DANIEL BOONE'S ECHO

Nervous and quaking Aaron Adamsdale reluctantly accompanied Daniel Boone to Kentucky,- although he knew full well that the Sling-Tailed Galootis and the One-Borned Sumpple lay in wait for him. How Aaron learned to conquer his fears on this journey is a succession of tall tales told in Cumberland Gap dialect. Outstanding tall tales rest an overwhelming weight of consequences on the shoulders of a fragile and far-fetched premise, without toppling reader credibility. Here this tenuous balance in achieved only sporadically. The edges between fact and fantasy are nebulous and a little unsatisfying. Dialect is as mercurial a problem as are tall tales, though the two often go hand in hand. Here dialect impedes clarity and will probably constitute a reading problem. This just misses the target hit by such ""stretchers"" as Pecos Bill. Not Steele's forte.