Children's Books

[Gene C]

In response to Eva's question from 'Abe Lincoln Laughing', which is repeated here

"Amazing. Honestly as for German children's books of that century I cannot think of anything but the Brothers Grimms' tales, the "Struwwelpeter" (1844), and "Max and Moritz" (1865) and other Bush tales. Definitely no bios. All have in common that they intended to teach about good and bad and that the good finally will get rewarded while all things bad will lead to suffer Hell. All are pretty brutal from nowadays' point of view, the idea once even came up to prohibit exposing kids to that old traditional literature.

What about the old Lincoln children's books? (I wouldn't expect them to be brutal, but what about educational goals? What features where emphasized?) "

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Honesty and perseverance seem to be two of the most frequently mentioned personal characteristics of Lincoln mentioned.
An example of this is the following popular book from the 1880's. While not necessarily just a children's book, a common theme in many of the early biographies was rising above one's difficulties and adversity, as the following author did in, "The Backwoods Boy" by Horatio Alger.

From his preface,
"I venture to say that among our public men
there is not one whose life can be studied with
more interest and profit by American youth than
that of Abraham Lincoln. It is not alone that,
born in an humble cabin, he reached the highest
position accessible to an American, but especially
because in every position which he was called
upon to fill, he did his duty as he understood it,
and freely sacrificed personal ease and comfort in
the service of the humblest."

https://archive.org/stream/backwoodsboyo...5/mode/2up