Customer Reviews

Abraham Lincoln Joke Book

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This may have been my first Lincoln book. It's not so much a joke book as a collection of anecdotes that show the charm and humor of Abraham Lincoln.

My husband bought a copy of this book about 40 years ago for our young daughter who loved reading all about presidents. This book was one of her favorites and she still treasures it. Our 3rd grade grandson (her nephew) has also developed a real interest in American Presidents, so we found this copy of that long-time favorite book for him on Amazon (reasonably priced!). He opened it Christmas and loves it.

I first read this book when I encountered it in the library at my elementary school. To a young boy, it was quite amusing and it also taught me some history of the man consistently ranked as the greatest American president. Lincoln was a humble man that constantly expressed his opinion of himself as ungainly and homely in appearance. A great deal of his humor was self-deprecating in nature, something that only accented his fundamental strength.
As I read the book decades later my thought was that you can learn a lot about a person from the jokes they tell. If the jokes have a bitter tone and primarily ridicule others, then that person is generally petty and weak. The jokes that Lincoln told about himself were a verbal demonstration of the strength that he exhibited when he, more than anyone else, preserved the union at great cost.

The wonderful book Teams of Rivals shows how Lincoln used humor to grease the rails and this book provides the abundance of stories that support that aspect of Lincoln's life. For example, when he was a traveling lawyer following the curcuit court, meal time in the local restaurant found the lawyers and judge seated at the head of the table. One day Lincoln sat at the foot of the table and when invited to come to the head asked "Have you anything better to eat up there, Joe? If not, I'll stay here."