Tall Tales

I know September's theme is Tall Tales so I thought I'd mention a few of our titles.

This is one of my favorite genres of writing for children and right now there are a lot of great stories out there that give a new twist to an old tale--but then that is what tall tales are all about. There are also new tall tale heroes (and heroines) being written about as we speak. I think it is fascinating that the tall tale genre as we know it (with humor and hyperbole), is almost a purely American thing, although the tales have roots in mythology. Tall tales are a fun way to teach the history of the United States, its regional diversity and its western expansion.

We have a lot of the old stand-bys such as Paul Bunyan, Pecos Bill, and John Henry by various authors. Don't forget the lesser known Captain Stormalong, Slewfoot Sue, and Mike Fink.

Some of the more recent titles include The Foot Stomping Adventures of Clementine Sweet, Paul Bunyan's Sweetheart, The Bunyans, Library Lil, Thunder Rose, Alligator Sue, Granite Baby, Apples to Oregon, Sally Ann Thunder Ann Whirlwind Crockett, and two of my favorites, Swamp Angel (a tale from Tennessee) and Dona Flor (a tale from the Southwest).

Don't forget you can go to Destiny Quest and virtually browse our shelves online, including pictures of the covers and availability. Here's the link to our tall tale collection:

http://destiny.okcps.org/vopac/servlet/presentsearchform.do?site=118

Enter "tall tales" in the search box at the top of the page.
When a new page opens, click on "location" in the box at the left, and then click on "my school". This will show you the covers of most of our books.