Today (June 28th) is National Paul Bunyan Day! To celebrate you could go chop down some trees but I think it might be better just to read some of the stories about him.
Paul Bunyan by James Stevens
A collection of stories about Paul Bunyan and his legendary feats.
This if fun. It is one big, long, tall tale. And as a tall tale everything is exaggerated and impossible things happen. Everything is the biggest, tallest, toughest, coldest, strongest of its kind. But that's what makes it fun. Paul Bunyan, who came from Canada to the United States and became a Real American (along with his blue ox, of course) invents the logging industry and proceeds to move across the country felling trees, inventing great inventions (he invented algebra too), and having great thoughts. He is so large a man he uses a tree for a pencil and when he goes hunting he carries the game home in his pockets. He is also responsible for some rivers, coves and canyons along the way. It is from another time so some of Paul's ideas might not be popular today. For instance, Paul doesn't understand what women are good for because they are too frail to be loggers and when his men start writing poetry he calls it 'poison' and comes up with a plan to get them doing 'manly' things again. But part of the story is how Paul's time has come and gone so you can assume the same of his ideas. The book is full of crazy stories that sometimes get silly. Once is got so cold (400 below) that the men's words froze in the air and the men had to be careful not to bump into them until they thawed out. But outrageous, larger than life, impossible stories are what tall tales are all about. And this book is full of very entertaining stories just like that. I would say that if you like folk stories and tall tales this is a must read.
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