Steven Kellogg

In a small village in Maine, a gigantic baby is born with the soul of a lumberjack. He good-heartedly terrorizes the neighbors so his family moves to the midwest, where he can jack lumber to his heart’s content. He finds a calf in a snowstorm, blue from cold, and names her Babe. Paul and Babe grow up together into legend, shaping North America as we know it, both by chopping down forests and just generally being giant.

I have a very different relationship to US mythology now than I did when show more I last read this as a little kid. I never believed they were true, nor that they were a sign of American supremacy, but as an adult I can see them more clearly for the propaganda they are. The visuals of entire forests being leveled is quite shocking, and there’s no mention at all of the Native people already living in the places Paul Bunyan travels to, nor the rampant slavery going on in the lower half of the United States. The real myth is white ownership of the entire continent.

The book is very fun to read. Kellogg’s illustrations are delightful and goofy and so imaginative, and there’s nothing in the book that is more harmful than the myth itself. But I hesitate to introduce the concept of Paul Bunyan in general to yet another generation. show less

I highly recommend any book written by or illustrated by Steven Kellogg, and the Pinkerton series is my favorite. The stories are zany fun and the detailed pictures are wonderful. I just wish I had a grandchild to go over them to point out each funny part in the pictures.

In this book the little girl for homework is supposed to go on a field trip and identify ten different birds and mammals. She takes along her mom, Pinkerton the Great Dane, and her cat (pets off leash, so what could go show more wrong?).

The first thing they see is a scarlet tanager. As a bird fan that has me wanting to go on a quest to see one, but I see they only migrate from South America through North Carolina on their way to places further north. And they migrate at night! Sigh, good to have things to work at.

Anyway, it just so happens as it often does that a hunting school lands their balloon with a group of hunters in the path of Pinkerton's group. The side of the basket on the balloon reads 'Dr Aleasha Kibble's Fox Hunting Academy. The hunters set up funny signs to keep people away, like one that reads 'leave at once. Go Away. BEAT IT. TAKE OFF!' Somehow Pinkerton and the scarlet tanager wind up in the balloon and it gets untethered.

Meanwhile the one lady is teaching the other 3 about the types of foxes and tells the girl 'We can't be bothered by stray animals. We're looking for the noble red fox. The dogs and hunters take off after Rose the cat, shoot up the tree the cat is in, hit the balloon, have the dog fall on them making them exclaim 'It's an invasion from outer space. Run for your lives!'

Fortunately everyone is unhurt, and the hunters go off to hunt and find a 'very rare striped fox.'

Great fun story, but you need to get your hands on the book to see the amazingly great pictures to go with the story. show less

Steven Kellogg recounts the tales of Paul Bunyan more or less as we've all heard or read them before, but his illustrations are clever, full of detail, and add a lot to the story. For instance, the crew of bacon-shod griddle greasers is two hockey teams -- the Boston Brooms (hahaha) and the Minnesota Mops, complete with the pre-breakfast lumberjacks in the bleachers cheering on their teams, each team using the implement of their name, and a sweating umpire. The fun continues all the way to show more the rear endpaper, which shows a map of North America illustrated with Paul's exploits. This is by far my favourite rendition of the Paul Bunyan story.

My Italian grandchildren thought the story was freaky. Cultural differences! show less

Love anything by Steven Kellogg, especially his Pinkerton (the Great Dane) series. This is not my favorite but still great fun. Especially love all the kids in home made looking dinosaur costumes. The strengths in this and his other books is zany stories that lead up to fun mayhem and detailed illustrations that is fun to pour over details.

In this book Pinkerton is teething and they make fun of a big dog doing destruction to all the things he chews on. At one point he is chewing on the show more neighbors tree that also happens to be a tree holding up the hammock the neighbor is lounging in. He says:

'That's not a Great Dane puppy, it's a giant beaver!

A little later the the little girl has to go off to the Dinosaur museum. She realizes:

'Yikes! There's no way I can leave you here alone. I'll have to hide you in the stegosaurus costume and take you to the museum.'

You will need to read the book to see the mayhem that happens. show less