Abraham Lincoln: Pro Wrestler

Abraham Lincoln: Pro Wrestler (Time Twisters #1) by Steve Sheinkin    160 pages

I’ve been obsessed with Abraham Lincoln and his family since I was a kid; I can’t get enough of him and his wife, Mary Todd.

In this delightfully imagined work, the fourth graders in Ms. Maybee’s class hate history. “It’s BORING!” Step-siblings Abby and Doc, especially Doc, are the loudest opponents of history. When Lincoln hear how much all the kids don’t like history, he decides to teach them a lesson.

Thanks to time travel Lincoln shows up in current time to teach them a lesson. He’s decided that he won’t go back to Springfield, Illinois, to win the 1860 presidential election, but instead, he wants to pursue a different dream: that of becoming a pro wrestler. Wrestling was much, much different in the 1860s than it is today, and thankfully, Sheinkin doesn’t delve into that. But that means that history is broken if Lincoln pursues his dream

It’s up to Abby and Doc to get him back to Springfield and fix history. As they learn about Lincoln and his life, they experience life in the 1860s and unwittingly learn about our greatest president ever.

At the end of the book, Sheinkin adds a chapter that tells what aspects of the story are true and what are not.  I think that young readers will enjoy history in this manner, and without meaning to, learn something. Even I learned something! Abraham Lincoln: Pro Wrestler receives 5 out of 5 stars in Julie’s world.