Jackrabbit McCabe and the Electric Telegraph
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- $4.99
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- $4.99
Publisher Description
The fastest man in the West meets his match in this deliciously clever original tall tale. With his extra-long legs, Jackrabbit McCabe can outrun anything on the American frontier: horses, trains, and even twisters. So of course, everyone in the town of Windy Flats always counts on his speed when a message has to get out fast. Then something new comes to town: the telegraph, which can send Morse code messages with the speed of electricity. At first, no one believes the newfangled contraption can deliver a message quicker than Jackrabbit. . . . But in a race between man and machine, who will be left in the dust?
An author's note includes information about the invention of the telegraph, a Morse code key, and a riddle written in Morse code for kids to transcribe.
"A strikingly accomplished debut.... A terrific tall tale about the costs and opportunities of technology." —Publishers Weekly, Starred
"Good, quick-moving fun. Kids may marvel that communication existed before the telephone and Internet." —Kirkus Reviews
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Born on the Great Plains in the early 19th century, ginger-haired Jackrabbit McCabe has preternaturally long legs that make him a natural-born runner and a hometown hero: "By the time he turned eighteen, he'd beat every stagecoach, antelope, and locomotive in the territory." But his fleet-footedness is no match for the newfangled telegraph, which decisively beats him in a challenge to deliver a message to a town 25 miles away. "Jackrabbit felt lower than a snake's navel," but he soon discovers an upside: the telegraph requires swift fingers to work the keys and swift legs to hand-deliver messages. Rozier makes a strikingly accomplished debut; her appropriately brisk prose has the perfect blend of folksy lilt and knowing wink. Espinosa (Otis and Rae and the Grumbling Splunk) is just as successful: his crisply angular drawings, comic expressiveness, and cinematic framings bring to mind Chuck Jones's classic "Dover Boys" cartoon. It's a terrific tall tale about the costs and opportunities of technology, and it may assuage a few parents worried about its impact on their own offspring's future employability. Ages 4 8.
