Recommended Reading for President’s Day

President’s Day is a celebration of two great Presidents, George Washington and Abraham Lincoln.  Moreover, President Lincoln, the man our current President calls his role model, was born two hundred years ago today.  I’m joyfully awash with all of the Lincoln information I’ve read and heard about in the last week.  At the end of this post, there are links to music, book reviews, the Abraham Lincoln bookshop and a beautiful tribute.  So many adult books on Lincoln were published recently, it’s hard to keep up with them.  I’m going a different route for this Recommended Reading post.  I’m focusing on a recently published children’s picture book, Mr. Lincoln’s Boys written by Staton Rabin and illustrated by Bagram Ibatoulline, and Tad Lincoln’s Father, a memoir published 70 years ago by Julia Taft Bayne.

Mr. Lincoln’s Boys by Staton Rabin and illustrated by Bagram Ibatoulline

I was particularly attracted to  Mr. Lincoln’s Boys because it tells of the mischievous adventures of two young boys living in the White House just at a time when two young girls (who look to have an abundance of personality) have moved into the same home.  I like it when history books for children can be relevant for today.  Three sentences struck me as an echo across the centuries:  “And wherever his sons went, strangers pointed at them.  “I wish they wouldn’t stare at us so,” Willie said.  “Wasn’t there ever a president who had children?”

Wille and Tad Lincoln were rowdy rascals.  They irritated the adults around the Lincolns.  Mr. Ibatoulline’s beautiful illustrations portray various expressions of frustration on the part of a general, the White House gardener, and Mr. Lincoln’s secretaries.  The boys trick of wiring the bell system to go off all at once or interrupting their father to climb all over him and pinch his cheeks show the boys exuberance, but also the President’s indulgent love.  The book opens with young Tad waking from a bad dream about people fighting and looking to his father for comfort.  It sets the stage of a serious time without over-emphasizing battle.  The boys lived in a White House at war and their naive fascination with the soldiers caused them to play solider games of capturing their Zouave Jack (think a Civil War GI Joe) as a spy and punishing him or later requesting a pardon from their father for the soldier’s transgressions.   The book gives a sense of the time with a lovely humane portrait of Abraham Lincoln.  A gentle man that is wise, but not intimidating to a young reader.  For the crafty reader who would like to delve into Abraham Lincoln a bit more, check out the stove pipe hat project.

Tad Lincoln’s Father by Julia Taft Bayne

Julia Taft Bayne

Staton Rabin actually recommended Tad Lincoln’s Father to me.  Tad and Willie had two best friends, Bud and Holly Taft, and the four of them set of on one adventure or another.  Bud and Holly’s older sister, Julia Taft, often accompanied them to the White House and became friends with the entire Lincoln family.  Julia wrote this memoir sixty years later and doesn’t claim to write with “historical exactitude, [but to] set these things down as they live in [her] memory, impressions of that tense, waiting period when the war-clouds gathered for the storm that was soon to shake the nation to its foundation.”  And that’s what I love about the book, Ms. Bayne remembered what struck her as important as a sixteen year old, such as how rude people were to President Lincoln during the Inaugural Parade, how tense everyone was that the capital wasn’t protected, how in a military camp she heard the “long roll” calling the soldiers to arms, and how the slaves in Washington DC were whisked south just before the Emancipation Proclamation so they wouldn’t be freed. 

Her portrait of Lincoln is warm with a great love for his family.  Time and again he joined in his children’s antics by attending their circus show after paying 5 cents, wrestling with them on the floor, and stopping by to tell them a story.  The motto of the White House parents was “let the children have fun.”  Ms. Bayne notes several times that the presence of the children lifted President Lincoln’s spirits.  This book is appropriate for children, teens and adults because it gives a view of a rambunctious family with lots of stories of antics and a peek into the atmosphere of a very important time in our nation’s history.  It provides an insiders loving portrait of one of our greatest Presidents.  One section struck me because it highlights the humility of President Lincoln, a trait I also admire in our current President:

There was little of the pride of position in Mr. Lincoln.  My mother would say, “I wish President Lincoln would always remember that he is the President.”  She called it his “provoking humility.”  Colonel Lamar, the marshal, kept his eye on him to shoo him into his proper place, the first, which belong to his rank.  He opened a door for me once and held it, and I was horror-struck.  I could not precede the President!

Celebrate Abraham Lincoln

There are so many ways to learn about Abraham Lincoln.  Adult books were reviewed by William Safire in the New York Times Review of Books and three books were highlighted on NPR.  Scott Simon gave a wonderful tribute to President Lincoln and his step-father, the owner of Abraham Lincoln Bookshop (I’m making a beeline for it the next time I’m in Chicago).  Listen to a recording of Copland’s ‘Lincoln’s Portrait‘ or read the poem Walt Whitman wrote in response to President Lincoln’s assassination.  We are a better country because of him, so take the opportunity to experience a little bit of Abraham Lincoln this holiday weekend.