Be Vigilant For Truth

There are those placed in any given situation with others who will observe more.  They will notice the smallest of details about the natural world, objects and the mannerisms of people.  In assessing all this information, they can answer questions, draw conclusions and make predictions.

Able to hone these skills with persistence and practice, they may choose to become scientists, veterinarians, sociologists or officers in law enforcement.  The Eye That Never Sleeps: How Detective Pinkerton Saved President Lincoln (Abrams Books For Young Readers, November 6, 2018) written by Marissa Moss with illustrations by Jeremy Holmes presents highlights of a remarkable life.  It focuses on one episode which most likely changed the course of history.

WHAT DOES IT TAKE TO BE A GREAT DETECTIVE?  Do You Need To Be STRONG OR RICH OR POWERFUL?

Allan Pinkerton wasn't any of those things.  Born in 1819, he grew up in one of the worst slums in Scotland. But he had sharp eyes, a quick mind, and a hunger for justice.

At an early age he started to devote his life to rights for workers.  He became a wanted man by the British government.  In fact, on his wedding day, he and his new bride fled the country, hidden on a vessel bound for the United States of America.  Upon their arrival in Chicago, he started a cooperage, barrel making, business.  It was highly successful.

In 1847 finding himself in need of lumber, Allan went to an island in the river hoping to get wood.  He noticed the remains of a recent fire.  By going back night after night, he discovered men making small items in the fire.  Alerting the authorities, they broke up a coin counterfeiting ring.  He did the same thing with another group of counterfeiters in another town.  The Chicago Police Department made Allan Pinkerton their first full-time detective.

Within a year, Pinkerton left to start his own agency.  Increasing the business's abilities meant hiring more agents.  They were all taught using the Pinkerton Method and Manual.  In short order their motto "We Never Sleep" earned them the honor of the best agency in the nation.  This success lead to Pinkerton being hired to protect the Philadelphia, Wilmington, and Baltimore Railroad from harm by those wishing to secede from the union.  In this capacity Pinkerton uncovered rumors of a plot to assassinate newly elected President Lincoln.

Sending in his best people, including the first woman detective, Kate Warne, Pinkerton garnered specific goosebumps-inducing details of the scheme and warned President Lincoln. The clever plan Pinkerton devised to thwart this evil was the stuff of page-turning, thrilling intrigue.  Duly impressed with the work of Allan Pinkerton, President Lincoln created a special team to locate spies for the South and to infiltrate the South as spies.  

Immediately we are enthralled with this man's life by the way author Marissa Moss incorporates facts in this fascinating narrative.  We find ourselves cheering for a person with Pinkerton's powerful characteristics and his actions that support these beliefs.  Marissa Moss's precise and thorough research is apparent in the inclusion of specific details and quotes.  Even though you know the outcome of events, you find yourself hardly daring to breathe.  Here is a passage.

Not trusting the mail or telegraph wires, Pinkerton sent an agent, Kate Warne, to set up an appointment so he could meet with Lincoln, then followed her to Philadelphia, the next city on the president's route.  That night, he pushed his way through the excited crowds in the lobby and halls of the Continental Hotel.  People were even gathered right outside Lincoln's door! This city was friendly to the president-elect.  Here the hordes of people weren't a threat.  What would it be like, though, with angry mobs in Baltimore, a city with strong southern sympathies?

The complementary color palette and illustrative style on the opened and matching dust jacket and book case, capture our attention immediately.  The scratchboard technique devised by illustrator Jeremy Holmes here (and throughout the book) is indicative of a historical piece.  The meticulous details in clothing and architecture take us back in time.  

To the left, on the back, a poster with uneven and wrinkled edges is placed on a wooden wall.  It contains the opening statement with several other lines asking readers to discover how this man became

America's greatest detective.

On the opening and closing endpapers is a patterned diamond design in two shades of purple with what appears to be ink blots.  On the title page the eye, the logo for the agency, is centered with text above and below it.  Scroll work frames the words.

With each page turn Jeremy Holmes creates a series of wordless, successive panels in a variety of sizes or large double page pictures with elements encroaching on the text panel.  This visual storytelling has you examining every single image.  Repeatedly the eye(s) of Pinkerton create a beam of light based on his current work.  

The point of view portrayed in the pictures shifts to coincide with the narrative; bringing us close to Pinkerton or giving us a broader perspective in a particular location.  When speaking of the plot to assassinate the president elect three illustration match the text; a close-up of a hand clutching a red piece of paper, President Lincoln and Mrs. Lincoln driving through groups of people in a horse drawn and open carriage and a large picture of the president's stovepipe hat riddled with bullet holes and script reading

The Deed Is Done.

The use of cross-sections, maps, newspaper headlines, typography, and a Morse telegraph alphabet is excellent.  Speech bubbles add to the authenticity and personal aspects.  A final vertical double-page picture highlights a moment of triumph.  

One of my many favorite illustrations is when Jeremy Holmes zooms in on Pinkerton's face.  His nose centers in the gutter with his face extending on either side.  Pouring from both of his ears are bits and pieces of conversations centering on the plot.  Along the bottom of the page and in front of Pinkerton's beard is an engine, coal car and passenger car of the B & O Railroad.  In the lower left-hand and right-hand corners are squares of text framed in tiny lines.

We become willing and avid time travelers when reading The Eye That Never Sleeps: How Detective Pinkerton Saved President Lincoln written by Marissa Moss with illustrations by Jeremy Holmes.  The word cliff-hanger repeatedly comes to mind with this winning blend of words and illustrations.  A time line, artist's note, author's note, endnotes, bibliography and index add to the excellence of this work.  I highly recommend this for your personal and professional collections.  (Fans of this book will enjoy reading The Detective's Assistant by Kate Hannigan.)

