- 18 hours ago
Kate Warne and the Race to Save Abraham Lincoln
A TRUE TALE WITH
A CHERRY ON TOP
Calkins Creek
(Astra Books for Young Readers)
(pub. 1.28.2025
48 pages
Ages 7 - 10
Author: Beth Anderson
Illustrator: Sally Wern Comport
Character: Kate Warne
Overview:
" Abraham Lincoln faces a dangerous and uncertain future after leaving Springfield, Illinois, for his inauguration in Washington, DC. Luckily for him, detective Kate Warne has his back, even if he didn’t know it yet.
Working for the Pinkerton Detective Agency, Kate uncovers the rebel plot to kill Abraham Lincoln in Baltimore. Kate warns Lincoln’s staff that this only Southern city on his inaugural train route to Washington, DC is planning a deadly welcome. President-elect Lincoln is urged to change his route. But he refuses to cancel his commitments. In a race against time, Kate and Pinkerton have one last chance. Using disguises, false names, and the cover of darkness, the detectives put their plan into action."
Tantalizing taste:
"Mrs. Barley eavesdropped on rebel talk.
Coaxed out secrets.
Scanned the hotel parlor.
In the doorway, she caught a signal.
And slipped upstairs to her room.
Tap... tap ... tap...
Kate Warne opened the door, and Allan Pinkerton ducked iside.
Before she could report what she'd just uncovered, her boss's ace confirmed the worst.
The plot to kill Lincoln in Baltimore was real!"
And something more: Vivian Kirkfield, another picture book author of a new book, One Girl's Voice - How Lucy Stone Helped Change the Law of the Land, featured an interview of the two authors on her blog. Beth Anderson, author of Hiding in Plain Sight shared: "Kate’s story interested me for so many reasons! It was a detective story! With a gutsy woman who blazed an unusual path. It’s about a piece of history, the Baltimore Plot, which I’d never heard of before. And, it features a favorite person from history, Abraham Lincoln. Like me, I think kids will connect to the secrets, a dangerous plot, and be fascinated by this exciting peek “behind the scenes” that lets us know how complicated, and surprising, history can be."
Kids need to know about Kate because she’s a “regular” person like most of us. She put herself out there, not seeking fame and fortune, and took risks for others—and she impacted history. This event shows how important us regular people are, which can inspire hope, courage, and action when we look at the world today."
Revisiting starred review (paraphrased) from The Horn Book Magazine for Maya Lin: Artist-Architect of Light and Lines (published in July/August 2017 issue) and visiting the wonderful Library of Congress.
Written by Jeanne Walker Harvey, illustrated by Dow Phumiruk
In its early pages, this quiet and contemplative picture-book biography sets up artist-architect Maya Lin’s fascination with spaces, natural and human-made, and their dynamic relationship with phenomena such as light.
The daughter of two Chinese-immigrant artists, a potter and a poet who “never told Maya what to be or how to think,” Maya honed both her creativity and her intellect as a child. She went on to study architecture, a fusion of “art, science, and math,” in college.
During her senior year at Yale, Maya entered a national contest to design the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, inspired by its guideline that the design must blend with the park setting.
That a twenty-one-year-old novice beat out 1,420 other candidates, many of them famous architects, is intrinsically captivating fodder for a picture book, and Lin’s conviction about her own design in the face of public backlash is a built-in lesson in perseverance. Appropriately, the book’s muted art has the fine lines, precision, and spatial astuteness of architectural drawings, and Phumiruk’s use of perspective is often striking. A wide double-page spread of the finished memorial, for instance, impressively captures its length as the wall of fallen soldiers’ names stretches diagonally toward the horizon.
Harvey’s text makes thoughtful, relatable connections between Lin’s work and the themes of her life; an author’s note adds supplementary details on the memorial’s design and touches on Lin’s later work
- 3 days ago
Marjory Stoneman Douglas,
Fierce Protector of the Everglades
A TRUE TALE WITH
A CHERRY ON TOP
Christy Ottaviano Books
(Little, Brown Books for Young Readers)
(pub. 4.15.2025
40 pages
Ages 4 - 8
Author and illustrator: Josie James
Character: Marjory Stoneman
Overview:
" As an environmental journalist and conservationist, Marjory Stoneman Douglas spent her life fighting to preserve the Florida Everglades. Now celebrated as a subtropical paradise with a diverse ecosystem, the Everglades was once considered a worthless swamp. Marjory recognized the wetlands as a treasured river, home to an array of species unlike anywhere else in the world—and she was determined to help protect it.
This is the story of how Marjory’s incredible vision and unwavering tenacity led to the preservation of one of the most unique regions on Earth."
Tantalizing taste:
"In January 1930, the members of the National Park Service arrived... Birds sang, woodpeckers tapped, frogs croaked, and insects buzzed as the observers slogged beneath the majesty of a cypress dome.
The Everglades put on a spectacular show for the delegation. Roseate spoonbills displayed their bright pink feathers. The sunset lit the sky on fire, and more stars than the visitors had ever seen scattered themselves across the darkening heavens.
The National Park Service told Congress that the Everglades was a subtropical paradise full of the most fascinating life on land, in air, and in water, worthy of becoming a national park.
Unfortunately, Congress was in no rush to make a final decision. This meant trouble ..."
And something more: Josie James explains in the Author's Note of Marjory's River of Grass: "In 1997, 1.3 million acres, 86 percent of Everglades National Park (which had been set aside as wilderness in 1978), were named the Marjory Stoneman Douglas Wilderness to recognize her contributions to the protection of the environment."
"Be depressed, discouraged, and disappointed at failure and the disheartening effects of ignorance, greed, corruption, and bad politics - but never give up."- Marjory Stoneman.
