by Moe Zilla

Created on: March 03, 2009

"A man as big as Paul Bunyan gets a little lonely," warns the forward. "But that was until he wandered over to Hackensack, Minnesota
where he met Lucette Diana Kensack." It's the beginning of "Paul Bunyan's Sweetheart," a new children's book by Marybeth Lorbiecki. In her story, the legendary lumberjack meets an equally enormous woman. Lucette's life is filled with her own set of amazing feats. In fact, when he first heard about her, even Paul Bunyan thought she was just a tall tale!

Lucette had an enormous cow named Nel, and she churns its milk into a creamy river of butter. There's a remarkable drawing of Lucette stitching - not a quilt, but a 40-acre swatch of soil, into which she sews seeds. (Laid across the ground, they'll become farmland!) On hot days, she'll shake her rugs to make a breeze. According to the book, the path of Lucette's fierce breezes eventually became that patch of the U.S. known as Tornado Alley. And the first thing she says to Paul Bunyan is "Robber!" before bopping him on the head with her enormous spoon. (Paul had tried to snatch the rock candy she was brewing in an enormous wooden bucket.)

I was disappointed that the first thing Paul noticed about Lucette was her glossy hair and beautiful eyes. That seems a little shallow. (Even though he's a 19th century man, this book was written in 2007!) And the second thing Paul noticed was that she knew how to cook rock candy - which makes his heart pound like an axe. "Why, Miss Lucette," he blurts out, "your candy's as sweet as you, and I couldn't resist."

"She eyed him, but didn't bop him again."

It's the first thing he ever says to her, and then he introduces himself as "the biggest, strongest, and most handsome man around." They're 19th-century beautiful people, apparently, obsessed with superficial appearances. (Meanwhile, Paul's giant ox just stares glumly at Lucette's giant cow.) And apparently, Paul just wants to marry a woman who knows how to cook. Perhaps sensing the book's negative example, Lorbiecki suddenly let's Lucette take charge.

"What makes you think I need someone big and strong and handsome?" she tells Paul Bunyan. "Don't I look like I've been taking care of myself just fine?" Then she makes him jump through a series of hoops - er, "love tests," which he fails miserably. Then she nags him about not picking up the tree stumps he's left around the woods, and sluicing too much dirt into precious lakes. Then they get married. ("From then on, Paul Bunyan never forgot to clean up after himself and leave the land as healthy as he found it.")

The book jacket tells us that Lorbiecki wrote many children's books with environmental themes. But her ideas about courtship are surprisingly out of date.

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