To learn more about Marissa Moss and Jeremy Holmes and their other work, visit their websites by following the links attached to their names.  At the publisher's website you can view interior images.  Marissa Moss maintains an account on Twitter.  Both Marissa and Jeremy have Instagram accounts.  Marissa is interviewed by Deborah Kalb about this title.  Jeremy visits Let's Talk Picture Books to chat about this book.  You are going to love all the artwork featured.


Be sure to visit Kid Lit Frenzy hosted by educator Alyson Beecher to discover the other titles listed this week by participants in the 2018 Nonfiction Picture Book Challenge.

Wacky Vehicles

When my younger sister and I began driving, my parents bought us a "safe" but really old car.  It had seen one too many Michigan winters; the salt on the roads having had its way on the wagon's body.  It was a tad bit disconcerting to be able to see the roadway passing beneath your feet from a hole in the floor.

Nowadays my vehicle of choice, less than a year old, is more computer than anything else, having an owner's manual as thick as a phone book.  Although it's by far the best car I have ever purchased (since my chances of owning the Batmobile are slim to none), I can't help but wonder about the modes of transportation featured in this new book, Poem-Mobiles:  Crazy Car Poems (Schwartz & Wade Books) written by J. Patrick Lewis and Douglas Florian with illustrations by Jeremy Holmes.  There is no doubt in my mind taking one of these models for a spin will garner a bunch of gawkers in short order.

Train means train, bus means bus,
Truck means truck to most of us.

So auto ought to mean, you see,
Auto automatically. ...

Children flock to the enormous bookmobile running on imagination power driven by a book character as a car so tiny the driver is stuck inside follows behind.  It looks happier when under the sea but its two tails, seats with scales, fins and gills give the driver plenty of thrills on land.  If you thought dinosaurs are extinct, look again...behind your school to see a rip-roaring ride that might collide with The Dragonwagon. Yikes!

If you are tired of recycling all your paper, make a car that can easily be disposed of when it starts to go when it should stop.  If you continually miss the sights along the road, never fear.  The Backwards Car is your perfect set of wheels.  If your closet shelves and floors are lined with rows of shoes in every shade and shape, why not hitch a ride on the ultimate footwear form, The High-Heel Car?


Pulled by a cow, slightly lifted by balloons, or flown to the moon by sprouted wings, these marvelous machines move.  Take a bath in bubbles as you travel?  No thanks, I think I'll pass.  When hunger strikes and your destination is reached, don't worry because your car is the perfect feast.

Pink bubble gum, over-grown grass and eggs create parts and pieces of motorists' astonishing automobiles.  For love, for dessert, for speed and for bounce, they will never fail to please.  As a passenger, a driver behind the wheel or a reader needing light and laughter, these twenty-one poetic improbabilities are a transportation treat.


Both J. Patrick Lewis and Douglas Florian, outstanding poets, have creatively collaborated to make the stuff of dreams a possibility on these pages.  They rhyme.  They have rhythm.  They cavort, careen, crack, swerve and slide down highways, alleys and streets.  The cadence generated by wordplay combined by the power of one's imagination will have readers wanting at least one of these vehicles waiting in their garage.  You can hear the laughter of the children riding the Giant Bookmobile of Tomorrow, feel the swish of water passing by the Eel-ectric Car, taste the condiments on the Hot Dog Car, smell the fudge and whipped cream on The Banana Split Car and see the wonder of one hundred balloons holding up the Balloon Car.  Here's a single sample from one of the poems.

There was an old woman
Who lived in high heels.
She loved one so much
That she gave it three wheels. ...


Several of the automobiles featured inside the title create the two page image on the matching jacket and cover.  Every element of this illustration, the title banner, the authors and illustrator names on signs, the ISBN attached to the car carrier truck on the back, the portion of the Dragonwagon poem on a cloud, is excellently designed.  Darkened opening and closing endpapers show tire tracks.  On the title page, the letters hang from strings coming from beneath the clouds as a signal light glows green.

Spreading across two pages the Contents depicts outlines of each car with the title and page number.  To the right an introductory poem sets things in motion.  A palette of pastels, bright and bold, creates luminous whimsy in all the pictures.  These automotive portrayals invented using pencil, watercolor and digital coloring by Jeremy Holmes would be the envy of any engineer.  With the exception of four pages all of the illustrations extend, edge to edge, over two pages.  One picture is even shown vertically.

Intricate details, the spines on the bookmobile books, the speech bubble declaring Recess has been canceled, the elderly woman sitting with her three cats on the roof of a building, the labels of insect stages, the Royal Throne and the facial features on the humans and creatures, all contribute to the wonder, the amazement, one feels when looking at all these pictures.  Each one is an invitation to pause, not only to read the poem but to look for the potential these words might generate.  I have more than one favorite illustration but two which I like in particular are the schoolyard scene with the dinosaur and dragon (Jurassic Park(ing) and The Dragonwagon) and the two pages, day and night, for The Love Car.

Don't wait for April, National Poetry Month, or even a special day of the week, to explore the fantastical fun in Poem-Mobiles:  Crazy Car Poems by J. Patrick Lewis and Douglas Florian with pictures by Jeremy Holmes.  You, your children or your students will be ready to make your own nutty machines ready to ride or drive anyplace you can imagine.  Please visit the authors' and illustrator's websites via the links embedded in their names above.  Jeremy Holmes has several pages displayed for your enjoyment.  Follow this link to the publisher's website to get a glimpse inside at the first few pages.

UPDATE:  Please visit Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast hosted by Julie Danielson where she interviews Jeremy Holmes.  The amount of artwork is amazing.