Two years ago, Scott Reynolds Nelson published his prize-winning book, "Steel Drivin' Man: John Henry: The Untold Story of an American Legend," He has rewritten the book, with Marc Aronson, for children, "Ain't Nothing But a Man: My Quest to Find the Real John Henry," published by National Geographic. A review by Lawrence Downes appeared in the NY Times Book Review, April 13, 2008.

Some 40,000 African-Americans laid track throughout the South, and many prisoners did forced labor for the railroads. The song itself was well-covered in the book for adult readers, but not here. Information was gathered from many sources; the crayon notes of a Henry Grady, an unknown railroad carpenter, "paint a blurry picture of the strenuous, dangerous life of trackliners..."
The book is well-illustrated with photographs and drawings.
Nelson speculations are sometimes a stretch too far- "even if a railroad worker did "rock and roll" a drill between whacks of a hammer, did the term really have anything to do with the one that, many decades later, came to mean something a lot less dangerous and a lot more fun?"
"Nelson's enthusiasm for historical sleuthing would whet any reader's appetite to do the same. It pulls the neat trick of giving you a heaping serving of a story you thought you already knew, and leaving you wanting more." The legend still grows.