Tony Feliciano, age 14, of DeKalb, Ill., for his question:

WHY IS CARL SANDBURG SO HIGHLY REGARDED?

Author Carl Sandburg is so highly regarded by scholars and historians today becaue he was such an outstanding American poet, biographer and historian. Especially famous are the six volumes of history he wrote about Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War.

Scholars note that two themes dominate Sandburg's works. One is a search for the meaning of American history. The other involves Sandburg's enthusiasms for the American common man.

Born in Galesburg, Ill., in 1878, Sandburg left school at the age of 13 and did odd jobs for a number of years. He described his boyhood in the small Midwestern town in his highly praised autobiography, "Always the Young Strangers," which was published in 1953.

At the age of 18, Sandburg traveled throughout the Midwest as a hobo. Then in 1898, after the Spanish American War, he served briefly in the United States Army in Puerto Rico.

Also in 1898, when he left the service at the age of 20, he returned to Galesburg where he attended Lombard College. He left school in 1902 without graduating and then for about 10 years he was active in Socialist Party politics in Wisconsin.

From 1912 to the late 1920s, Sandburg worked as a newspaperman, primarily in Chicago. He also won fame during this period for his poetry. Then the success of the first part of his great biography, "Abraham Lincoln," enabled him to leave journalism and concentrate on a literary career.

Saadburg was one of several important writers who lived in Chicago from about 1912 to the mid 1920s. These writers included Sherwood Anderson, Theodore Dresser, Ban Hecht and Edgar Lee Masters. They are often called the "Chicago School."

One of Sandberg's best known early poems was written in 1914. Called "Chicago," the poem portrays the brutality and ugliness he saw in American cities. The poem also pays tribute to the energy and power of modern industry.

Sandburg introduced much American folklore into his poetry. In his long free verse poem called "The People, Yen" which was published in 1936, he included tall tales about such fictional and real characters as Paul Bunyan and Christopher Columbus.

Sandberg ended the poem with the American people vigorously on the march, seeking new forms of self expression and asking the questions, "Where to? What next?

Sandburg°s "Complete Poems" which was published in 1951 won the Pulitzer prize for poetry.

In the two volume met of books called "Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years," Sandburg dealt with Lincoln's career up to his election as President.

Then In the four volume "Abraham Lincoln: The War Years, " Sandburg provided one of the fullest accounts of Lincoln's presidency ever written. For this work, Sandburg received the 1940 Pulitzer prize for history.

Many rate Sandburg~s work on Lincoln as the finest historical biography of the 1900s. A one volume edition was published in 1954.

Sandburg wrote three volumes of humorous stories for children and also a historical novel.

The highly regarded Sandburg died in 1967 at the age of 89.