It’s Up to You, Abe Lincoln

This book is about Abraham Lincoln throughout his whole life. You get to be Abe Lincoln and make choices. Then, the authors tell you what Lincoln actually chose and what that led to. Each chapter gives you the backstory, the choice, the reveal, and the aftermath. The backstories are really detailed, almost too much sometimes. They also have jokes. I didn’t think the jokes were very funny. There are usually four choices. I think the authors are good at showing the good and bad sides of each choice. The aftermath says how the choice he made affected society.

There are a lot of things in the back of the book. I liked the timeline and the excerpts from his speeches. The historic firsts were cool. These are the things Lincoln did first before any others like he was the first President to have his face on a coin. The section “What Would Abe Think?” was weird. The authors were probably trying to find a way to do a recap of what Abe liked and didn’t like. They guessed Abe would like texting and emojis but not pizza.

This is an interesting way to learn history. I think this would be a good book for teachers and middle school kids.