"Best Shot in the West: The Adventures of Nat Love" by Patricia C. McKissack and Frederick L. McKissack Jr., illustrated by Randy DuBurke

What a fun and engaging way to present the life of "Deadwood Dick," also known as Nat Love, one of the Old West's premiere cowboys!  This fast-paced graphic novel presents Nat Love's life and adventures in a way that mixes the flavor of tall tales with a healthy dollop of facts.  It's written as if an aging Nat Love is writing down his experiences for a newspaperman, which is a fun way to frame the stories, especially since they are all taken from Love's autobiography.

Is this a 100% factual biography?  Nope, and it doesn't pretend to be.  The authors acknowledge that, while historians are pretty sure Love embellished some of his adventures, there are quite a few that have been verified by outside sources.  Instead of trying to sort the totally true from the exaggerated, they simply picked a nice collection that showcase the diversity of Love's adventures.

Nat Love was born into slavery in Tennessee in 1854.  He left home in his mid-teens and went west, working as a cowboy for twenty years and gaining fame for his prowess as a horse-breaker and bronc rider, as well as his skill with a rope and gun.  If you want to learn more about him, I wrote an article about Love for the Prairie Times a few years ago, which you can read online here.  Or you can find a copy of this graphic novel and read that!

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG for a little rough language and some mild mentions of violence.