In the late 1960's, Dick Holler wrote a song that was recorded by Dion. That song, Abraham, Martin, and John, honors fallen leaders in the fight for civil rights in our country. The lyrics are simple and poignant:
Can you tell me where he's gone?
He freed a lot of people,
But it seems the good they die young.
You know, I just looked around and he's gone.
Anybody here seen my old friend Martin?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
He freed a lot of people,
But it seems the good they die young.
I just looked 'round and he's gone.
Didn't you love the things that they stood for?
Didn't they try to find some good for you and me?
And we'll be free
Some day soon, and it's a-gonna be one day ...
Let those lyrics sink in for a minute before you continue reading...
I'm taking a short break from hardcore YA fiction to review a novel for middle grade readers. Two reasons: 1.This book, My Life with the Lincolns, was written by a woman whose last name is that of my alma mater (Gayle Brandeis/Brandeis University-a happy coincidence). 2. I think I'm going to be reading a lot more middle grade books in the near future. More about that another time. For now, let me tell you about the lovely, funny, and utterly charming Mina Edelman, 12 year-old narrator of Ms. Brandeis' novel.
Mina is convinced that her family is the Lincoln family reincarnated. She is sure that her father, whose initials are A.B.E., is the 16th President. And she is absolutely positive that she herself is the doomed William Lincoln. So she is spending the summer of 1966 trying to save her father from assassination and herself from certain death as well. When she's not writing a Lincoln-themed newsletter for her father's furniture store, Honest ABE's, she's playing with her younger sister, Tabby, and looking up illnesses she thinks she's developing in a medical manual. Meanwhile, the father of one of the boys on her street is off fighting in Vietnam, her older sister is getting ready to go off to nursing school, and her parents' marriage is falling apart. Mina's father has become deeply involved in the Chicago Freedom Movement, and without her mother's knowledge, he has started to bring Mina along to marches, meetings, and protests.
My Life With the Lincolns is a complex novel. It touches on a wide range of issues including social justice, interracial love, white guilt, families pulled apart by war and politics, and the growing intensity of the Civil Rights Movement as emotions heat up and boil over. But, we see all of this through the eyes of clever, observant, and naive Mina, whose voice is unique and genuine. Mina is swept up in her father's world of all night vigils and inspiring speeches, but she's still just a 12 year-old girl, watching all of this with wide-eyed wonder, uncertainty, and apprehension. She feels her father's powerful desire for justice, but she doesn't quite know why, and she's left to draw many of her own conclusions about the intricacies of all of the relationships around her. Gayle Brandeis weaves these threads together in a moving novel filled with both humorous and heart-rending observances of everyday life's extraordinary moments.
There are a few sections of this book which may make it a controversial choice for some schools. The use of My Life with the Lincolns as a classroom novel is pretty iffy to me, particularly the section where Mina's budding breasts are referred to as "tits" a few times. And I can understand how the use of racially charged language, while appropriate in context, could make some people uncomfortable. Hopefully, teachers, parents, and administrators can contextualize these incidents, and My Life with the Lincolns will find its way onto school library shelves across the country.
Song lyrics obtained from: http://www.lyricsmode.com.
