I chose to do my storybook on American tall tales.  I think that this is a great topic for everyone to explore.  I have always been fascinated with American folklore and was thrilled about the opportunity to explore these stories more in depth. Tall tales are something that we are all familiar with. Tall tales are told by family, friends, and are studied in school.  American culture is filled with wonderful and fascinating folklore stories.  Some of the most enchanting of these stories are the tall tales.  There is a lot that can be learned about American history through our folklore.  While working on this project, I have learned that tall tales are even more wonderful than I had previously thought.

There are several stories that were particularly important for me to include. These are the stories of Paul Bunyan, John Henry, Johnny Appleseed, and Pecos Bill. These four characters are some of my favorites from childhood.  Some of my best memories are of singing songs about John Henry and learning all about apples on Johnny Appleseed day.  I also loved the wonderful stories I was told about Paul Bunyan his incredible appetite and his faithful blue ox Babe.  I chose to include a story about Gib Morgan, a lesser known tall tale figure.  The Gib Morgan character is very interesting and his story is fantastic.  I think it is important for people to hear about Gib Morgan, he deserves a place with the other greats of American tall tales.

I will be using a frametale to tell these stories.  I think that the use of the frametale pulls all of these stories together into a collection.  I chose to tell all of the stories from a first person point of view.  The narrator is an old cowboy in Texas telling his stories to a group of boy scouts.  This is quite a departure from most of the literature involving tall tales, which are told in third person.  I have also created a new character in each of the stories by having the narrator have personally known all of the wonderful tall tale characters.  In a way the narrator becomes a tall tale character himself, because it is impossible for him to have known all of these people.  Even though I designed this site with children in mind, I think that everyone young and old can enjoy the richness of American folklore, especially tall tales.