American Tall Tales

GRADE 5
Lesson 13
WORD COUNT
000
959
GENRE
Expository
Rea ders’ Nonfiction
Thea ter
LEVEL
ELL
Harcourt Leveled
Readers Online Database
by Michael Sandler
illustrated by
ISBN-13: 978-0-15-350283-5 Marni Backer
ISBN-10: 0-15-350283-5
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by Michael Sandler
illustrated by Marni Backer
Copyright © by Harcourt, Inc.
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Printed in Mexico
ISBN 10: 0-15-350283-5

ISBN 13: 978-0-15-350283-5
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A baby burps. The sound is so loud it blows
the roof off a house. A woman floats down a
river. She is not in a boat. She is not swimming.
She is riding on top of a fish. A man grows tall.
He grows taller than the tallest trees.
Could any of these events happen in real
life? No, of course they could not. Are they
scenes from a new cartoon? Again, the answer
is no. These are all old stories. They come from
American tall tales.

Tall tales have been around for hundreds of
years. Tall tales are stories about unbelievable
events and characters. People told these stories
to entertain others before television was invented.
Many of these stories started in the 1800s.
The United States was changing during this time.
People were moving west. They were clearing
forests. They were exploring the wilderness. They
were building railroads. The tall tales that people
told were about these activities.

Most tall tales were alike in several ways. The
stories were usually full of humor. They were
meant to make people laugh. The stories were
told in everyday speech. Fancy language wasn’t
part of a tall tale.
Each tall tale usually had a hero who did a
specific job. These heroes got their reputations
by doing their jobs better than anyone else.

Most importantly, tall tales had lots of
exaggeration. For example, the characters often
weren’t like normal people. If the characters were
big—they were huge. If they were strong—they
could lift up mountains. Let’s look at some famous
heroes of American tall tales.

Paul Bunyan
Few tales are “taller” than the stories of
Paul Bunyan. Paul Bunyan was a lumberjack.
A lumberjack is someone who cuts down trees.
Lots of trees were being cut down during the
early 1800s. Forests were being cleared to make
way for farms. Wood was needed to build homes.
Today tree cutting is done with machines. In those
days, tree cutting was done by hand. Lumberjacks
swung heavy axes. Nobody could swing an axe
like Paul Bunyan.

Paul Bunyan stories were full of exaggeration
like all tall tales. Bunyan wasn’t normal. He was
superhuman in many ways. He was extremely big,
even as a child.
At a week old, this hero wore his father’s
clothes. Baby Paul Bunyan had powerful lungs.
Fish would jump out of streams when he started to
cry. Paul Bunyan grew even larger as an adult. He
used wagon wheels as shirt buttons. He was so big
that his footprints made huge holes in the ground.
They filled up with rain and turned into lakes. One
story was about how Paul Bunyan created the
Grand Canyon. He did it by dragging his axe in
the ground.

Most tales also include Paul Bunyan’s pet. His
pet was a big blue ox named Babe. Babe was
nearly as big as Paul Bunyan.
It took birds a whole day to fly between the two
horns on Babe’s head. Of course, it took a lot of
food to feed a pet of this size. Babe ate 2,000
pounds (907 kg) of grain in a meal. Afterward,
Babe was still hungry.

Sally Ann Thunder Ann Whirlwind
One tall tale features a woman named Sally
Ann Thunder Ann Whirlwind. She was born in
Tennessee. Sally was very strong and intelligent.
She was also fearless. She could fight an alligator.
She wore a hornets’ nest as a hat on Sundays.
10

A man named Mike Fink wanted to test Sally’s
courage. Mike didn’t think Sally was as fearless as
she said she was. One day he dressed up in the
skin of an alligator. He hid in some bushes. When
Sally walked past, Mike jumped out. He started
growling loudly. He showed her his claws.
Sally wasn’t scared, though. She took out a
toothpick that she carried with her all the time.
She knocked the alligator’s head off of Mike Fink.
Sally realized that Mike Fink was trying to trick
her! She punished him. Mike never tried to scare
Sally again!
11

John Henry
A third famous hero was a railway worker
named John Henry. In the 1800s, railroads were
a growing part of American life. Track was being
laid from New York to California.
Railroads had to pass through mountains.
Workers built tunnels through them to make
way for the track. The work was hard. Workers
pounded holes into the rock using sledge-
hammers. Sticks of dynamite were
placed in the holes. Rock was blown up
and hauled away. The process was
repeated until the tunnel
was completed.
12

John Henry was one of these workers. Like
most tall tale characters, he could do his job
better than anyone else. He was incredibly
strong and determined. No one tunneled faster
than he did.
Unlike most tall tales, the most famous John
Henry story isn’t filled with funny events. The
story is serious and has a tragic ending. John
Henry battled a machine. The machine was a
steam drill. It was built to drill holes faster than
a man could.
John Henry said that he and his sledgehammer
were faster than the machine. They had a contest.
John Henry won the contest. Afterward, however,
John Henry died. Beating the machine had made
him so tired that it killed him.
13

Tall Tales Today
Tall tales may be old, but people still tell these
kinds of stories today. Action movies and comic
books are filled with stories that could never
happen in real life. The abilities of the heroes
are often exaggerated, as in tall tales. As long as
people enjoy superheroes, the spirit of tall tales
will never die.
14

To
t
he
ea
Scaffolded Language Development
T
ch
er
U SING THE WORD SO Review with students the following
sentences from the selection:
The sound is so loud it blows the roof off a house. (page 3)

He was so big that his footprints made huge holes in the
ground. (page 8)
Ask students what these sentences have in common. If

necessary, point out that both have the word so. When so
is combined with an adjective, as in the above sentences, it
shows an extreme degree of some quality. Model reading the
sentences with emphasis on the word so.
For practice, have students make up endings to complete the

following sentence starters:
1. Paul Bunyan was so tall _______________.

2. Babe the Ox was so big ________________.
3. Pecos Bill was so wild _________________.
4. John Henry was so strong _____________.
Social Studies
Railway Time Line Help students find out about the history
of railways in the United States. When was the first railway
across the United States completed? Have students make a
time line of important events in railway history in the United
States.
School-Home Connection
Tall Tales at Home: Share this story with a family
member. Ask them for tips on how to best tell a story to a
group of people.
Word Count: 959

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GRADE 5

Copyright © by Harcourt, Inc.

ISBN 10: 0-15-350283-5

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The sound is so loud it blows the roof off a house. (page 3)

Ask students what these sentences have in common. If

For practice, have students make up endings to complete the

1. Paul Bunyan was so tall _______________.

RXENL08ARD5E13_ELL.indd 15 10/28/06 12:55:06 AM

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