In this biography of Carl Sandburg, Penelope Niven draws on her considerable knowledge of the poet to create a first-rate presentation. (Niven is the author of Carl Sandburg: A Biography, as well as the founder and director the National Carl Sandburg Oral History Project.)

The book proceeds in chronological fashion. Each double-page spread juxtaposes biographical information (on the left) with one of Sandburg's poems or a prose selection (on the right). This has the effect of making the poems and prose more personal, more meaningful. In the section titled "Soldier," for example, Niven discusses Sandburg's participation in the Spanish-American War. He and fellow soldiers had to wade ashore "in deep water, dressed in hot wool uniforms left over from the Civil War." On the facing page we read the poignant "New Feet":

Empty battlefields keep their phantoms.
Grass crawls over old gun wheels
And nodding Canada thistle flings a purple
Into the summer's southwest wind,
Wrapping a root in the rust of a bayonet,
Reaching a blossom in the rust of shrapnel.

Marc Nadel's watercolor-and-crosshatch illustrations are beautifully done, historically accurate, and the perfect compliment to Niven's text. According to the "Illustration Notes," Sandburg's personal possessions are featured in the artwork.

Carl Sandburg was a multifaceted individual: a journalist, a family man, a storyteller, an historian, and a dreamer. Niven does an extraordinary job of bringing to life America 's "Poet of the People."

Highly recommended.

Reviewed by the teachers at Education Oasis.