Shooting Star - Softcover

Kindergarten-Grade 4. Annie Oakley is the subject of a number of biographies for early readers. This visually arresting story lifts her out of biography and into legend and tall tale. The folksy text and vibrant full-page illustrations, while remaining true to the facts of her life, exaggerate her remarkable skills and create a heroine as confident and brave as Anne Isaacs and Paul Zelinsky's wholly imaginary Swamp Angel (Dutton, 1994). From childhood, Oakley could spit bullets, hunt game, and shoot straight. She got hitched to the famous marksman Frank Butler, traveled to Europe with Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show, and won every contest with her unbelievable shooting skills. It took a wagonload of powder, but she even met Sitting Bull's challenge to knock the points off a star and hit the moon (three craters were added), making her the best shot in the whole universe. Still, she never forgot her poor and humble beginnings and, until she died and became a shooting star herself, she helped children in need. Goto's exuberant, energetic, and subtly comical illustrations are perfectly matched to Dadey's rollicking tongue-in-cheek tall tale. The final page contains "The Truth" about the life of this remarkable woman, but there is truth, too, in the legendary quality of Oakley's exploits. A great book for reading aloud or for introducing children to a colorful historic figure.?Shirley Wilton, Ocean County College, Toms River, NJ
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

A picture-book version of Annie Oakley's life that wavers between a fairly straight telling of the few known facts and tall-tale exaggerations that are both forced and silly. As a baby, Annie is described as spitting bullets out of her cradle at the tin roof of the barn, frightening the cows so bad that Pa has to move the structure 15 miles down the road. A few years later, Annie hunts for food for the family, and pays off the farm debt after her father dies. Covered are her marriage to Frank Butler, her trip to Europe with Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show, her meeting Queen Victoria, her outshooting Grand Duke Michael of Russia, and her legendary generosity. Mixed into those events are the tall-tale yarns, when she shot craters in the moon and blasted the points off a distant star. It's a hybrid approach, leaving readers without a real sense of what a genuine star Annie was. In his first book, Goto's glossy paintings, technically proficient, follow the bent of the story and also straddle realism and cartoon buffoonery, with limited success. He makes a burlesque of the facial expressions of Annie's audience, whose uniform astonishment begins to look static. (Picture book. 5-8) -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.