School Library Journal Review

Gr 2-5-This original tall tale introduces readers to Paul Bunyan's little sister, "tall as a pine tree and strong as a dozen moose," who leaves for the North Woods, a wilderness big enough to contain her and her window-shattering singing voice. There she tames a black bear "seven feet tall," teaches a pair of wolves to sing along with her, and devises an ingenious plan to stop lumberjacks from logging all the trees. Consistent with the genre, both the text and illustrations abound with exaggerated humor. Paula's parents send her off with a little snack of "two hundred and fifty-three loaves of bread, over a dozen wheels of cheese, several bushels of apples, twenty gallons of cider, and a barrel each of salt and pepper" to tide her over. O'Malley's white-framed, woodcutlike pictures, heavily outlined with intricate line shading, appear throughout this appropriately tall book. Sweeping panoramic views, Paula's thunderous voice depicted in large speech bubbles, bear-carrying mosquitoes, comical animal expressions, and energetic black-and-white drawings add to the fun. The timely environmental message is an added plus. Pair the escapades of this larger-than-life heroine with those of Steven Kellogg's Sally Ann Thunder Ann Whirlwind Crockett (HarperCollins, 1995) for a fun-filled read-aloud session.-Marianne Saccardi, formerly at Norwalk Community College, CT (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.