New York: J.B. Lippincott. ISBN: 0397315759.
This book is a collection of different tall tales, as the title implies. The stories are all short, ranging from a sentence at the least to about three pages max. The book includes stories with actual plots as well as one-liners. All of the stories are humorous. The majority of them consist of someone telling a crazy story that makes them look especially brave or strong or skilled in some area, which shows that these traits were important when these tales were created.
What’s interesting about this collection is the use of a more realistic dialect when the stories are being told in first person. For instance, there’s a line in one of the stories where the story teller says, “Seems like that bullet skittered over thar some way an’ split th’ limb they was a –settin’ on, an’ ketched their feet in th’crack!” This gives an oral quality to the writing. As I was reading, it was if I was actually listening to some old man sitting on his front porch telling this story.
I was surprised to find that I had never heard of the majority of these stories or one liners. One of the few I had heard of was “It rained so hard one day that people had to jump into the river to keep from drowning.”
The stories are so ridiculously funny and unbelievable that they will keep any child amused.
