Swamp Angel (Caldecott Honor Book) - Hardcover

Isaacs, Anne

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0525452710 ISBN 13: 9780525452713

Publisher: Dutton Books for Young Readers, 1994

Synopsis

Working in an American primitive style animated by the humor and storytelling genius for which he is renowned, Caldecott Winner artist Paul O. Zelinsky puts oils to cherry and maple for this tall-tale competition between a Tennessee woods-woman extraordinaire and a hungry, fearsome bear.Thundering Tarnation has a bottomless appetite for settler's grub. When word goes out about a competition to hunt this four-legged forest of stubble, a young woman, second to none in buckskin bravery, signs up. "How about baking a pie, Angel?" the other hunters taunt. "I aim to," says Swamp Angel. "A bear pie."What follows is as witty a round of roughhousing as ever jostled the ranks of Americana. Anne Isaacs' original text unfolds in a crackling combination of irony, exaggeration, and bold image-making. Zelinsky's paintings respond with deft yet hilarious expressions, rhythmic shapes, and a sense of monumental motion, as benefits a heroine who can wield a tornado like a lasso, drink a lake dry, and snore down a forest. In the course of these grand shenanigans, the Great Smoky Mountains are stirred up, Montana's short-grass prairie laid down, and Thundering Tarnation's fate proves to have no less a reach than the starry heavens.Swamp Angel marks the debut of a promising new storyteller and adds to the tall-tale traditions a pictorial counterpart that will entertain and endure for a long time to come.

About this title

Review

On the day of her birth, nothing about Angelica Longrider suggested that she would one day become the greatest woodswoman of Tennessee. In fact, the newborn was "scarcely taller than her mother and couldn't climb a tree without help." It's not long, though, before Angelica is vanquishing varmints such as Thundering Tarnation, a huge bear with a taste for settlers' winter rations, and swallowing entire lakes in a gulp.

This tallest of tall tales is an original from an intriguing newcomer to children's books, Anne Isaacs. In the tradition of Paul Bunyan and Pecos Bill, the story of a self-sufficient, tornado-wielding, unflappable heroine lopes along at a perfect pace. Paul O. Zelinsky's folksy oil illustrations are painted on cherry, maple, or birch veneers, with old-fashioned frames; the extravagant and fanciful paintings have garnered the distinguished illustrator yet another Caldecott Honor. (Zelinsky has already received one Caldecott Medal for Rapunzel and two Caldecott Honors for Hansel and Gretel and Rumpelstiltskin.) The dry and fantastically far-fetched humor of the author-illustrator team will make readers of all ages feel as though Angelica herself has tossed 'em in the air so high that they are still on the way up at nightfall. (Ages 4 and older) --Emilie Coulter

From the Publisher

SWAMP ANGEL LIST OF AWARDS AND HONORS

1994 Caldecott Honor Book 1995 Boston Globe-Horn Book Honor Book 1994 ALA Notable Book New York Times Best Illustrated Books of 1994 School Library Journal Best Books of 1994 Booklist Children's Editors Choices 1994 Publisher's Weekly Best Books of 1994 NCSS--Children's Book Center "Notable" list--Social Studies, 1995 The Bulletin, Blue Ribbon Book, 1994 The Horn Book Fanfare, 1994 Time Magazine's 8 Best Children's Books, 1994 Parenting Magazine Reading-Magic Award, 10 Best Books of 1994 Child Study Children's Book Committee--Children's Book of the Year list 1995 Notable Trade Book in Language Arts, National Council of Teachers of English 1995 New York Book Show (2 awards, Cover and Book categories)

About this edition

• Publisher: Dutton Books for Young Readers
• Publication date: 1994
• ISBN 10: 0525452710
• ISBN 13: 9780525452713
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 48
• Illustrator: Zelinsky Paul O.