An Unlikely Friendship: A Novel of Mary Lincoln Todd and Elizabeth Keckley by: Ann Rinaldi
This is my first historical fiction account for the challenge and I loved it! Again, anything to do with slavery is interesting to me, so I finished this book in two days. I love learning things about famous people in history that I didn't know! For example, did you know that Abraham Lincoln's wife Mary was what we would call today a "shopaholic!" Yes! When she was depressed she would shop for new dresses and redecorate rooms in her home and later the White House. Living in the White House gave the Lincoln's an allowance of $20,000 and she spent it rather quickly. At a young age Mary Todd Lincoln always dreamed of living in the White House.
Mary made friends with her seamstress Lizzy, who was a slave at one time that bought her freedom. The book starts off with the day of Lincoln's assassination and the events that led up to that horrible moment. Mary instantly requests that her friend Lizzy be brought to her to comfort her as a friend. The book then begins to tell the story of a young Mary Todd and her family life moving through the years until she met Abraham. Then we jump back to the childhood of Lizzy and her life as a slave and then by the end of the book we are back to the two women become friends and their time in the White House.
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