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Van Sciver, Noah

Calamity Before Jane

56 pp. | TOON | December, 2025 | Trade ISBN 9781662665400 $17.99
(2) 4-6 As he did in Paul Bunyan: The Invention of an American Legend (rev. 11/23), graphic novelist Van Sciver deromanticizes an icon of the American West. Setting his examination at the Pan-American Exposition of 1901, in Buffalo, New York, Van Sciver lets Martha “Calamity Jane” Cannary (1852–1903) tell her own story, both to the audiences that flock to the fair and to a pair of runaway children who make their way to her quarters. As she tells it, she rode for the Pony Express, faced down Wild Bill Hickok’s killer, drove teams of oxen for the transcontinental railroad, scouted for General Custer, and suppressed a Sioux uprising. Which of these are true to historical fact is left for youngsters to ponder after Buffalo Bill Cody remarks that “if her tales were half true she’d be minted on a coin.” Astute readers will see a clue in the inconsistency of the stories she tells her two audiences (and they may notice some typos). Van Sciver opens his account with a note explaining that many of the caricatured images of the Lakota depicted in the pages that follow “were wrong then and are wrong now”; toward the end he gives Native showman Chief Black Heart space to describe the despoliation of the West. A closing note by historian Susana Geliga (Sicangu Lakota/Taino) further separates fact from fiction. A bibliography and archival photos round out the illuminating presentation.
Reviewer: Vicky Smith | Horn Book Magazine Issue: January, 2026

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