Mountain Men: True Grit and Tall Tales

Glass, Andrew

ISBN 10: 0385908415 ISBN 13: 9780385908412

Publisher: Doubleday Books for Young Readers, 2001

Synopsis

In 1804, Lewis and Clark set out to find the fabled Northwest Passage to the Pacific, mounting the first expedition across the uncharted territory of President Jefferson's Louisiana Purchase. Though they never found the nonexistent Northwest Passage-or the lost tribes of Israel, rumored to be living in the Great American Desert-they did discover that the entire region west of the Mississippi was swarming with beaver. And so began the American fur trade, as the first tough trappers headed out to make their fortunes in beaver pelts.

These pages are peopled by the legendary mountain men, those rough-and-ready fortune hunters, trailblazers, and storytellers who proudly claimed to have invented the American tall tale. Here are the true stories of their lives, how they worked to trap beaver, the hardships they faced in the wilderness; and here, too, are many of the gaudiest lies ever told about a West that will never again be so remote or so exotic.
From the Hardcover edition.

About this title

About the Author:

Andrew Glass is the author-illustrator of Folks Call Me Appleseed John, The Sweetwater Run, and Bad Guys.
From the Hardcover edition.

From Publishers Weekly:

Glass (Bad Guys) serves up another slice of rough-and-ready Americana with this rootin'-tootin' tribute to the fur trappers and frontiersmen of the Old West. "Mother Nature, they said, stretched the truth taller and wider in the Rocky Mountains, just naturally making grand liars out of ordinary frontier yarn spinners," he writes. He proves the point with profiles of seven mountain men, spotlighting exploits both real and imaginary. There are grizzly encounters, cabin fever-inspired brawls and brushes with death, as well as outrageous yarns about horses that jump across canyons in their sleep. One particularly blithe raconteur claimed to have been dangled over a precipice by a giant Blackfoot: "At this point in his story, Jim would hesitate... until some greenhorn demanded impatiently, `Well, what happened?' Then Jim Bridger... would reply simply, `I got kilt!' " Explanations of the Louisiana Purchase, the Lewis and Clark expedition and the fur trade orient readers at the beginning of the book; at the end, readers will enjoy the pictorial list of "mountain man necessaries" and the glossary, which identifies such terms as "porkeater" (greenhorn) and "didins" (food). Glass's language fairly bristles with color, and his busy, rough-hewn style complements the hyperbolic humor of the vignettes without sacrificing a hold on realism. Ages 8-12.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Doubleday Books for Young Readers
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0385908415
• ISBN 13: 9780385908412
• Binding: Library Binding
• Number of pages: 48
• Illustrator: Glass Andrew