by Moe Zilla

Created on: March 09, 2010

Mike Reiss wrote and produced episodes of the Simpsons, according to Wikipedia, and the comedy writer had also worked on Johnny Carson's Tonight Show. But he's also written several "unconventional children books," according to his publisher - including a strange 2003 story called "The Boy Who Looked Like Lincoln." For reasons that have never been fully explained, Reiss also produced a short-lived web cartoon series called "Hard Drinkin' Lincoln" around 1999. But his children's book finds a new outlet for Reiss's fascination with the 16th President...

The book opens with a drawing of an eight-year-old boy who looks a lot like Abraham Lincoln. The boy may be playing video games on his living room's TV - but he's got still the President's big ears and bushy eyebrows. There's even a tiny beard - and they've been there since the day he was born. "Every birthday I get the same gifts," the boy complains - a top hat, and another set of Lincoln logs!

The illustrations are by David Cathrow, who adds more ridiculous consequences to the story's premise. "I guess I get it from my parents," the boy says, and the illustration shows a father with Lincoln's beard and bushy eyebrows, while his mother has the protruding ears and a sense of gravitas on her face. And there's an even funnier drawing when the boy complains that he has to play Lincoln in every school - even if "even if he's not in the show." Cathrow draws a school production for "National Bicuspid Day," in which every child is dressed as a smiling tooth,. But standing in front of them all is the boy who looks like Lincoln - announcing  "Four score and seven teeth ago..."

He gets teased by other the children. ("Split any rails lately?") But amazingly, the book finds the perfect resolution. The boy's parents send him to a special summer camp with an appropriate motto: "For kids who look like things." There's a boy with a bowling ball head, and one whose head is a bowling pin! There's even a boy who looks like the back of a horse - with a tail growing out of his head. "I felt really bad for him," says the boy who looked like Lincoln. "But after a while, you didn't even notice."

By the end of the book the boy has decided that he likes his face the way it is, and he's realized "your face is one thing that makes you special." But the writer and illustrator can't resist revisiting their joke one last time. On the book's final page, they introduce the boy's younger brother. His name is Dickie - and unfortunately, he looks a lot like Richard Nixon!

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