Customer Reviews

My Life with the Lincolns

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book was great! It's quite humorous and captures the innocence and creativity of a preteen girl. It's insight on the civil rights movement was both touching and liberating. I love this book and I would recommend it to anyone who believes in social justice or who just wants something they won't be able to put down!

In her first novel for young people, Gayle Brandeis has created a quirky and delightful heroine, Mina Edelman. It's 1966 in Downers Grove, Illinois, a nearly all-white suburb of Chicago, and Mina is convinced that she and her family are reincarnations of the Lincolns. When the novel opens, her main worries are how to prevent her father from being assassinated, her mother from going crazy (like Mary Todd Lincoln), and herself--a reincarnation of Willie Lincoln, or so she likes to imagine--from dying at age 12.

But when her dad, who owns Honest ABE's furniture store, begins taking her to civil rights marches led by Martin Luther King, their life begins to change in very real ways. Mina and her dad Al participate in protests designed to pressure the Chicago political establishment to support open housing--the abolition of housing segregation. When her dad meets Carla, a black activist at one of the meetings, they take Mina and Carla's son to pose as an interracial family at various real estate offices around Chicago, demonstrating the unspoken but very real restrictions that existed. Mina's father is exhilarated by his experiences, and is so concerned with oppressing blacks that he fires their cleaning lady--"I don't want to oppress you anymore," he says, completely oblivious to the fact that the woman needs the income to pay her rent. "You need a job that doesn't subjugate you," he tells her, convinced he has done the right thing.

But when Al brings his battle for civil rights to Downers Grove, bringing Carla's son to live with them for the summer and holding meetings for the Chicago Freedom Movement in his furniture store, it splits the family apart. Will Mina's family survive to create a better future for themselves and their community?

Although this book clearly deals with many serious events, both real (such as Martin Luther King's getting hit in the head by a rock during a Chicago demonstration) and fictional (strife in Mina's family), tweens will enjoy Mina's eccentric voice in this novel, which was originally written by Brandeis for adults but later reworked for a young adult audience. This is also a coming-of-age novel, which deals with some of Mina's discomfort at her changing body in a lighthearted and humorous way that should appeal to tweens and teens alike.

I particularly liked the fact that Brandeis deals in this book with two topics not often explored in books for young people--the cooperation between Jews and blacks in the civil rights movement, and also King's work in the North, which is not nearly as well known and taught in school as his civil rights work in the South.

Highly recommended for ages 10 and up. Also, an excellent choice for school or public libraries.

Witty, warm, and thought-provoking, Brandeis' debut novel for young readers is a satisfying read with a totally unique premise, the main character's belief that she and her family members are the Lincolns reincarnated. Two big thumbs-up for middle-graders.

My Life with the Lincolns is a story that will sweep you away, whatever your age. The protagonist, Mina, is crafted with such innocence and wisdom, that you can't help but believe her when you learn she's convinced her family is the reincarnation of the Lincolns. Brandeis weaves her story against the backdrop of one of America's most tumultuous times, the Civil Rights movements of the 1960s. Of course, one need only open the papers today to see that this issue is anything but obsolete, unfortunately. Civil rights, human rights -- these issues seem to be part of the complicated fabric of America. Thankfully, we have literature to provide a forum for conversation rather than shouting. Brandeis brings us into the world of the sixties, but she also brings us face to face with ourselves. Her narrative will ask you to examine your own beliefs. It will ask of you the age old question: Is the pen mightier than the sword? Indeed, for Mina, and for us as readers, we can answer with a resounding "yes". My Life with the Lincolns takes you back in time while also bringing to light the threads of injustice we still have in our society. This novel will give you hope. Highly recommended.