Houghton Mifflin Books for Children, 2011
HC $18.99
40 pgs.
Rating: 4.5
Endpapers: Silver-gray
Illustrations Brown & white, most of them squared off
Lots of text
Author’s note: full page at end of book
Title page: 3 X 5 illustrations of a barrel in foaming water
First line/s: Imagine being as small as a flea, standing on a sidewalk next to an open fire hydrant. This is how visitors to the waterfalls at Niagara feel. The water drops from a height that is as tall as a seventeen-story building, roaring like a locomotive and sending up an endless cloud of mist as it crashes onto the rocks and water below.
Setting: Niagara Falls, 1901
OSS: The true story of how Annie Edson Taylor was the first person to ride a wooden barrel over Niagara Falls and survive.
First of all, how cool to have found someone with such an interesting story that had never really been told – or heard – by most of the general public. Apparently this prim and proper senior citizen cooked up this scheme to earn herself enough money to live through her senior years. And , unfortunately, it never made her any money! So here’s the story. Very different from VanAllsburg’s usual tales of magic and wonder. Nice writing and still-magical trademark illustrations.
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