Starred Review for Kirkus Reviews (Fri Jul 28 00:00:00 CDT 2023)

The Paul Bunyan tall tale gets felled.In the winter of 1914, a steam locomotive chugs along through Minnesota until an accident halts the journey. The passengers-diverse in skin tone-exit the train and gather around a fire. Soon, stories start flowing to pass the time-tales of larger-than-life strong men Joe Mufferaw, Otto Walta, and George Knox. But these "small fry" are nothing compared to Paul Bunyan, who a timber advertising executive alleges "shaped this land himself." As the details about Bunyan get more and more outlandish, some listeners cry "malarkey." Others remain rapt. As the tracks are cleared and the crowds die down, a few passengers confront the executive with the truth: The timber industry's success comes at the cost of land stolen from Native Nations, and the Bunyan legend was a carefully constructed marketing ploy to justify the razing of trees. The introduction and backmatter delve more deeply into the myth and include multiple contemporary Native perspectives; young people are urged to "acknowledge…those who actually were living on that land," and a map charts villages, burial mounds, and sacred sites of the Mdewakanton Dakota. Readers will come away ready to question what other falsehoods they've been fed about the history of marginalized people. Full-color illustrations effectively use smoke cloud panel borders to delineate the tall tales. A heightened sense of scale makes Bunyan practically leap off the page in grandeur.An accessible and important reminder of how easily the truth can be co-opted. (bibliography) (Graphic nonfiction. 8-12)

ALA Booklist (Wed Sep 06 00:00:00 CDT 2023)

Most Americans know the story of Paul Bun­yan, but few know that the stories were in part created by an ad executive named W. B. Laughead, who used these tall tales to encourage logging and, consequently, the removal of Indigenous people and the mass deforestation of their lands. Van Sciver tells this tale by featuring Laughead on a stalled train, telling some of the more famous Bunyan tales, while a few open-minded passengers explain to him the reality and harm of the situation. While the combined cartoon and folk art styles work well to capture the giant lore of Paul Bunyan, it seems like a missed opportunity that the exposition scenes, in which Laughead is confronted with the result of his actions, focus primarily on character reactions. Pithy back matter fills in some of those gaps with some great context about the history of Indigenous people in the region and the impact of clear-cut logging, though more information about the origin of Laughead's mythmaking would have been helpful. A mighty attempt to take on a giant topic of forgotten history.

Kirkus Reviews (Fri Oct 04 00:00:00 CDT 2024)

The Paul Bunyan tall tale gets felled.In the winter of 1914, a steam locomotive chugs along through Minnesota until an accident halts the journey. The passengers-diverse in skin tone-exit the train and gather around a fire. Soon, stories start flowing to pass the time-tales of larger-than-life strong men Joe Mufferaw, Otto Walta, and George Knox. But these "small fry" are nothing compared to Paul Bunyan, who a timber advertising executive alleges "shaped this land himself." As the details about Bunyan get more and more outlandish, some listeners cry "malarkey." Others remain rapt. As the tracks are cleared and the crowds die down, a few passengers confront the executive with the truth: The timber industry's success comes at the cost of land stolen from Native Nations, and the Bunyan legend was a carefully constructed marketing ploy to justify the razing of trees. The introduction and backmatter delve more deeply into the myth and include multiple contemporary Native perspectives; young people are urged to "acknowledge…those who actually were living on that land," and a map charts villages, burial mounds, and sacred sites of the Mdewakanton Dakota. Readers will come away ready to question what other falsehoods they've been fed about the history of marginalized people. Full-color illustrations effectively use smoke cloud panel borders to delineate the tall tales. A heightened sense of scale makes Bunyan practically leap off the page in grandeur.An accessible and important reminder of how easily the truth can be co-opted. (bibliography) (Graphic nonfiction. 8-12)