Book Description
for Abe Lincoln's Dream by Lane Smith
From Cooperative Children's Book Center (CCBC)
FDR’s dog Falla wouldn’t enter the Lincoln Bedroom at the White House. Neither would LBJ’s dog Yuki, or Ronald Reagan’s Rex. But Quincy, a young African American girl who wanders from a present-day White House tour, is drawn into the room by the sight of a tall man “dressed in black from hat to boot” with a “long face that made her feel sorry for him.” She’s nonplussed by Lincoln’s ghost, who promptly walks through a wall. He tells her silly jokes and asks questions about what happened to the Union after 1865. “And equality for all?” Lincoln asks. “It’s getting better all the time,” Quincy responds. The night before he died, Lincoln dreamed he was on a ship, “sailing rapidly for some shore I know not where.” After her encounter with Lincoln, which concludes with him glimpsing the American flag on the moon, Quincy dreams of “a tall man in black, on a boat moving rapidly toward the rising sun. He was smiling.” Lane Smith’s fanciful picture book includes many playful references, just the right dose of silly humor, and a young protagonist who stands comfortably on equal footing with the ghost of president Lincoln. (Ages 6–9)
CCBC Choices 2013. © Cooperative Children's Book Center, Univ. of Wisconsin - Madison, 2013. Used with permission.