To protest the creation of Presidents Day -- some bureaucrat's successful plot to lump together the birthdays of our first and 16th presidents -- this column will focus solely on Abraham Lincoln, who would've been 186 on Sunday.
George Washington was the father of our country, to be sure. But Lincoln was its conscience. His honesty, his unshakable sense of right and wrong, his respect for and belief in humanity -- all are captured in the tired, wise eyes that gaze out from the
Lincoln Memorial.
Sam Fink's newest book pays tribute to the eloquence of a man whose words remain as arresting as that gaze. "The Illustrated Gettysburg Address" (Random House, $30, 78 pages, ages 10 and up) takes the text from Lincoln's two-minute speech and makes each word, phrase and sentence seem new.
Mr. Fink brought the same reverence for words and history to his two other books, "The Fifty-Six Who Signed," about the signers of the Declaration of Independence, and "The Inscribed and Illustrated Constitution of the United States of America."
But this book is more intimate. Like Lincoln, it's tall and unpretentious. Each page is 10 inches by 15 inches, and on paper the color of unbleached muslin, Mr. Finks' pen-and-ink inscriptions and illustrations are elegant in their simplicity.
On the right side of each double-page spread, a phrase from the Gettysburg Address is illustrated with a portrait of Lincoln. For example, "that all men are created equal" is accompanied by Lincoln standing on one side of a see-saw, balanced by a black man of equal stature opposite him.
In one illustration rich with cross-hatching, Lincoln's legs are tree trunks rooted to the ground of the Gettysburg battlefield. In another, he carries a corpse wrapped in the flag. And as the book closes with the words -- ". . . that this government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth" -- Lincoln stares at the reader with unspeakable sadness in his eyes.
As moving as Mr. Fink's rendition of the speech is, though, I found myself drawn to the inscriptions at the top of each left-hand page. Many are quotes from Lincoln, including one that should be included in every politician's oath of office: "I desire so to conduct the affairs of this administration that if at the end, when I come to lay down the reins of power, I have lost every other friend on earth, I shall at least have one friend left, and that friend shall be down inside me."
Others are about Lincoln, like this from Ralph Waldo Emerson: "His heart was as great as the world, but there was no room in it to hold the memory of a wrong."
Mr. Fink gets it right.
* Younger readers and fans of primitive, folk-art paintings will enjoy "Honest Abe," paintings by Malcah Zeldis, words by Edith Kunhardt (Greenwillow, $15, 32 pages, ages 5 and up).
It tells the story of Lincoln's life, from his birth in a Kentucky log cabin, to his work as a postmaster, storekeeper and, eventually, self-taught lawyer.
There's a simple explanation of the Lincoln-Douglas debates, and this wonderful passage about Lincoln's three sons after he was elected president and moved into the White House: "The boys loved the old house. They played in the attic, rode their pony on the lawn, chased their goats through the halls."
The horror of the Civil War and the toll it took on Lincoln are captured in Ms. Zeldis' flat, brightly colored paintings. Most memorable is the scene after his assassination, when Lincoln is in his bed, unconscious, a silver-dollar-size bloodstain on the bandage around his head.
The book concludes with the text of the Gettysburg Address and a brief chronology of Lincoln's life. "Honest Abe" makes clear Lincoln's hatred of slavery and guarantees that young readers will remember him for more than his stovepipe hat.
* "Pink and Say" by Patricia Polacco (Philomel, $15.95, 48 pages, ages 4-8) isn't about Lincoln, per se, but it is about the Civil War, and he is mentioned prominently.
It is another book of wonder by Ms. Polacco, an award-winning author/illustrator who has given us "Chicken Sunday," "Babushka Baba Yaga," "Appelmando's Dreams," and many other delights. She again draws from the storytelling traditions of her family, this time for the story of Sheldon Russell Curtis, her great-great-grandfather.
Sheldon, known as Say, is a white Union soldier from Ohio who is found by Pinkus Aylee, a black Union soldier, on a battlefield near Pinkus' Georgia home. Both boys look to be about 14.
Pink drags Say to his home, a tidy shack in the shadow of a burned-out plantation. The master's family, and the rest of the slaves, are gone. But Pink's mother has survived, and she nurses Say's wounded leg. Pink begins to teach Say to read. Say tells them how President Lincoln shook his hand when his company was quartered near Bull Run.
Just as Say, who confesses that he is a deserter, is feeling safe and wishing he could stay there forever, Pink says they must return to the war, that they are putting his mother at risk if Confederate marauders find them.
The marauders do come, murdering Pink's mother. The boys are captured a few days later. As the Confederate soldiers pull the boys in opposite directions, Pink reaches for Say: "Let me touch the hand that touched Mr. Lincoln, Say, just one last time."
I've read this book eight times, and eight times I've cried. Though the publisher says it's for ages 4-8, my 5-year-old daughter had a hard time understanding why it affected me so. My recommendation is ages 6 to adult. No one is too old to fall under Ms. Polacco's spell.
In the afterword, we learn that Say was released from the Andersonville, S.C., prison several months later and lived to be an old man. Pink was hanged hours after he was taken into Andersonville.