Tall tales
When my kids were small, and each evening required several bedtime stories, a perennial favorite was Steven Kellog’s Sally Ann Thunder Ann Whirlwind Crockett. She could outrun, out swim, out arm wrestle, out tug-o-war any man in creation. She chopped trees with her teeth, tamed eagles, skinned bears, whipped up tornadoes, and out wrestled the mighty Mike Fink.
The story launched our family’s long love affair with tall tales. We read many of the traditional tales such as Julius Lester’s retelling of John Henry which follows him from his amazing birth to his final victory over the steam drill. We had fun with the antics in Sid Fleischman’s Mc Broom stories. We laughed through Arthur Yorink’s The Flying Latke. We relished Julius Lester’s retelling of Brer Rabbit tales in Uncle Remus: The Complete Tales.
And so when I found Phyllis Root’s Paula Bunyan on the library shelf, I read it out of nostalgia. I can report that my kids would have loved it. Paula Bunyan is the younger sister of the more famous Paul Bunyan, who she’d out wrestle, three times out of six. As tall as a pine tree and as strong as a dozen moose, her singing startled people and animals for miles. She tamed a giant bear, saved the North Woods and sang with wolves in three part harmony. I did wonder why she never encountered any natives in her explorations. And why everyone she met was white. But the giant mosquitoes and woebegone bear were priceless.
So hurray for tall tales. The taller, the better.
Tags: Bauer reading aloud review tall tales