Paul Bunyan Swings His Axe - Scholastic TX 474

by Dell J. McCormick

Vintage chilldrens' paperback

Genres: Childrens, Fiction

Paperback

First published January 1, 1936

Reviews

[Emma Grace Blumer]

We really enjoyed this one together!

Second read with just Gray. He loved the popcorn blizzard part the most!

[Cheryl · Rating 5 out of 5]

openlibrary has an edition with this cover and the ISBN 0590013270

I wore out a copy of this when I was a child with a very tall daddy who cut down trees....

I bet it's still a good story, at least as told by McCormick.

[Bethanyanne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read aloud to my 5 year old. He loved it.

[Rachel Parsons · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good for a laugh with the boys!

[Danielle Wood · Rating 2 out of 5]

As far as fantastical adventure stories go, this collection of tales is decent. But I’d prefer for my kids to read actual Native history on things like Yellowstone and Mount Rainier. I say that because most of the general population probably knows the myths of Paul Bunyan more than they know the actual Native history of these areas.

[K · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this one as a kid. The illustrations are still fantastic - perfectly fitted to the stories and enhancing the experience of reading the text, as art should do. In that way, it's an ideal match, and a book that's put together really well.

But I don't find the tall tales themselves as charming and funny as I used to; the entire way through, I kept thinking...this guy really did rampage from coast to coast, destroying everything he touched. What an interesting, and perhaps oddly pointed, narrative this book paints of the white settlers who entered this land and claimed it for their own.

Of course I knew, even as a kid, that none of these stories were remotely true to life. They're too ridiculous and outlandish to be taken for anything but the hyperbolic fiction that they are. Even so, I couldn't help cringing through all these stories about Paul Bunyan hearing "Indian tales" of a beautiful, unique forest that couldn't be found anywhere else in the world, then tramping off to raze it to the ground.

Sometimes it's a folk tale to explain why a certain area is a certain way: Bunyan dug the Grand Canyon by tiredly dragging his axe along the ground, for example, and North Dakota has no trees because the King of Sweden hired him to cut them all down, after which Babe the Blue Ox stomped all the stumps into the earth. It's a fun, engaging, entirely fictional read, but I kinda wish I'd also grown up with some Native American legends about these same places, to build out a wider understanding of the world - maybe without so much idealization of rampant, unrepentant destruction.

Two stories end this slim book: Bunyan hunting and (of course) killing a mysterious, majestic, huge moose - and then just leaving the carcass there to rot, as far as I can tell? - followed by him returning to his logging camp to find his beloved forest on fire.

His beloved forest, the text says, several times, as though Paul Bunyan the mythical lumberjack had ever moved into a forest intending to let it retain that name, or any of its trees.

I remembered the ending being quiet and sad - Bunyan leaving all his friends behind, drifting off into the wilderness with just his Blue Ox by his side, fading into legend - but it didn't have the quite impact on me this time around.

Still a wonderfully put together book, with top-notch illustrations, and an interesting window into some old US-centered folk tales.

[Anna Mock · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was so funny. My kids and I had such a great time reading it together. It was laugh out loud funny and my kids started to befriend all the characters, which is one of the things I want for them in their childhood literary lives. In the back of my mind I could hear environmentalists cringing with all the massive deforestation and man-altering-nature elements, but the stories of Paul Bunyan are from a place and time that is very, very different than where and when we live and it is appropriate to talk about how that time was so different and how that affected how people lived and interacted with the earth before we started paving so much of it. I'm not an "environmentalist," but my roots are also in the PNW and my love of trees and natural, untamed land also had me cringing a bit, too, even though I understand logging and whatnot. (A great book about what the Americas were actually like before European colonization is called 1491 - the land wasn't so virgin, wild, or natural as we all have been taught it was, although it definitely LOOKED that way to the European colonists, but that's, clearly, another story... called 1491.) This is a very fun book. It makes me want to gather all the American folk tales and legends and read them all.

[Charles · Rating 4 out of 5]

There are many tall tales in American folklore, but the tallest is that of Paul Bunyan and Babe, the blue ox. Of all the versions of the tale of Bunyan, this is likely that tallest of the group. In it, you “learn” the origin of the St. Lawrence seaway, the thousand island group in the seaway and the Grand Canyon. Other wild stories are a fog so thick the fish swim in it, getting so cold that spoken words are frozen and need to be thawed before heard and griddle cakes so large that it took five men to eat one.
Liars contests have been a staple in local bars and lodges for a long time. It is hard to see how even the best of the participants could top these whoppers about the legendary lumberjack and his massive pet. I read this book for the first time when I was in elementary school and enjoyed it so much that I read it several times. Even more important, it prompted me to investigate how the legend of Paul Bunyan came about.

[Beka · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a collection of stories from American folklore featuring Paul Bunyan, Babe his blue ox, and his team of loggers. We follow his stories from birth to adulthood as he follows the family business and becomes a logger. He sets out across the continent to log and provide timber for towns along the way.

The stories are a few pages each and come with grandiose humor and fantasy. It was a fun read aloud book for my 6 and 3 year olds. There's a second book to this one, which I also hope to read.

