Becoming Abraham Lincoln by Richard Kigel

[Gene C]

An excellent book. The author tell the story of Lincoln from birth to age 25, the age he becomes a state representative.
Richard Kigel in this book uses quotes from several well known biographies of Lincoln and weaves them together to tell the story regarding "The Coming Of Age of Our Greatest President".

Published in 2017, it's not a long book with the text at 228 pages, with another 40 pages of source notes. The vast majority of the notes are quotes from "Henrdon's Informants", and three biography's by William Herndon and Jesse Weik. This has its good and bad points. Herndon did a great job in interviewing and writing to people who knew Lincoln, but a significant part of Kigel's book is dependent on Herndon. In the two chapters (13 pages) regarding Lincoln's romance and grief on the death of Ann Rutledge, 76 of the 78 sources notes are from Herndon's books.

What is nice is Kigel does a good job selecting information from some of the most reliable works on Abraham Lincoln and combining them into an interesting narrative of Lincoln's first 25 years. There are no photographs or illustrations. The chapters are short, it's an interesting, easy to read book.

I recommend this to anyone interested in Lincoln's early life. It's available on Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Becoming-Abraham-...367&sr=8-3
I was able to get my copy in very good condition for less than $7 incl. mailing.