Although the stories are written for children in elementary and middle schools, the hardbacks are filled with so many interesting facts and such incredibly detailed artwork that they appeal to all ages. What she does: If learning about American history never tickled your fancy, you haven’t read one of Rosalyn Schanzer’s illustrated picture books. (author’s note) (Picture book.Who she is: Children’s book author and illustrator After turning tornadoes into much-needed rain clouds, Rose rides away, “that mighty, mighty song pressing on the bull’s-eye that was set at the center of her heart.” Throughout, she shows a reflective bent that gives her more dimension than most tall-tale heroes: a doff of the Stetson to her and her creators. Though she carries a twisted iron rod as dark as her skin and ropes clouds with fencing wire, Rose overcomes her greatest challenge-a pair of rampaging twisters-not with strength, but with a lullaby her parents sang. Decked out in full cowboy gear and oozing self-confidence from every pore, Rose cuts a diminutive, but heroic figure in Nelson’s big, broad Western scenes. Shortly after being born one stormy night, Rose thanks her parents, picks a name, and gathers lightning into a ball-all of which is only a harbinger of feats to come. Nolen and Nelson offer a smaller, but no less gifted counterpart to Big Jabe (2000) in this new tall tale. Davy does such a fine job that he wins a seat in Congress, plus the hand of apple-cheeked Sally Sugartree-whose own dustups get an equally vigorous recap in Steven Kellogg’s Sally Ann Thunder Ann Whirlwind Crockett (1995), a natural companion piece.
Stopping short of caricature, these folksy critters suit the aw-shucks language perfectly in this original tale. Depicted as a clean-shaven, strong-jawed, Rambo-esque figure in form-fitting buckskins, Davy cuts a truly admirable figure likewise, the Earthbound comet, with its glaring red eyes and sharklike teeth, makes a suitably ferocious-looking adversary.
Using one-fourth of each two-paged spread for text, Schanzer fills the rest with softly colored figures who turn robust as the battle begins. Called from the backwoods to save the world, Davy takes on Halley’s comet itself, battling the onrushing juggernaut over land and sea, and sending it hurtling back the way it came, tail (figuratively) between its legs. Vowing that “every single word is true, unless it is false,” Schanzer ( Escaping to America, 2000, etc.) relates an American hero’s greatest feat.
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