"THE LINCOLNS: A SCRAPBOOK LOOK AT ABRAHAM AND MARY" by Candace Fleming, ages 10 and older, Schwartz & Wade Books

Spend a few minutes with this book, and it is easy to understand why Hawai'i born President -elect Barack Obama is fascinated with Abraham Lincoln. Even Obama's inauguration theme is taken from a line in Lincoln's Gettysburg Address: "A New Birth of Freedom."

Between Obama's well-known interest, and the 200th anniversary of Lincoln's birth next month, a great number of books about America's 16th president have hit the market. For children age 10 and older, "The Lincolns: A Scrapbook look at Abraham and Mary" is the best of the lot, and frankly, one of the most compelling biographies — for adults or children — I have ever read.

This book is actually two biographies in one. The lives of Lincoln and his wife Mary are compared, contrasted and thoroughly examined through great storytelling, and with the help of original photographs, letters, newspaper clippings, engravings, and the like. The result is a book packed with delicious detail that is at once personal, and easy to understand.

An opening note from the author about names sets the tone:

"Because I wish to represent the historical figures in this book as they would want to be represented, I have chosen to use the names they preferred. Thus, Abraham Lincoln is never referred to as Abe, because he detested the name, while Mary is never called Mary Todd Lincoln, because she dropped the 'Todd' after her marriage and never used it when signing her name."

There is something fascinating about every element of this book. The page layouts resemble old newspapers. The typeface was specially designed, based on the typefaces from newspapers in the 1800s. Through its eight chapters, elements of a bigger story are broken into shorter and longer articles, allowing the reader to take in the whole, or to sample smaller bits. The smallest bits are equally remarkable.

Take, for example, a segment titled, "Briefly, a Brother ..." that reads, "When Abraham was three, his mother gave birth to another boy, Thomas. But the baby lived only a few days. His father made him a grave marker by carving the initials "T.L." into a fieldstone. Then the family gathered to bury the boy in a nearby cemetery."

From his humble log cabin birth, to her upbringing in a family that owned nine slaves, the story grabs your attention and holds it through to Abraham and Mary's tragic deaths. The author's five years of extensive research, and help from numerous scholars, experts, and archivists, shines through every page.

Jolie Jean Cotton is a Honolulu freelance writer. Her reviews of children's books appear here on the first Sunday of the month.