Abe Lincoln’s Dream

Just in time to coincide with the movie “Lincoln” is a book by Lane Smith called Abe Lincoln’s Dream. Several times before momentous events , Abe Lincoln had a dream where he had seen himself “In an indescribable vessel moving rapidly toward an indistinct shore”. The last time he had this dream was the night before he was assassinated.

The story starts with several White House dogs who refused to enter the Lincoln Bedroom. Many people thought it was haunted. A young girl, named Quincy, gets separated from her school tour group and comes upon a tall man in a stovepipe hat standing over the Gettysburg Address. Just to interject a fact into this story, on the White House Tour, you don’t go anywhere near the Lincoln Bedroom. The tour is confined to the first floor of the Executive Mansion. Now back to the story. Quincy asks the man if he is lost, but he said, “No” as he walked through a wall. This is where the author inserts the first corny joke (actually a pun) about ghosts and fibs. Quincy tells him that his joke is very silly. Then Lincoln tells her about his troubling dream. Quincy keeps up with him as he paces the floor, taking four steps to his one. He asks her “Do you know how LONG a man’s legs should be? “No’ she replies. “Long enough to reach the floor”. He is still restless and worried about the country. She suggests he go out of the Executive Mansion to see what has changed since 1865. He did the flying and she answered his questions as they toured the country and even took a flight to the moon to see the American Flag planted there. When they returned, Lincoln took her back to her tour group and this time she had a knock-knock joke for him. Lincoln thought it was a silly joke.  That night Quincy had a dream about a tall man in a black hat on a boat moving towards the sun with a smile on his face.

 

The Sonoma County Library has several copies. We have looked at a  2011 Caldecott Honor book from Lane Smith called Grandpa Green and a book by Judith Viorst that he illustrated, Lulu and the Brontosaurus.You can listen to an October interview with the author here