  | Full Text Reviews: School Library Journal - 05/01/1989 Gr 1-3-- These books are a step easier than Adler's ``First Biographies'' (Holiday). Facts and personality are expertly mixed in the small blocks of text; Adler does a good job of covering character traits, family members, and large events without overburdening readers with too many facts. Calm, uncluttered color paintings add visual interest, extend the text (sometimes rather far: readers will have to find out elsewhere why the Boston Tea Party was ``attended'' by native Americans), and ennoble their presidential subjects--Lincoln, with an extra homely face and dark clothing, always stands out in a group, and Washington is last seen on a tall horse, atop a bluff, waving to a passing eagle. Some simplification is inevitable--Lincoln's election is the only mentioned cause of the Civil War and there's not a black face to be seen in . . . Washington, for instance--but by and large, these are inviting gateways, both to the array of longer books on these two presidents, such as Kathie Billingslea Smith's (both Messner, 1987), and to U.S. history in general. --John Peters, New York Public Library - Copyright 1989 Publishers Weekly, Library Journal and/or School Library Journal used with permission. Loading...
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