Davy Crockett Saves the World
In this two-million-mile tall tale (praised to the skies by National  Public Radio commentator and children's book author Daniel Pinkwater), famed  American frontiersman Davy Crockett saves the planet, is elected to Congress,  and gets the girlanda coonskin cap. Rosalyn Schanzer's outrageous story  was inspired by a series of 19th-century comic almanacs about Crockett, source  of wildly embellished legend: "Why, Davy could whip ten times his weight in  wildcats and drink the Mississippi River dry." Here, Davy Crockett is called  upon by the president to wring the tail off Halley's comet--"the biggest,  baddest ball of fire and ice and brimstone ever to light up the heavens"--which  is hurling itself toward America. One look at Davy, with his chiseled face and  gigantic muscles bursting out of his buckskins, and the reader will know the  comet hasn't got a chance. Schanzer, whose love of American history is also  revealed inHow We Crossed the  WestandGold  Fever!, has a mighty grip on the folksy language and rhythm of the tall  tale. After all, "every single word is true, unless it is false." (Ages 5 to 9)--Emilie Coulter