Fiction Readers: Paul Bunyan: A Very Tall Tale

Paul Bunyan: A Very Tall Tale is a tale about a very large and tall man. Paul was loud and strong and eventually became a logger. He became very tired and put up signs to seek help from other loggers. One day a man showed up with a steam saw. He showed Paul how much faster he could log trees. Paul and his blue ox left but are rumored to still live among the mountains! The story is narrated with dialogue, illustrations and illustrative text. 

Paul Bunyan: A Very Tall Tale is a simple narrative story. Illustrations match the text. Draw students’ attention to the visual features including the layout and design of the story as well as the illustrative text (italics). 

Readers develop vocabulary such as transitional words (after that), verbs (tired) and adjectives (traveled). Opportunities arise to discuss apostrophes within contractions (can’t), capital letters at the beginning of sentences and names (Arizona), quotation marks, exclamation marks, and commas. Focus on suffix ed (dragged). 

This title is from the Fiction Readers series from Teacher Created Materials. Stimulate the imagination and promote creative thinking through real-world themes captured in entertaining stories.