Calamity Before Jane

Before Calamity Jane became an icon of the Wild West, she was Martha Jane Canary (1852–1903), a teen learning how to survive on her own, an experience that Van Sciver (Beat It, Rufus) chronicles in this brief but riveting graphic novel narrated by a fictionalized version of the subject. In 1901 at the Buffalo Pan-American Exposition, Jane performs theatrical reenactments of her adventures for an eager audience. Following an offstage encounter with a pair of orphaned runaways, however, Jane offers them a significantly more understated recounting of her youth crossing the Oregon Trail, living with financial insecurity, and working odd jobs to support herself after her parents’ deaths. As Jane wistfully recalls driving oxen pulling railroad supplies and telling stories to workers around a campfire throughout her travels, her young audience expresses disappointment that none of her remembrances carries “the excitement of the Wild West.” (World-weary Jane suggests they attend her next performance if they prefer dramatic tall tales over mundane stories of everyday life.) Gritty illustrations and ample 19th-century vernacular render a thought-provoking portrait of the rapidly changing era, across which romanticized depictions of the American West are juxtaposed with the harsh, sometimes unpleasant reality Jane endured. Concludes with a contextualizing afterword by Sicangu Lakota and Taíno scholar Susana Geliga, archival photographs, and a bibliography. Background characters are portrayed with varying skin tones. Ages 8–12. (Dec.)