DK Biography: Annie Oakley

A very interesting photobiography of Phoebe Ann Moses (Annie Oakley), who, for her international recognition a century ago, is relatively unknown today. This story recounts the difficulties of Annie's childhood, which were daunting enough to discourage any but the strongest child who had to endure such conditions, and the development of her character and career, both which were dependent on strong family relationships, Annie's faith in God, and kind people who helped her at key times of her life.The book contains a wealth of photographs (a bit undersized to most effectively support textual meaning), includes copious amounts of detail that help the reader to understand contexts and conventions of the time, and has an unusually durable cover for a paperback.A comparison: the photobiography of Annie Oakley by Sue Macy, "Bull's-Eye", is my top choice for a short biography on this topic because it seems to flow better and has magnificent large photographs, but the current book will also do much to add to the understanding of an important figure in late 19th and early 20th Century history.

Annie is an under appreciated AMERICAN ICON.Her story warrants the analysis and interpretation of all generations.

We live close to the area Annie Oakley grew up and have visited the Garst Museum which has a wing dedicated to her many times. Most of this book is great and it has wonderful photos, but some of the information is the opposite of other sources and sometimes this book contradicts itself; her age at specific times for instance is listed differently at least twice. My son used this as a reference for a report and it came in handy but I wouldn't go by this info only.

Written for middle school, but we loved it. Lots of nice pictures. No unpleasant print or paper odors.

Great book! My daughter is 10 and as soon as we received it she started reading it. I willUpdate when I have a chance to read it as we live in Annie Oakley rich culture.

Good one. I love Annie Oakley and this just has nice anecdotal stuff and nice photos.

Annie Oakley would probably have liked this little book about her life and career a lot; simply and smoothly written, unpretentious, yet beautifully edited and laid out, telling its story doubly well in its seamless interplay of pictures and prose. It almost seems to bring the museum-piece Annie Oakley of a bygone era back to life, which is really what one is apt to want most of all. Annie Oakley was so utterly unique a performer and personality as to be almost unintelligible to our modern sensibilities, leaving one wondering "Who was that masked sharpshooter anyway?" By the end of this book, vivid as its account is, you almost feel that you know.Annie Oakley was personally unpretentious almost to the point of self-effacement, except for two things; she loved performing before big crowds all her life, and, in that performance, she was the real deal; no trickery, nothing up her sleeve, what you saw was what you got. She really was, as far as it's possible to judge, the best sharpshooter who ever lived, and as such something of a paradox. In person Annie was sweet-natured, soft-spoken and eminently ladylike. With a gun in her hand, on the other hand, no old Western gunslinger of note would have stood a chance against her, a fact which some of them probably knew, since they knew her personally and had seen her shoot.Personally honest to a fault, Annie certainly wasn't the real deal in the sense of how Buffalo Bill's Wild West show promoted her, as a rootin' tootin' shootin' cowgirl of the Golden West, a persona she cheerfully lived up to for show purposes as just part of the ethical cost of doing business and giving the rubes what they want. She was the real deal, on the other hand, in the sense of being an authentic frontierswoman, born and raised in desperate hardscrabble poverty in a log cabin on the Ohio frontier, who taught herself how to shoot as her only road out of her starving family's desperate straits. Taking her dead father's antique cap and ball Kentucky rifle down from the mantel, the barely teenage Annie became a meat hunter. In an age when powder and shot were scarce commodities, Annie couldn't afford to miss, and she didn't, virtually from day one. She got so good in fact, that she was gradually able to pull her family up out of poverty on the game she sold to stores and fancy hotels, and the rest is history. In fact, Annie's life was a complex and fascinating one, and worth studying in more depth than possible here. This slim, very well-made book, however, is an excellent introductory.

Good little book with good pictures and history of a true western heroine.

I love this book! It's a children's book really but has such amazing photos that I will treasure it.