Lincoln and Douglass: An American Friendship - Softcover

Giovanni, Nikki

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1250018692 ISBN 13: 9781250018694

Publisher: Square Fish, 2013

Synopsis

Our sixteenth president is known for many things: he delivered the Emancipation Proclamation and the Gettysburg Address during the Civil War. He was tall and skinny and notoriously stern-looking. And he also had some very strong ideas about abolishing slavery, ideas which brought him into close contact with another very visible public figure: Frederick Douglass. Douglass was born a slave but escaped in 1838 and became one of the central figures in the history of the American abolitionist movement.

This book offers a glimpse into the unusual friendship between two great American leaders. At a time when racial tensions were high and racial equality was not yet established, Abraham Lincoln and Douglass formed a strong bond over shared ideals and worked alongside each other for a common goal.

Nikki Giovanni and Bryan Collier, the acclaimed team behind Rosa, winner of the Coretta Scott King Award and a Caldecott Honor book, join forces once more to portray this historic friendship at a unique moment in time.

About this title

About the Author:

Nikki Giovanni is one of our best-known and best-loved African American poets. She is the author of Rosa, which won the Coretta Scott King Award and a Caldecott Honor, as well many other books for children and adults. She teaches creative writing at Virginia Tech and lives in Christiansburg, Virginia.

Bryan Collier is the illustrator of the acclaimed Rosa and the author/illustrator of Uptown, winner of the Coretta Scott King Award and the Ezra Jack Keats Book Award. He is also the illustrator of Martin's Big Words, which was a Caldecott Honor Book. Mr. Collier lives with his family in New York.

From Booklist:

The collaborators of the well-received Rosa (2005) come together again, but disappointingly this time. The setting here is an 1865 inaugural reception at the White House, where Frederick Douglass is an invited guest. Douglass is sent to a rear door but refuses that entrance. Did any of this actually happen? Who knows? There are no source notes, only a time line. Moreover, Mary Todd Lincoln is inaccurately portrayed (one of the worst lapses of the book) as a Southern sympathizer, saying no Negro should be at the White House, yet history tells us she was against slavery and even sent Lincoln’s walking stick to Douglass after the president was assassinated. The narrative itself is choppy, with the incident at Harper’s Ferry—not very well explained—stuck in the middle of the book. Collier’s stylized collage art is occasionally a saving grace, especially in the scenes of both men’s boyhoods, and a fold-out spread that juxtaposes the horror of war against a glittering White House ball is quite spectacular. The relationship between Douglass and Lincoln could make for a fascinating book, but this one is only a very secondary purchase until something better (and better documented) comes along. Grades 1-4. --Ilene Cooper

About this edition

• Publisher: Square Fish
• Publication date: 2013
• ISBN 10: 1250018692
• ISBN 13: 9781250018694
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 40
• Illustrator: Collier Bryan