Paul Bunyan: The Invention of an American Legend
by Noah Van Sciver (Author) Noah Van Sciver (Illustrator)
Did you know that a mainstay of American folk culture was in fact created as an advertising ploy?
Few people realize that Paul Bunyan, the legendary lumberjack, and his blue ox are the product of corporate marketing by a highly industrialized commercial enterprise.
Cartoonist Noah Van Sciver shows us the myth creation as real life marketing man extraordinaire W.B. Laughead spins ever more wondrous tall tales. Van Sciver's story is bracketed by rich contributions from contemporary Native artists and storytellers with a very different connection to the land that the Bunyan myths often conceal.
Readers will see how a lumberjack hero, a quintessential American fantasy, captures the imagination but also serves to paper over the seizure of homeland from First Peoples and the laying bare of America's northern forests. It's a tall tale with deep roots . . . in profit-making!
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Van Sciver (As a Cartoonist, for adults) and Spirit Lake Dakota/Mohegan/Muscogee member Myles (Thanku) dismantle the Paul Bunyan legend by forefronting the Indigenous foundations and sensationalist propaganda upon which the tale was founded in this enlightening graphic novel. Soft washes of watercolor, marker, and heavy ink render the tale over a single winter day in 1914 Minnesota when, during an unexpected train delay, a pale-skinned lumber advertising executive regales fellow travelers with a swiftly spun yarn of Paul Bunyan. The creators recall the story as it is most widely known, detailing how a giant lumberjack and his equally enormous blue pet ox became "a hero to all the other lumbermen." But rather than applause, the telling is met with audience derision: "Look at it now! Our land laid bare! And his PAUL BUNYAN is responsible for this!" Van Sciver and Myles present a frank and accessible depiction of the environmental and economic impact of boom-bust industries such as clear-cutting logging, particularly on Indigenous peoples, that formed the underpinnings of early American expansion westward, and how the Bunyan fiction perpetuated these systems. Essays by Pueblo of Laguna member Lee Francis and Deondre Smiles, of the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe, feature throughout, providing contextual and historical information for the brief tale. Ages 7-up. (Aug.)
Copyright 2023 Publishers Weekly, LLC Used with permission.Review quotes
the Minneapolis Institute of Art, The Red Cloud Heritage Center, and the Minnesota Museum of American Art, to name a few. She enjoys using the land as a teacher to share with Minnesotans of all backgrounds the Indigenous history of this place we all call home. She runs her own Dakota publishing company, Wíyouŋkihipi (We Are Capable) Productions, to create a wider platform that educates and honors the culture, language, and history of Dakota people. She currently lives in St. Paul, Minnesota. Lee Francis IV is the Executive Director of Native Realities, an Indigenous Imagination organization that seeks to engage and inspire Indigenous youth and communities through pop culture media and culturally dynamic programming. Dr. Francis also founded the Indigenous Comic Con (now IndigiPop Expo) and opened Red Planet Books and Comics, the first Native comic shop in the world, in 2017. He received his Ph.D. in Education from Texas State University and currently resides in North Carolina with his family. Dr. Deondre Smiles is an assistant professor in the Department of Geography at the University of Victoria, BC, Canada. He is of Ojibwe, Black, and Swedish descent and is a proud citizen of the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe. Dr. Smiles's interests are many and include Indigenous geographies, human-environment interactions, and Indigenous cultural resource management and preservation. He serves as the principal investigator for the Geographic Indigenous Futures Collaboratory, one of Western Canada's first Indigenous geographies-focused labs.
JNF052030 - Juvenile Nonfiction | Social Science | Folklore & Mythology
JNF062020 - Juvenile Nonfiction | Comics & Graphic Novels | History
United States
Graphic novels
Historical comics
Logging
Bunyan, Paul
