LINCOLN TELLS A JOKE by Kathleen Krull and Paul Brewer

Krull, Kathleen and Paul Brewer. LINCOLN TELLS A JOKE, How Laughter Saved the President (And the Country). Ill. by Stacy Innerst. 2010. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. ISBN 9780152066390

Another Lincoln biography?  Why not?  It seems we cannot get enough of Abraham Lincoln, so Kathleen Krull and husband Paul Brewer have written a short and unusual bio focusing on Lincoln's famous sense of humor.  LINCOLN TELLS A JOKE, How Laughter Saved the President (And the Country), is a title so intriguing, it's hard to resist.  Stacy Innerst's illustrations fit the subject matter with humorous caricatures in acrylics with gold and yellow tones hinting of aging documents.  The jokes and funny quips are highlighted with a cursive script slightly larger than the text font, so they are easy to spot. 

Some of the interesting events Krull and Brewer include bring to mind other Lincoln biographies. Lincoln’s struggle with paper clutter is spoken of in Martha Brenner’s Abe Lincoln's Hat (1994).  His first nonsense poem, (“Abraham Lincoln, His hand and pen, He will be good but, God knows when”) is also mentioned in Nancy Carpenter’s, Abe Lincoln, the Boy Who Loved Books (2003).  Two of the quips included were familiar to me, but I had not known they were attributed to Lincoln:  "You can't fool all of the people all of the time,” and "better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt."

 The story is organized in chronological order and points out how much sorrow and poverty accompanied Lincoln's life.  With the deaths of his mother, sister, and two sons, not to mention the thousands of deaths in the civil war, Lincoln was often emotionally overwhelmed.  Laughter was his way of coping.  Kirkus observes “it reveals the human side of an American icon in an unusual, lively and thoughtful way.”

The authors site  sources in their bibliography and note that the jokes chosen for the book were "from collections compiled by a variety of .people, often after his death."  The Krull-Brewer duo holds its own with other Lincoln bio award winners like the d’Aulaire’s Caldecott, Abraham Lincoln and the Newbery gold Lincoln: A Photobiography by Russell Freedman.  It was chosen as a Smithsonian Notable Book for Children for 2010 and received starred reviews in Publishers Weekly and School Library Journal.  It also received nominations for a Cybil award and an ALA Notable Book.

Lincoln Tells a Joke provides a jumping off point for hilarity in the classroom. It would be fun to find favorite jokes of former presidents by writing to former presidents still living as well as the current president.  Researching other presidents to find other funny jokes or stories would send kids deeper into history than they might otherwise mine for a more serious objective.  Favorite jokes could be compiled in a large Lincoln hat and then later voted on to find the class favorite joke or quip.  Democracy and humor at its best.