We will be celebrating my grandfather's 20th birthday later this month. You read that correctly -- my GRANDFATHER is turning 20. You see, he is a "leaper" or "29er" -- one of those rare individuals who was born on February 29th. Although he will actually be 80 years old, because February 29th only happens once every four years this will only be his 20th "official" birthday.

In my quest to ensure that this is a very special birthday for him, I chanced upon Barbara Sutton-Smith's book titled The Leap Year Book, and knew it would be a perfect addition to his birthday celebration.

Book Specifics:

The Leap Year Book is a 64-page paperback with full-color illustrations that focuses on, you guessed it, Leap Year. The book is long and thin, like some comic-book anthologies (the dimensions are 5.96 inches tall, 9.05 inches long, and .17 inches thick). It lists for $10.95 (but I purchased it at Amazon.com for a bit less).

The chapters are as follows:

Introduction:
Explains a bit about the calendar down through the ages and how Leap Year came to be.

Legends and Folklore:
Some of the folklore surrounding the date, most notably how it became acceptable for women to propose to men only on Leap Years (starting in 1228 in Scotland -- then spreading to England in the 1600s).

Leap Year Cards:
Enormously successful in 1904, 1908, and 1912, they were cards that women (or various family members) could send prospective spouses or loved ones. Some nice photographs of the cards are included.

February 29th Events:
Lists happenings of historical significance that happened to fall of February 29th, spanning time from 1704 to 2000.

Leap Day Birthdays:
A list of people (including a brief bio) who were born on February 29th, sorted into categories such as "Armed Forces", "Arts", "Business", "Film", "Religion", "Sport", etc.

Leap Day Babies Organize:
Discusses some of the various organizations that have popped up throughout the years to celebrate people born on Leap Day, as well as some of their efforts to get calendars and card companies to recognize February 29th as a holiday.

There is a handy-dandy index on the last page.

My thoughts:

I was thrilled to get my hands on this book, because February 29th is a rather special day (after all, it only comes once every 4 years excluding century years not-divisible by 400) but I was hard-pressed to find anything I could purchase for my grandfather that mentioned it as such. This book will be really perfect for him!

That being said, despite the author's best efforts, there really isn't much to it (which does make it a quick read, at any rate). Down the sides of each page the author lists notable events that happened in a leap year -- but to me happenings in that year are somewhat irrelevant unless they occurred on leap day itself. I was expecting some interesting stuff in the "Legends and Folklore" category, because I'd read about the riots and whatnot caused whenever calendars were changed to compensate for incorrect calculations of leap years, and how people thought the government was "stealing" days from their lives -- however it only focused on the "women can propose to men" thing, which is not a particularly special concept in this day and age.

My favorite part of the book is the introduction, where the author explains time-keeping down through the centuries and how the current calendar came into being, as well as the problems caused whenever calendars were adjusted (such as wages not being paid, deadlines skipped, taxes uncollected, birthdays and anniversaries skipped, etc). While it is very interesting, I wish it had gone into even more detail. For example, it mentions Julius Caesar adding two months to the calendar, but doesn't tell you which months those were (July, named after himself, and August, named after Augustus Caesar) or the fact that it pushed out the logically-named months (such as December, which is derived from the Latin "decem" meaning "ten" because it was the 10th month until Julius and Augustus inserted their 2 months and pushed it out to month #12). The section could have included much more detailed (and interesting) information, however I think the author was going for "light reading" and didn't want to mire the reader down in lots of details (whereas I love details).

The chapter on the Leap Year Cards is nice and included a lot of full-color photographs of actual cards from the early 1900's. Also included are little side-bars full of informative information -- such as the fact that the odds of being born on February 29th are 1 in 1461, and that only approximately 200,000 people in the US are "Leapers".

Final Thoughts:

I think it is quite a shame that card companies don't produce leap year cards -- particularly leap day birthday cards. It is such a special day, particularly if you were born on it, and Leapers deserve something special for only getting a birthday once every four years. I am quite thrilled that this book exists, as I know that it will make one "Leaper" very happy on his 20th/80th birthday.

Title: The Leap Year Book
Author: Barbara Sutton-Smith
Publisher: Fitzhenry & Whiteside
ISBN: 1-55041-598-0



Recommended: Yes