Student 2
1-13-16
I just read Steamboat Annie and the Thousand Pound Catfish. Steamboat
Annie and Jefferson Jackson were fighting about how to get rid of Ernie, the
cranky catfish. Annie fished Ernie out and hurled him all the way to California.
The sub-genre of this book is a tall tale. I could tell just from the title that
this is a tall tale. It is not possible to have a 1,000 pound catfish. Another piece of
evidence is the town’s singing cow. Cows do not sing in real life. A third piece of
evidence is that Annie fought with Ernie for a year and a half. How could she
possibly eat or sleep?
The sub-genre of a tall tale is a story that has some true parts. However,
parts of the story have been made up or exaggerated. Steamboat Annie was
probably a real person. But she could not have done all of the things the text said.
For example, she wasn’t born singing and she couldn’t use a walnut tree for a
fishing pole. These exaggerations show that this book was a tall tale.