HIDING IN PLAIN SIGHT: Edge of Your Seat Suspense

Calkins Creek, ASTRA BOOKS, 2025

Buckle up for this thrilling account from mid-nineteenth century history, a little known tale of American suspense. HIDING IN PLAIN SIGHT: Kate Warne and the Race to Save Abraham Lincoln is written by Beth Anderson and illustrated by Sally Wern Comport. From cover to cover, each word of text and each illustration image is well-researched, compelling, and rich with details without slowing the tale down one bit.

This is yet another of the characters and events in our American history that Beth Anderson has identified, explored, and delivered with authenticity and superb storytelling. I've reviewed some of Anderson's prior releases and interviewed her in several posts, including HERE, HERE, HERE, and HERE. Her subjects range from a uniquely talented subway employee to Thomas Jefferson's science battle to Abraham Lincoln and includes a Revolutionary War hero - another woman with little-known significance. Suffice it to say that Anderson's range of interests is broad and her pursuit of the truth about compelling individuals runs deep.With this recent release readers step into a world of secrets, suspense, and sabotage.

Kate Warne was the first American woman detective, employed by the famous Pinkerton agency as an undercover investigator in high stakes cases. Warne emerges as a talented and eloquent woman who first managed to gain employment by convincing Pinkerton that, as a woman, she could access information sources that would be unavailable to men. Her acting experience allowed her to adopt various names, clothing, and regional accents to infiltrate groups, overcome assumptions of the time about women,  and convince conductors and others to take her seriously. Given the time and the nature of her/their work, finding and confirming information was no easy task, but Anderson reveals sources, complications, related history and more in fantastic back matter. 

This account of an attempted assassination of Abraham Lincoln before he could be inaugurated is the subtitle, so not a spoiler. Kate Warne became a vital player in American history during five days on Lincoln's train trip to Washington following his election. The route included a stop at the southern city of Baltimore, the site the a plot to assassinate Lincoln because of his anti-slavery stance. Each step and sequence of those days is intriguing, so none will be shared here. You really will want to read it all. 

Also in back matter is a brief note from the illustrator, Sally Wern Comport, that's worth reading. Illustrations are done in a style of the era, including collage and intricate artifacts to enhance and extend the story, a sort of scrapbook effect.. Endpapers are done in this style, too, a pictorial map of the presidential train route. Sections of that expansive map appear in other spreads to anchor complex details in correct times and places, to indicate the social and geographic aspects involved in the story. For a delightful (and exciting) YouTube trailer about the book, one that incorporates music, illustration elements, and key teaser lines, click HERE.

I am obviously a fan of this book, and its creators, but I'm not alone! Kirkus praised it in a review that included: "This expertly paced tale ratchets up the tension as readers learn that Lincoln’s life was in danger as he set out by train to Washington, D.C., for his 1861 presidential inauguration. Anderson adeptly plays with dramatic irony: Readers likely already know that he ultimately made it. But how?" And "Cleverly, Comport incorporates recurring images of timepieces, matching the sense of suspense layered into Anderson’s text—time is indeed of the essence." 

Booklist awarded this title a star and, in part, said this: "“Anderson ...weaves questions through the text to heighten reader engagement in the events and employs a succinct sentence structure that palpably conveys the mission’s urgency." 

These details reflect a note I did not make above, and that is the superb pacing. The pending danger and its history-changing consequences manage to produce "edge of the seat" attention, despite readers coming to the story with full understanding that Lincoln did survive this attempt. I hope you'll make it a point to read this, then consider young folks, schools, and teachers who might be thrilled to receive it as a gift.

I can't resist adding, for those who are PBS viewers, that I read every bit of this, several times through, with deep appreciation. I was unable to ignore my internal comparisons to the Masterpiece Series, MISS SCARLET. If this is one you know and enjoy, HIDING IN PLAIN SIGHT will resonate with everything that appeals about that series. 

Women (and Girls) and Glass Ceilings: Part Three

Sometimes it's all too easy to moan, groan, and despair of ever establishing a level playing field, whether that relates to gender, race, age, physical status, or socio-economic resources. Sometimes it feels like the deck is stacked against you. 
Sometimes it is.
But when the right person steps up, works to rise above the stacked deck, the results can be amazing.
Earlier posts on this topic included a young girl's historic first steps toward equal education rights (in Part ONE) and women in journalism (in Part TWO). 

Simon & Schuster BYR, 2016

In ADA'S VIOLIN: the Story of the Recycled Orchestra of Paraguay, written by Susan Hood and illustrated by Sally Wern Comport, the challenge faced is oppressive poverty. Ada and her younger sister are born into a loving family in a town built on an active landfill. Cateura, their town, is the main garbage dump for the capital city of Asuncion, Paraguay, in South America.

Tons and tons (literally, tons and tons) of garbage arrive daily. No sooner is it dumped atop a mountain of trash than ranchers (recyclers) tear into it with long-handled hooks, snatching up anything that can be reused, recycled, or sold.

It sounds like a miserable life, but Ada's family surrounded her with music and stories and laughter and love. Even so, Ada recognized the empty future that faced her and her sister and the other children. When  an opportunity to learn to play an instrument a beam of hope entered her life. 

In a community of scavengers, actual instruments would disappear overnight. The only way Ada and her friends could learn to play is by converting the detritus of the landfill town into instruments whose value was only in their ability to make music. Illustrations that combine graphic-design, abstractions, realism, and contrasts of shadow and vibrant light to perfectly reflect the complexity of those instruments, Ada's community, and the wide-ranging emotions and dreams of her world. 

Ada and the others would have impressed and inspired if their efforts stopped at the edge of their town. They had innovated, created, studied and practiced. When they played together they entertained and uplifted their community. 
But there was more to come. The eventual stunning success of the Cateura youth orchestra required the same dedication and commitment of any musicians who aspire to greatness. 
They became the LandFill-Harmonic Orchestra and perform around the world.

That required something more. For them to achieve such success they had to first dream it, and that meant seeing beyond the limits of life in a landfill. 

That required choosing hope over despair. 
Action over acceptance. 
If that's not an inspiration to the rest of us, I don't know what is. 
You can watch/hear the real Ada and her orchestra here.

This is a book for everyone but will be of special interest to music lovers, recyclers/up-cyclers, "makers", and anyone (which should be everyone) who believes in the capacity of humans to rise above apparent limitations and soar.