John Darling went fishing to get a red-headed wife; the ghost of Dark Hollow Run spoiled a courtship; Joe Mararac, the Allegheny steel giant, astonished Hunkietown; Captain Kidd reluctantly became the worst pirate in all history. These stories are all from the East. From the South comes tales of Tony Beaver, the great logger; John Henry, who could hammer faster than a steel drill; and Blackbeard, pirate of the Carolinas. Familiar heroes appear in the stories from the Mississippi country: Davy Crockett, Johnny Appleseed, Dan'l Boone. From the West we have tall tales of Kemp Morgan, Pecos Bill, and the immortal Paul Bunyan; and the legends of the Golden Cities of Cibola and the White Mustang.

Anne Malcolmson is a graduate of Brywn Mawr, has been teaching eight-to-thirteen-year-olds, and had collected and written or edited these stories (twenty-seven in all) especially for them.

From the dust jacket