Swamp Angel was the tale of an American Heroine/giant of the south who had all the strength (and more) of her male counterparts.

This unique and genre-bending take on a tall-tale is one of my new favorite children's books! Swamp Angel is the story of Angelica Longrider, a true giant of a woman born into a rural family in the heart of Paul Bunyan-era Tennessee. The story focuses on the fantastical feats of strength and power that this literal giant woman can do, and her oddity is more in the fact that she bends gender stereotypes of not baking pies than in the normalized account of her birth ("the newborn was scarcely taller than her mother and couldn't climb a tree without help"). Throughout the book the illustrator uses a variety of artistic techniques similiar to the landscape paintings of the late 18th century American prairie, and all are vivid and realistic. Angelica is a powerful female character in a story that is fantastical and whimsical but utterly believable due to it being sheer fun to read! ( )

Wonderful story about Angelica, who is born very large and continues to grow at a crazy rate. She drinks entire lakes, builds a cabin, and wrestles with a bear. This is a wonderful tall tale that can be used in a folklore unit and compare it to Paul Bunyan.

Age appropriantess: intermediate
This book is a good example of a folk tale because it is a story from Tennessee about a woman who turns into a swamp angel who wrestles a menacing bear.
The media in this book is mixed. ( )

Hazel Rochman (Booklist, October 15, 1994 (Vol. 91, No. 4))
Forget those images of angelic maidens, ethereal and demure. Angelica Longrider is the greatest woodswoman in Tennessee. She can lasso a tornado. She can toss a bear into the sky so hard that it is still on the way up at nightfall. She snores like a locomotive in a thunderstorm. Isaacs tells her original story with the glorious exaggeration and uproarious farce of the traditional tall tale and with its typical laconic idiom--you just can't help reading it aloud. The heroine was nothing special as a newborn baby ("scarcely taller than her mother and couldn't climb a tree without help . . . She was a full two years old before she built her first log cabin"). Zelinsky's detailed oil paintings in folk-art style are exquisite, framed in cherry, maple, and birch wood grains. They are also hilarious, making brilliant use of perspective to extend the mischief and the droll understatement. Sweetfaced Angelica wears a straw bonnet and a homespun dress, but she's a stalwart savior who comes tramping out of the mist on huge bare feet to lift a wagon train from Dejection Swamp. She is bent over in many of the pictures as if too tall to fit in the elegant oval frames. Pair this picture book with Lester and Pinkney's John Henry for a gigantic tall-tale celebration. Category: For the Young. 1994, Dutton, $14.99. Ages 5-9. Starred Review.
Barbara B. Disckind (Children's Literature)
This is a wonderful tall tale about the greatest woods-woman in Tennessee, a heroine named Swamp Angel. Full of wit, exaggeration and whimsy, this handsome book unfolds the story of a huge woman who single-handedly saved settlers from a fearsome bear named Thundering Tarnation. She also used a tornado like a lasso and drank a lake dry. Swamp Angel, so named after she walked out of the mist to save pioneers from sinking further into a swamp, does many good-hearted deeds using her special size and power. It is a terrific meld of an American frontier-life story with American primitive-style illustrations painted in oils on cherry, maple, and birch veneers. 1994, Dutton, $15.99. Ages 3 to 9.
Susie Wilde (Children's Literature)
Ann Isaacs luxuriates in the rhythms, images, and idioms of tall tales as she creates an original character, the Tennessee woodswoman, Swamp Angel, who's "second to none in buckskin bravery." Award-winning illustrator Zelinsky has just as much fun painting primitives on cherry and maple veneers to bring alive the whimsy of the stories and the wild beauty of frontier America. He contributes to the rollicking fun, but does not sacrifice the story to their indulgences. Through a partnership of picture and prose he gives a strong and enduring heroine who's not daunted by the "hoots and taunts" of the coonskin-capped machos or a bear named Tarnation with a pelt "equal to a whole year's hunting." Swamp Angel, which won a Caldecott-honor medal, introduces frontier life with a heroine and humor that is sure to engage children. 1994, Dutton, $15.99. Ages 5 to 9.
Marilyn Courtot (Children's Literature)
Tennessee woods-woman, Swamp Angel, is "second to none in buckskin bravery." Illustrator Paul Zelinsky has fun painting primitives on cherry and maple veneers to bring alive the whimsy of these stories and the wild beauty of frontier America. 1994, Dutton, $15.99. Ages 5 to 9.
Joan Kindig, Ph.D. (Children's Literature)
If you are looking for a children's book with a strong female character, Swamp Angel is for you. Swamp Angel is a tall tale in the tradition of Paul Bunyan and Johnny Appleseed. It's a nice change to see a girl in a tall tale who can take care of herself and others. The language in this book is big and bold like the main character herself. Swamp Angel's nemesis is a bear called Thunderin' Tarnation and he is wreaking havoc in the hills of Tennessee. That is, until he meets Swamp Angel, who is determined to stop him cold in his tracks. Many others have tried to stop Thunderin' Tarnation but with no success. The settlers create a reward for the hide of the bear and Swamp Angel decides it will be hers. The men, who are hoping for the reward, taunt Swamp Angel and suggest she should be home "quiltin' and cookin'." This, of course, only hardens Swamp Angel's resolve. When Swamp Angel and Thunderin' Tarnation finally meet, their fight is one of epic proportions. They fight three days and three nights, through a tornado and across the hills of Tennessee where their wrestling causes s a dust storm that creates the Great Smoky Mountains. They even wrestle in their sleep, their snores felling trees and rocking boulders. Swamp Angel snores so loud that she fells the last tree, which falls on Thunderin' Tarnation and the fight is over. Swamp Angel throws Thunderin' Tarnation into the sky where he becomes a constellation. She keeps the bear's hide and eventually spreads it out on the Montana wilderness where it is now known as the short grass prairie. A Caldecott Honor Book. 1994, Dutton, $15.99. Ages 5 to 10.
