#24 Finding Lincoln

Title:  Finding Lincoln

Author:  Ann Malaspina

Illustrator: Colin Bootman

Publisher:  Albert Whitman and Company

Copyright: 2009

Pages:  27

Genre/Category:  Historical Fiction

I picked this book out because of the great artwork initially, but after I read the story, I knew I had to check it out and write a blog entry about it. Finding Lincoln is set in 1951 in Alabama when the libraries were still segregated. Louis needs to write an essay for school about Abraham Lincoln, but he cannot use the “whites only” library. However, he cannot find a book about Lincoln anywhere else, so he ends up braving the “whites only” library to find the book. 

The illustrations in this book are done in watercolor. The colors are bright and warm, but also include a lot of contrasting colors on the same page. The illustrations are very realistic and emotions are easily picked up on from the characters. As it is watercolor, there are not many bold lines. There is a good bit of white space that slowly turns into color. This turns into more and more detailed objects.

I would recommend this book to all ages as a read aloud, but I think it would be the most appropriate for first grade and above. The text is easy enough to read and follow. This book would be great to read aloud to a class, especially because it is set in Alabama. This could be brought up to the students to show them that things like segregation happened here. The illustrations are also a good talking point to bring up to the students. This would be a good book to have students guess what method the illustrator used to create the pictures in the book.