As daredevils go, Annie Edson Taylor is one of the most fascinating. Depicted here as a genial gray-haired woman in her sixties, her decision to be the first person over Niagara Falls in a barrel was a gobsmackingly strange way to stave off the poorhouse. But her idea took off like, well, a barrel over a waterfall, and soon she had designed a padded barrel with an anvil base, corked airhole, and outer straps for retrieval. On October 24, 1901, Taylor made the plunge while crowds lined up to watch. She survived and fame was hers ough an all-too-short final page describes how wealth continued to elude her. Allen's telling is swift and exciting, presenting Taylor mostly as an enigma but providing just the right mix of technical, historical, and emotional detail. Fields' pale-palette paintings are most effective during cutaways to show the barrel's construction and Taylor's wincing expression as she braces for the fall. Pair with Chris Van Allsburg's Queen of the Falls (2011) for a somewhat more expansive middle-grade take on Taylor.

K-Gr 3 This picture-book biography tells the story of Annie Edson Taylor, the first person to tumble over Niagara Falls in a barrel. Afraid of becoming destitute and landing in the poorhouse, Taylor came up with the idea of going over the falls as a way to earn fame and fortune, envisioning people paying to hear her speak and see the barrel that made the trip. The writing swings between rhythmic and pedestrian, occasionally offering up fun lines that read aloud well, and then falling back into a more factual, dry recounting of events. Uneven amounts of detail may leave young readers or listeners wondering what a poorhouse is, or why Taylor was so close to poverty, but the specifics about the design of the barrel will answer questions that students always think about in these kinds of adventure stories. While the colorful artwork certainly gives visual adornment to the unfolding drama, it does very little to advance the narrative or enhance the text in any way, the major exception being the illustration of the barrel design, which is enormously helpful for students who may need something extra to picture exactly how Taylor fit in it. Chris Van Allsburg's Queen of the Falls (Houghton Harcourt, 2011) is a much better choice on the same topic. Jody Kopple, Shady Hill School, Cambridge, MA