"I'm half horse, half alligator, with a little touch o' snappin' turtle! I can wade the Mississippi, ride a streak o' lightnin', and whip my weight in wildcats! I can out-eat, out-sleep, out-fight, out-shoot, run faster, jump higher, squat lower, and dive deeper than any man in these here United States. I'm a ring-tailed roarer and the yaller blossom o' the forest!"

That—in his own words—was Davy Crockett. Hunter, woodsman, pioneer, Congressman and hero of the Alamo, Davy became a legendary figure of epic proportions during his own lifetime, and he is still spoken of familiarly in Tennessee, Texas and Arkansas. Out of such fragmentary material, and with occasional hints from American history, Mr. Shapiro has created a rousing, full-bodied tale that carries Davy from the backwoods of Tennessee to the halls of Congress and the South Sea Islands.

Here, against the background of the frontier, are all the amazing, amusing wonders of Davy's life: how he was whittled down to man size, how he captured his tame buffalo Mississip and his pet bear Death Hug, how he rode a hurricane, how he tussled a great tussle with Old Hickory Andy Jackson, how he was rescued by the Cape Cod Sea Sarpint, how he danced down Sally Ann Thunder Ann Whirlwind—and much more.

In Yankee Thunder Irwin Shapiro has given us a work of rare originality, at once hilariously funny, deeply poetic and truly creative.

From the book