Gr 6-9 Framed as the president relaying his biography to his young son Tad, this comic refreshingly covers Lincoln's early frontier life as well as his presidency. That said, it treats his administration in a skewed way, presenting slavery not just as the primary issue of the day, but also as the only issue Lincoln faced during his term. Historians might take issue with that, and it might be a good idea to use this graphic novel in tandem with more historically accurate sources. Still, the facts and appended trivia present information that not everyone with a passing familiarity with Lincoln may know. The effort to humanize him by recounting his story alongside tragic family events, including the death of three of his four children before they reached the age of 20, is interesting. The art isn't much help, as many of the figure sketches and bland coloring seem rushed and possibly incomplete. This graphic novel does very little to modernize Lincoln's life for a contemporary audience. Ryan P. Donovan, New York Public Library

Lincoln's life gets a graphic treatment, but the prose reads like a school report, and even the battle scenes look staged. The book takes the form of an autobiographical lecture to his son Tad that highlights his intense opposition to slavery. Lincoln carries his story from early days ("On February 12, 1809, in Hardin County in Kentucky, I was born in a small, one-room log cabin") to his departure for Ford's Theatre. At this point, an omniscient narrator takes over to cover the assassination and the later ratification of the 13th Amendment. Though Helfand slips in short flights of eloquence from Lincoln's oratory, his own writing runs to lines like "Nor could he accept that the future of his nation should be resigned to slavery and injustice" and "This new guy, Abraham, is going down." The illustrator tries to add pace and energy by slanting and overlaying his squared-off panels and adding discreetly sized sound effects (slave catchers' dogs: "Woof! Woof!"). Despite this, neither the occasional cleanly drawn battlefields nor the many scenes of men in suits exchanging political views are the stuff of compelling visuals. Reasonably accurate--but the historical territory is already thoroughly surveyed elsewhere, and the unusual format doesn't compensate for the routine content. (appendix) (Graphic nonfiction. 11-13)