The early works of the D’Aulaires

Ingri and Edgar Parin D’Aulaire, a married team of writer-artists, are best known for their popular late works on Greek and Norse mythology. (After Calvin and Hobbes, D’Aulaires’ Book of Greek Myths was probably the most important book of my childhood.) But after some early works on Norse folktales (Ingri was Norwegian, Edgar German/Swiss; they met in Germany and emigrated to the US in the 1920s), the D’Aulaires made a series of award-winning books on American history and folklore, much in the mythic, dreamy style of their later work.

Like any mythological hero, the D’Aulaires’ George Washington has powers beyond those of ordinary men. He’s stronger than other boys and rides his horse more skillfully. He can hurl a rock across the width of the river. He’s shot, but unharmed. Lincoln is also demigod-like, when they tell of how he “wrestled with the strongest and toughest of them all, and threw them to the ground.”

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Obama as Daniel Day-Lewis as Obama in Spielberg’s Obama

Steven Spielberg is doing a sequel to Lincoln called Obama and he got Daniel Day-Lewis to play the lead. I knew Day-Lewis was good, but this is bonkers.

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• Daniel Day-Lewis
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Spielberg’s Abe Lincoln movie

It’s called Lincoln and will be a collection of the talents of Steven Spielberg (director), Daniel Day-Lewis (plays Lincoln), Doris Kearns Goodwin (wrote the book), and Tony Kushner (screenplay).

It is anticipated that the film will focus on the political collision of Lincoln and the powerful men of his cabinet on the road to abolition and the end of the Civil War.

• Abraham Lincoln
• Daniel Day-Lewis
• Doris Kearns Goodwin
• Lincoln
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• Steven Spielberg
• Tony Kushner