things happened in order to help children relate with the story, and it's possible that he helped them understand a little more about the Civil War because of it. Despite all of this, I appreciated the notes found in the back of the book explaining exactly what the author changed, and why. With this, an explanation about who the characters in the story are, and a list of further reading, this book makes a good way to celebrate the 200th anniversary of Lincoln's birth.

Of course I have to mention the artwork of Bagram Ibatoulline, who illustrated one of my favorite children's books of all time, found here. Ibatoulline succeeds again in capturing the mood just right. The pictures are warm and golden and very lifelike, and I laughed at the realistic look on the boys' face as they solemnly walked into the President's Office to ask for a pardon. Both the pictures and the prose work well together in telling the story of an amusing thing that happened during a very somber period of American history.

Themes: Civil War, Soldiers, Abraham Lincoln, Importance of Family, Fathers and Sons

Red Flags: Willie and Tad imagine different ways to execute their toy soldier.

The Graveyard Book

Author: Neil Gaiman
Illustrator: Dave Mckean
Year: 2008
Publisher: HarperCollins
Pages: 320
Reading Level: Intermediate (ages 9-12)

Awards: 2009 Newbery Medal, 2009 ALA Notable Books for Children, 2009 ALA Best Books for Young Adults, 2008 Horn Book Fanfare Award

Genre: Gothic fantasy
Location: A forgotten graveyard in Britain
Time Period: Present Day (2008)

Plot: When a baby boy hides in a graveyard while a man named Jack murders the rest of his family, the inhabitants of the graveyard agree to adopt him. They name him Nobody (Bod) Owens, and bestow on him the power of the graveyard, which allows him to fade from sight, walk through walls, and see in the dark. Bod spends the next fourteen years in the graveyard. He makes friends with the inhabitants, learns to read by deciphering gravestones, and learns English history from people who lived it. While Bod wants to learn all he can about the world, his not-quite-dead and not-quite-living guardian, Silas, warns him that the man Jack is still out there, searching for him. SPOILER! When Jack discovers where Bod is, he and his band, the Jacks of All Trades, infiltrate the graveyard. It will take all that Bod has learned and the help of all of his friends in the graveyard to defeat this mighty foe. However, when this is done Bod no longer needs the protection of the graveyard, and he is allowed to leave the graveyard and seek his fortune in the world.

Comments: I did something I don't normally do when I read—instead of actually reading the book, I listened to the book on CD, which is narrated by the author. Gaiman is a great storyteller, and it was fun to hear the story come to life in his telling of it. He gave different inflections to most of the characters in the book, sounding young and youthful whenever Bod spoke, ghostly and ethereal when a character from the graveyard spoke, and deep and harsh whenever the man Jack spoke. My favorite voice, however, what the Scottish accent Gaiman used whenever Bod's only living friend, Scarlet, was on the scene.

The story itself is interesting, and it grabs your attention from the very first sentence: "There was a hand in the darkness, and it held a knife." Although the wording and the setting are both dark and tense, Gaiman keeps this book light, allowing the reader to experience Bod's wonder and pleasure in the world around him. The book follows Bod's adventures as he grows up, and for awhile I wondered if the tense scene at the beginning with the man Jack would ever be referred to again. The time Gaiman takes in telling the story pays off, however, when Bod uses the knowledge he gained from almost every chapter before when the man Jack finally makes another appearance.

It's the small touches Gaiman adds to this book that really make it great. With every new character introduced, the epitaph on their gravestone is read. Bod is a precocious main character, and he learns life lessons that even adults will find interesting and applicable. Even though Bod is in a situation that would never really happen, it seems completely natural that a boy in this situation wouldn't find death scary or frightening at all, which makes the book more believable. Oddly enough, despite all that happens in this book, the scenario I had the most trouble accepting was that fact that Bod was allowed to leave the graveyard and seek his fortune at the young age of 15. This is a fact that will be appealing to younger readers, however, and it's not a hinderance to the story.

I really enjoyed this book. My only regret from having listened to the book instead of reading it is that I missed Mckean's dark, jagged drawings, a few of which I have seen and which I think would add just as much character and life as Gaiman's inflections added. I'll just have to read the book again, won't I?

Themes: Murder, Family, Definition of Home, Seeking one's Fortune, Destiny, Standing up for what you believe in.

Red Flags: Bod deals with bullies, Silas gets run over by a car (but that's okay, because he's not alive), the book contains (good) werewolves, goblins, ghouls, murderers, and other creepy things that go bump in the night.