[Leah Lambart · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely ridiculous stories and we loved them. I read this book out loud to my nine-year-old daughter. We had to pause several times and laugh and come up with our own versions of silliness.
That being said, there are some problematic themes - Paul decimating the environment by cutting down entire forests. No respect for native culture. White people claiming whatever they want as their own. They were stories of different times and cultures. They are entertaining but also have some issues.

[Alycia Kelly · Rating 5 out of 5]

Paul Bunyan is a giant lumberjack that lives in the woods of North Dakota. This book includes seventeen stories about Paul Bunyan. This book is a new favorite of mine. I ended up ordering it on Amazon, because I enjoyed it so much. I remember learning about Paul Bunyan and his blue ox growing up, which is why I chose this as a book to read and I am sure glad I did.

[Jasmine Stocker · Rating 5 out of 5]

Paul Bunyan is a giant lumberjack that lives in the woods of North Dakota. This book includes seventeen stories about Paul Bunyan. I always remember hearing stories here and there about Paul Bunyan and his blue ox, Babe but never fully read any of them. I definitely want to keep books that students will hear about and then want to read more into. This is a short and easy read for students.

[Sarah Svedin · Rating 5 out of 5]

After wading through the Newbury Awards I'm excited to read some book that were actually read and enjoyed by children. I read this with my young sons, and when we finished, they asked me to find more stories just like this! Slam Dunk!

[Katy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Found a copy of this almost 90-year-old story at an estate sale and remembered reading something about Paul Bunyan when I was in grade school. It's a very interesting read and has so many incidents and stories, I can't help but wonder if it's more than just a "legend."

[Seth Nelson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great

[Sam · Rating 4 out of 5]

This telling is ridiculous and good fun. Especially read aloud.

[Lendl Meyer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read aloud to to our kids. It has a few funny moments.

[Willow · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a good collection of Paul Bunyan yarns. There were some pretty funny ones that would make great bedtime stories. 😄

[Colin · Rating 5 out of 5]

A collection of Tall Tales about Paul Bunyan and his crew. I read it with my little guys (9 & 11) . . .

[Rachel Steiger · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good for a read aloud-the kids laughed at something in every (short) chapter.

[Emily Peterson · Rating 2 out of 5]

My boys liked it and it told a lot of the tall tales surrounding Paul Bunyan and his blue ox, Babe. A good quick read just for the legends and folklore, but a hard one to really get into and love.

[Mortimer]

Well, you could say it's a lot of tall tales...Har Har.

But seriously, it's like a book-length "had to walk 15 miles to school, uphill in both directions" story.

[J · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a book we found while traveling for our vacation and even though I know a bunch of the stories of Paul Bunyan I chose to pick-up this book just to see if there was anything that I hadn't heard about.

This book was wonderful for basically it is a biography of Paul Bunyan Americana-style with each chapter addressing a particular episode in his life whether it was his boyhood, digging the Saint Lawrence River, his time on Onion River or even the giant cornstalk. At the same time there is a liberal sprinkling of stories about some of his famous men as well so you have an idea of what it was like to be living in one of Paul's legendary camps.

The writing itself is pretty easy to read and to follow since the text is presented in simple sentences. As such it is like listening to an old storyteller rehashing these stories to the reader all over again.

And even though this a chapter book there are plenty of illustrations included, which are a combination of realistic and slightly cartoonish. Like many older book the color palette is limited thus you cannot really say they are colorful but they still capture details pretty well while carrying emotions, especially in that last one where Bunyan is shown tired past tired.

I would most definitely recommend this book to any who enjoys reading the tall tales for entertainment purposes and/or are learning about the Americana legends that we have from our past.

[The other John · Rating 4 out of 5]

This one's a collections of tall tales about Paul Bunyan, the giant lumberjack of the great North Woods. It's a really nice book. The stories are told in a clear and entertaining manner, embellished with amusing illustrations by Mr. McCormick. It would be a welcome addition to any collection of folk tales--which is why I want it on my shelf.

[A. · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you ever wanted to know how the Grand Canyon was formed and how Old Faithful came to be this is the book for you. These tale tales are amusing pieces of American folklore. It's hard not to love a book when the cook's name is Cream Puff Fatty. The illustrations were nicely done line drawings, I only wish there were more.

[Nathaniel · Rating 5 out of 5]

It was good. It talks about Paul Bunyan and his favorite forest burned down while he was hunting the great moose. It took him like all summer to catch it cause the mooses strides were two miles long or something really big. If you see one track, it's really hard to tell which direction the moose went.

[Renee · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fun reminder of childhood hyperbole tales. True to it's tall-tale genre, there are a few deiscription of excess that chaffed. Chopping down an entire state's worth of forests in a day...not so environmentally friendly, Paul! :)

[Jileen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Accidentally stumbled upon this. I'm reading it to my 5 year old and so far he is liking it.

Definitely fits into the "tall tale" category. Fun and silly.

[Caleb · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked it. He chased the great moose very far up in Canada and then down again before he caught it.

[David Tybor · Rating 3 out of 5]

Saw this at the library and nostalgia dictated that I read it to my kids. Full Circle River. The 8-year old LOLd.