Wednesday, December 3, 2008

Paul Bunyan by Steven Kellog

"Paul Bunyan was the largest, smartest, and strongest baby ever born in the state of Maine. Even before he learned to talk, Paul showed an interest in the family logging business. He took the family lumber wagon and wandered through the neighborhood collecting trees."

After complaints his parents moved to the backwoods, where Paul grew into a boy who was so quick he could blow out a candle and jump into bed before the room got dark. When Paul was still a boy he rescued an ox calf from under a blanket of blue snow. Paul named him Babe and the calf always retained the blue color.

When Paul grew up, he wanted to move on so he left his parents and crossed the country with the best lumber crew available. He and Babe and his crew had several adventures. He dug the St. Lawrence River and the Great Lakes so that barges of maple syrup could be brought to camp.

After they had leveled the Great Plains and the slopes of the Rocky Mountains a blizzard began. It continued for several years, eliminating the seasons. Babe became so depressed that Paul asked a member of his crew to make green colored sunglasses. When Paul put the sunglasses on Babe, he thought he'd stumbled into a field of clover and began eating with such gusto that the treetops appeared. "At that point, all those pent-up springtimes simply exploded, dissolving the storm clouds and the remaining snow.

In Arizona, they grew tired and discouraged by the heat. Paul's ax fell from his shoulders and gouged out the Grand Canyon. Paul found a family that would sell him a barn of corn and brought it back to his men. "When the blazing sunrise hit that barn it exploded, and the lumbermen awoke to find themselves in a raging blizzard of popcorn. Dizzy with joy, they pulled on their mittens and began blasting each other with popcorn balls."

This book is lots of fun, and I think it is a good thing for children to know about some of these over-the-top stories that are part of the American story.. This book is not a definitive book on Paul Bunyan, because there isn't one. This one covers some of the stories and the illustrations are large and full of detail.

All children that I have read it to are fascinated expressions like 'in bed before the light went out' and by the idea of dropping an ax and creating the Grand Canyon. Often, after one tall tale they want others, such as John Henry or Pecos Bill.

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