Nonfiction Monday: Lincoln's Grave Robbers by Steve Sheinkin

Nonfiction Monday is a weekly meme in the Kidlitosphere that invites bloggers to read and review a nonfiction book on Monday as a way to promote high-quality nonfiction titles.  Each week, a different blogger "hosts" Nonfiction Monday and provides a roundup of all the posts.  This week Nonfiction Monday is hosted by Apples With Many Seeds!

Lincoln's Grave Robbers by Steve Sheinkin



In the late 1800s, counterfeit bills made up as much as half of the money in circulation, and one man, Ben Boyd, was the master of all counterfeiters...Until he got caught red-handed by the fledgling United States Secret Service and was sent to prison.  With Boyd locked up, the counterfeiting business started going south.  No one could make fakes like Ben Boyd.  Desperate to get Boyd out of jail, a plan was cooked up to kidnap President Lincoln's body from his tomb in Springfield, Ill., stash it in Michigan and demand a $200,000 reward and Boyd's freedom.  Counterfeiting. Dead Presidents. Grave robbing. Undercover agents. The Secret Service. Need I say more?

This book has everything that readers have come to expect from nonfiction writer extraordinaire, Steve Sheinkin.  If his YALSA ENYA, Sibert Award, Newbery Honor winning Bomb had you riveted and turning pages faster than a suspense novel, then Lincoln's Grave Robbers is right up your alley.  This is true crime at its finest, but packaged for middle school.  Filled with the quirky criminal vocabulary (defined in the back with a glossary) of the time (boodle, anyone?) Lincoln's Grave Robbers entertains as it educates.  The historical and criminal threads of the story are so deftly interwoven that it reads like a novel.  A no-brainer purchase for any middle school collection, with great appeal to savvy upper elementary and high schoolers as well!

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