Pecos Bill: A Tall Tale Retold and Illustrated By Steven Kellogg

Reading Level: 2-5

Genre: Folktale

This is the story of Pecos Bill and his adventures as he moves farther and farther out west to explore the open land of the western frontier.  Along the way he is raised by wolves, rides a tornado and ropes all the cattle in the west.  The illustration in this book are so detailed and have a lot of funny little extras that add so much visually to the story.

I would use this in my classroom as a part of the unit on tall tales and folk tales.  Since the book is pretty much made up of small stories of things that happen throughout Pecos Bill's life I would have my students write stories about their lives, either in the future or now, that were in the tall tale style.  This would be a great assessment tool because I would be able to tell through the student's stories whether or not the student understands what the characteristics of a tall tale are.