Paul Bunyun

An American Folk Tale

The story of Paul Bunyan is a tall tale about a boy that was born very tall and very big. Paul was so tall and large that when he rolled over in his crib at night the ground would shake. The people in town would think an earthquake was occurring. This made the community angry with Paul’s parents. His father decided to put his crib in the lake so he would not shake the ground and make the people in town angry. When he was asleep in the lake he rolled over and caused waves to wash over the town. His parents decided to move Paul into the woods. Paul helps his father cut down trees. Paul is extremely good at cutting down trees because he has the strength of several men. In the story, Paul finds a blue, baby ox in the snow. He names the ox Babe. Babe grows extremely large like Paul. Paul uses Babe to help carry the logs. Paul and Babe leave Maine and go West to look for work in other forests. Paul had to dig out the Great Lake so that Babe could have drinking water. They settled in a camp near the Onion River in Minnesota. Paul gathered together a crew of lumberjacks to help him clear the forest. Babe, the blue ox, died in South Dakota. Today the burial place is known as the black hills. There are many different stories about what happened to Paul Bunyan.


Paul Bunyan is a tall  tale that is meant to entertain the reader. Paul Bunyan has taken on super-human qualities with his size and strength. His axe is told to have created the Grand Canyon and he "rolled over so much in his sleep that he caused an earthquake." Tall tales are usually highly exaggerated legends. This is because when a story is retold many times, details tend to get more exaggerated each time. A motif in this story is the larger than life character. Paul Bunyan is super-sized and like no other man. He has accomplished things that no ordinary man can.
This story is a classic American folk tale. Of course a giant man with unbound strength and a booming voice created America's most famous landforms. As tall tales go, this is not my favorite. It is a fun read, but when reading, it seemed a little slow. I read many variations of the story, but was not as engaged as I expected to be. (Britani)

"Casey at Bat" by Ernest Thayer

For the baseball lovers, "Casey at Bat" by Ernest Thayer is a fun poem to read. It's a poem about a baseball player, Casey, who is being cheered on by the fans in the stadium. The fans waited in anxious anticipation for each player to successfully get on base so that Casey could bring them home. With the score down by two, Casey not only had to bring his two fellow players home but himself to win the game. Casey, as well as the fans, had complete confidence that he would be able to put the bat to the ball and get everyone to home plate safely. Casey's confidence was a little misplaced because with two strikes  already on him, he swung on the third pitch and STRUCK OUT!!!! Ouch!!! That has got to hurt.

This was a fun poem to read. Being a fan of baseball, I expected Casey to bust the baseball out of the ballpark resulting in his team winning. I liked how Ernest Thayer used rhyming to keep the poem flowing. For example: "to the wonderment of all....... tore the cover off the ball." Ernest Thayer also used personification when saying that the yells of the fans "pounded on the mountain" and "the score stood four to two." There was two onomatopoeias such as "whack" and "roar" but did I expect a lot more since it was a poem about baseball.