Thursday, May 12, 2011

Johnny Kaw: The Pioneer Spirit Of Kansas

If you like to read tall tales to your children, this one is right up there with Paul Bunyan and Pecos Bill.  In fact both of those well known tall tale heroes have a small part in this book.  If you live in Kansas, then you must read this.  Go find it at your library.  It "explains" all kinds of things about Kansas, like how some of the Kansas landscape and pioneer trails were formed, how sunflowers got started, where the jayhawk and wildcat came from, as well as their rivalry, and how catfish came to be.  I wish we could deal with tornadoes like Johnny Kaw did!

In the back of the book is an explanation of the writing of the book.  The original book was written for adults, then this picture book for children.  There is even a statue of Johnny Kaw in Manhattan, KS.  The illustrations in this book are in black and white, and are very humorous.  I'm glad I happened upon this book at our library.

*Disclaimer:  I did not receive anything for this unsolicited review, we just enjoyed this book (I think I did even more than the kids!) and wanted to share.  If you click on the link and buy anything at Amazon, I will receive a small commission.

2 comments:

Kansas Mom said...

Thank you for reposting this! I can't believe I haven't read this book before. I just requested it from the library. I'm always looking for Kansas books.

House of Brungardt said...

I didn't have to repost it, thank goodness. It came back by itself. Woo-hoo!