Abraham Lincoln #219681

Abraham Lincoln is phenomenally complex historical figure. The power of biography is that it allows us to walk along with the great, the good, and the giants of history. <br><br>Lincoln is remembered as solemn, middle aged, bearded and grave. For those of us who care to peer into the making of that face figure though, there is a little boy in the wild woods of a long ago Kentucky, born in a cabin to a kind father and a mother spoken of as an ornament to the area. <br><br>Independent and tough from the start the little Abraham lost his mother young, but in time a stout and diligent step mother came to them to brush and wash the Lincoln children before sending them to school. Sarah Bush Lincoln and Nancy Hanks Lincoln, Abraham’s step mother and mother share the accolade of having born a great man and having been the one to allow his intellectual spark to catch. Lincoln grew into a man so determined to learn that he reputedly sprang up from breakfast to walk six miles for a book. Over his early life, Lincoln remained close to the village school master and gained a reputation for rigorous self-improvement. Little could his contemporaries have imagined how far it would take him. <br><br>An understanding of an American founding father could easily be a dry and dull undertaking, entangled in dates and bills and records. Wilber F. Gordy gives us a captivating and moving story of a plucky, mischievous, young storyteller, emerging from the forests and taking the world by storm.