Paul Bunyan

 

Paul Bunyan by Darryl Wimberley    262 pages

As I was reading this enhanced tale of logger Paul Bunyan and his blue ox, Babe, I wondered if kids still learn about these mythological beings. It wouldn’t surprise to me discover that they don’t. How sad for them.

What author Wimberley has done is take the legend and invent a life behind it, filling in all the details. As the story starts, in 1920, an older Paul wants to have a will created. Oh, he has a few worldly possessions and that’s not why he wants this document. According to Paul, it’s “what a man wants fold to remember ‘bout hisself.”  I had to laugh when the narrator said that Paul was old.  That he didn’t know what was old for a lumberjack…thirty or forty… but Paul was older.

Paul’s story starts out simply: “I am a child of the forest.” I think that simple sentence is so profound, considering that Paul spent his entire life in the wilderness. Readers get a glimpse of how Wimberley imagined Paul’s life, from when he was found as a child until he was working his last log jam.

Wimberley provides lots of logging history, which I thoroughly enjoyed, and the descriptions of the forest, logging camps, log jams, cutting the trees, and more will stay with me a long time.

I do have one complaint about the novel and that is its lack of tension. I didn’t feel the sense of urgency/dangerousness in some situations, like unplugging a log jam. And that’s why  “Paul Bunyan” get 4 out of 5 stars in Julie’s world.