Paul Bunyan

Paul Bunyan
Retold by: Bill Balcziak
Illustrated by: Patrick Girouard
Traditional/Folk Literature

This book retells the life of Paul Bunyan and how his stories began. The beginning starts out from the time when several storks carried a very big baby to the Bunyan family. Much larger than everyone else in the village, Paul Bunyan rolled out of his crib on night and into the water causing a flood. The angry villagers instructed the Bunyans that they must leave to raise their child elsewhere. After moving during a great snow, Paul heard a noise outside and found an enormous blue ox buried in the snow. He named the ox "Babe" and took him on all of his adventures. When he turned 18 his parents sent him West to find work in the lumber camps. Paul Bunyan and Babe headed to Michigan in search of gold where Babe dug five huge wholes, which we now call The Great Lakes. They finally settled in Minnesota where they started the biggest lumber camp in the world and where people had to be at least 10ft. tall to work. All though Paul Bunyan is rarely seen anymore people still share stories of his many adventures with Babe. The book ends with an interesting thought; "Isn't is interesting to think of Baby slipping across some ice and skidding across Dakota territory? Now you know why the plains are completely flat and treeless! Could it be true? Or is it a tall tale?"

One thing I really enjoyed about this story other than the retelling of the tall tale itself was details of how it was believed to have come about. One of the last pages tells that it was believed to have originated in Canada during the 1800's in logging camps. I think this would be an interesting book to use in the classroom. You could use it to discuss differences with your students and how it is important to never treat people differently simply because they possess an odd characteristic. It would be fun to have students write an adventure that they think Paul Bunyan may have had during his life and have them to act it out in groups. You could also have your students use mixbook.com to make there own story book about Paul Bunyan similar to the one I created.

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