Jan Lieberman (Children's Literature)
Thundering Tarnation, a rampaging bear, has Tennessee terrified until that bigger than life heroine Swamp Angel determines to have that bear's pelt. The two match strength and wits in a 3-day battle. The victorious Angel praises the bear, "Confound it, varmint, if you warn't the most wondrous heap of trouble I ever come to grips with." Tall tale language crackles with originality. The sensational art work is painted on cherry and maple veneers. Each scene ripples with energy and wild and wooly action. An all-American hoe-down worthy of a Caldecott Medal. 1994, Dutton, $15.99. Ages 6 to 10.
CCBC (Cooperative Children's Book Center Choices, 1994)
On August 1, 1815, when Angelica Longrider took her first gulp of air on this earth, there was nothing to suggest that she would become the greatest woodswoman in Tennessee. The newborn was scarcely taller than her mother and couldn't climb a tree without help." So begins this original tall tale about a woman who'd give Paul Bunyan a run for his money. Isaac's amusing, folksy account centers on Angelica's magnificent battle with a huge bear known as Thundering Tarnation who'd been terrorizing the whole state of Tennessee -- that is, until he crossed paths with the great woodswoman nicknamed "Swamp Angel." Zelinsky's brilliantly rendered illustrations were painted with oils on cherry, maple, and birch veneers, as would befit the greatest of Tennessee woodswomen. His wry, larger-than-life depictions of the Swamp Angel and her "most wondrous heap of trouble" provide the perfect complement to Anne Isaacs' delightful story. CCBC categories: Picture Books. 1994, Dutton, 36 pages, $14.99. Ages 3-8.
Kirkus (Kirkus Reviews, 1994)
This Tennessee tall tale concerns Angelina Longrider, who even as a child was a real big gal; in fact, and without being too gender-specific, she strongly resembles another wonderkid by the name of Paul Bunyan -- and she's just as much fun. Angelina -- a late bloomer -- builds her first log cabin when she's two, rescues a wagon train from Dejection Swamp (hence Swamp Angel), even tangles with wily Thundering Tarnation, a bear bent on pillaging the winter stores of all Angelina's neighbors. In an epic struggle, Angelina lays Thundering Tarnation low, stocks the whole state's larders from the bear's bounteous flanks, and creates Montana's Shortgrass Prairie from his pelt. It is impossible to convey the sheer pleasure, the exaggerated loopiness, of newcomer Isaacs's wonderful story. Matching the superb text stride for stride are Zelinsky's (The Wheels on the Bus, 1990) altered-state, American primitive paintings -- gems that provide new pleasures, reading after reading. To say that you are entering Caldecott land doesn't begin to do this book justice. 1994, Dutton, $14.99. Starred Review. © 1994 Kirkus Reviews/VNU eMedia, Inc. All rights reserved.
M. Thomas (Parent Council Volume 2)
An enchanting "tall tale" of a larger-than-life girl and her amazing adventures. As a bear, "Thundering Tarnation," tries to clean out all the food the settlers have stored for the winter, Swamp Angel signs up for the hunt. Thus begins her most notorious escapade, a fight with a larger-than-life bear! Lots of humor in both the story and the illustrations make for a really good time. Primitive illustrations nicely accompany the text. Enjoy. 1994, Dutton, $14.95. Ages 5 to 10.
Betsy Hearne (The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, November 1994 (Vol. 48, No. 3))
Angelica Longrider hardly seems special for a newborn baby, "scarcely taller than her mother and couldn't climb a tree without help. Although her father gave her a shiny new ax to play with in the cradle, like any good Tennessee father would, she was a full two years old before she built her first log cabin." Never mind. Children grow up, and Angelica is soon lifting wagons out of Dejection Swamp and tossing the giant bear Thundering Tarnation straight up into the sky ("he crashed into a pile of stars, making a lasting impression") before she lays him low. It's a tall tale in the best backwoods tradition, and Isaacs gets the intonation just right, breezy but straightfaced, leaving it for the kids to catch on. The homespun heroine herself, though wildly exaggerated in the text, acquires a humorously demure quality in Zelinsky's oil paintings on wood, which are dominated, naturally, by forest browns warmed with russet. Angelica's traditionally aproned dress, neat red braids, and sensible sunbonnet are spoofed by the largesse of her motions-also the largesse of her feet, always bare and offering considerable stability both for her outsize physique and for the grand sweep of the action-packed compositions. We've heard and made a lot of justifiable complaints lately about picture books with lavish illustration weakened by inconsequential texts. Well, here's one with GREAT BIG PICTURES and a GREAT BIG STORY. It's feminist and it's funny and it's supported by some of the subtlest effects in Zelinsky's noteworthy artistic repertoire. R*--Highly recommended as a book of special distinction. (c) Copyright 1994, The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois. 1994, Dutton, 40p, $14.99. Ages 5-8 yrs.
Horn Book (The Horn Book Guide, 1994)
An original creation in the tall-tale tradition, Isaacs' rip-roaring narrative tells of a pioneer woman's transformation into Swamp Angel, summarizes her developing abilities, and focuses on her greatest triumph: the defeat of a marauding bear. Zelinsky, working on cherry and maple veneers, has adapted elements of American folk art; his sense of line matches the exuberance of the text so that the effect is a seamless interpretation. Category: Fiction. 1994, Dutton, 40pp.. Ages 5 to 9. Rating: 2: Superior, well above average. ( )