LINCOLN TELLS A JOKE

Not many biographies of the 16th U.S. president begin “Poor Abraham Lincoln.” This one does and goes on to list the reasons why the man’s life was “hardly fun,” but then it gets right to the titular theme: “But Lincoln had his own way of dealing with life. Not many people remember it today. It was all about laughing.” (In a lovely acrylic painting of the famous Lincoln log cabin, an escaping plume of “HaHaHaHas” mirrors the chimney smoke.) It wasn’t just jokes: “Words mattered,” and Lincoln’s witticisms are quoted liberally throughout: “Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally.” Innerst’s gorgeous, textured paintings, many of them caricatures, are varied and inventive: When Lincoln’s great height is described in the text, his head and feet are cropped off the page. It’s a quirkily specific biography, but, as with Deborah Chandra and Madeleine Comora’s wonderful George Washington’s Teeth, illustrated by Brock Cole (2003), it reveals the human side of an American icon in an unusual, lively and thought-provoking way. (authors’ note, sources) (Picture book/biography. 6-9)