Monument Maker Daniel Chester French And The Lincoln Memorial The History Makers Series

Named to the Bank Street College Best Children's Books of the Year for 2020 20th Annual Massachusetts Book Awards “Must Reads”: A Must-Read Picture Book CYBILS Award short list When Abraham Lincoln was assassinated in 1865, fifteen-year-old Dan French had no way to know that one day his tribute to the great president would transform a plot of Washington, DC marshland into America’s gathering place. He did not even know that a sculptor was something to be. He only knew that he liked making things with his hands. This is the story of how a farmboy became America’s foremost sculptor. After failing at academics, Dan was working the family farm when he idly carved a turnip into a frog and discovered what he was meant to do. Sweeney’s swift prose and Fields’s evocative illustrations capture the single-minded determination with which Dan taught himself to sculpt and launched his career with the famous Minuteman Statue in his hometown of Concord, Massachusetts. This is also the story of the Lincoln Memorial, French’s culminating masterpiece. Thanks to this lovingly created tribute to the towering leader of Dan’s youth, Abraham Lincoln lives on as the man of marble, his craggy face and careworn gaze reminding millions of seekers what America can be. Dan’s statue is no lifeless figure, but a powerful, vital touchstone of a nation’s ideals. Now Dan French has his tribute too, in this exquisite biography that brings history to life for young readers.

Named to the Bank Street College Best Children's Books of the Year for 2020 20th Annual Massachusetts Book Awards "Must Reads" A Must-Read Picture Book CYBILS Award short list When Abraham Lincoln was assassinated in 1865, fifteen-year-old Dan French had no way to know that one day his tribute to the great president would transform a plot of Washington, DC marshland into America's gathering place. He did not even know that a sculptor was something to be. He only knew that he liked making things with his hands.

Eakins, Hunt, French, Morse, Trumbull, et al. and their struggle to make art respectable in 19th-century America. 211 illus.

A journey across America revealing “the history of how seven of these monuments came to be . . . and what they mean to us today” (The Washington Times). Across the country, in the middle of busy city squares and hidden on quiet streets, there are nearly two hundred statues erected in memory of Abraham Lincoln. No other American has ever been so widely commemorated. A few years ago, Jim Percoco, a history teacher with a passion for both Lincoln and public sculpture, set off to see what he might learn about some of these monuments—what they meant to their creators and to the public when they were unveiled, and what they mean to us today. The result is a fascinating chronicle of four summers on the road looking for Lincoln stories in statues of marble and bronze. Percoco selects seven emblematic works, among them Thomas Ball’s Emancipation Group, erected east of the Capitol in 1876 with private funds from African Americans and dedicated by Frederick Douglass; Augustus Saint-Gaudens’s majestic Standing Lincoln of 1887 in Chicago; Paul Manship’s 1932 Lincoln the Hoosier Youth, in Fort Wayne, Indiana; and Gutzon Borglum’s 1911 Seated Lincoln, struggling with the pain of leadership, beckoning visitors to sit next to him on his metal bench in Newark, New Jersey. At each stop, Percoco chronicles the history of the monument, spotlighting its artistic, social, political, and cultural origins. His descriptions draw fresh meaning from mute stone and cold metal—raising provocative questions not just about who Lincoln might have been, but about what we’ve wanted him to be in the monuments we’ve built.

Spring weather can be exciting! When wind chimes start singing and clouds race across the sky, one little guy knows just what to do—grab his kite! But as the kite soars, the wind picks up even more, and soon he and his grandma are chasing the runaway kite into town. As they pass swirling leaves, bobbing boats, and flapping scarves, breezes become gusts and the sky darkens. Rain is on the way! Can they squeeze in one more adventure before the downpour? Scenes rich with springtime details for little eyes to follow and lyrical verse that captures the changeable mood of the weather make this perfect for spring story times.