Queen of the Falls

Title: Queen of the Falls

Author: Chris Van Allsburg

Genre: Fantasy

Summary: The first page of the story described what it usually looks like to tourists at Niagara Falls, but that one day, it was very quiet around there. Suddenly, everyone screamed “There it is!” People were gathering to see a barrel plunge over the waterfall, but why? They knew the barrel wasn’t empty. Bay City, Michigan was a town located two hundred miles west of Niagara Falls. On its Main Street was a charm school where children of the finest families could learn the correct format to everything. The school’s owner and only teacher was Annie Edson Taylor. She was a short, plump and fussy sixty-two year old widow. As she got older, she only had one student left so she was forced to close the school and say goodbye. Now that this happened, Annie was worried about her future because she hadn’t saved up money. She needed a plan to get money and live her life. She couldn’t come up with an idea until an evening in July when she returned to her room with a newspaper. Annie Taylor would go over Niagara Falls in a barrel. Annie went to a shop the next morning to begin planning her ride, but the people at the shop refused to build a barrel for her reasoning, so she went home and continued her planning. Days later, Annie called the barrel maker again and convinced them to build the barrel according to her design, because she would be safe and could survive the fall. The barrel maker put his three best men on the job. Annie worked with them. She included a belt to hold her down, metal bars to hold onto and pillows. Annie hired Frank Russell as a newspaper reporter to stir up interest. Mr. Russell didn’t believe her, but he knew she was determined to do it. When Annie began answering people’s questions about her daredevil action, the reporters thought that maybe she was telling the truth. Frank Russell told Annie to wait ten days before she plunged so he could stir up interest and excitement by the falls. When the day arrived, Frank and Annie took the boat to Fred Truesdale’s cottage-he was the boatman. His assistant, Billy Holleran, was there as well. Annie strapped herself into the boat, removed her hat and jacket and backed into the boat. Annie heard all of the people who were there for her. When she reached the falls, she was upside down in one second and on her side in the next. For a few seconds, Annie floated slowly and upright and then she went down the falls. The crowd was silent for the most part. When the barrel floated close to the shore, men jumped into the water and lifted it onto the rocks and knocked the lid off with a hammer. Annie didn’t remember where she was. She was bruised and sore, had a cut on her forehead and felt dizzy but she was able to walk to a dock nearby. Annie returned to her room and was visited by doctors who told her that she couldn’t leave her bed because she needed to recover. Over the next few weeks, newspaper reporters visited Annie and her story was appearing in papers from New York to San Francisco. Frank Russell tried to help Annie get money, and initially, it was working, but the crowd started to fade. Frank Russell ran off with Annie’s barrel. Other people stole the barrel and tried to make money so she tried to make money for herself. She sat in a park with her barrel, trying to sell postcards of herself calling out “Meet the Queen of the Falls!” One day, someone came to her stand. It was a newspaper reporter. She told him that she was scared of the falls at first. She stood in that very spot with her father, but her courage took her close to the falls. The reporter listened to her story.

Characters: Newspaper reporters, Annie, Frank Russell

Plot: Make money by plunging down Niagara Falls in a barrel

Theme: N/A

Setting: Michigan, Niagara Falls

Opinion: I thought that this book was interesting because I have heard stories about people going down Niagara Falls in barrels. It was a cool book to read, but I think it would be more helpful with older kids because there were a lot of words on a page and I think that younger kids may have trouble comprehending all of the characters in it.