True story: when I was much younger, like maybe eight years old, I learned about Marilyn Monroe. I’ve written about this before, how I’d walk to the library and check out every single book about her, I’d draw pictures of her, I’d photocopy pictures from books and stick them in a book. I bought Marilyn Monroe paper dolls and watched movies on Sunday afternoons that only came in black and white.
I even went so far as to think maybe I was her reincarnated. I grasped at any thread of connection. When I looked at photos of her, usually candid ones, they seemed so familiar to me, as if I lived it. I began to plot out my move to California knowing this is where I’d feel at home, not New Jersey where I was born and raised.
And in Gayle’s new young adult novel, My Life with the Lincolns, young Mina believes her family was at one point, the real Lincolns. Her father, a firm believer in civil rights and an activist, was of course, Abe. Her siblings and mother were Lincolns too. They are the Lincoln family, reincarnated and living in a Sears house, owners of a furniture store in Illinois.
Gayle Brandeis weaves a tight story about the Edelman family in the late 1960′s and braids it into the civil rights movement. With her twelve-year-old character of Mina, she captures that stage of life in between childhood and adulthood so perfectly.
I’d like to think if I were Mina, I’d be just like her, curious and courageous. Even though My Life with The Lincolns is a “YA” book, feel free to read it. Instead of a young adult label, it should be “For all ages”. Its historical and fun and emotional … a great book.
