LS 5603 LITERATURE FOR CHILDREN AND YOUNG ADULTS

Review of PORCH LIES: TALES OF SLICKSTERS, TRICKSTERS, AND OTHER WILY CHARACTERS

A. Bibliographic Information:
McKissack, Patricia C. PORCH LIES: TALES OF SLICKSTERS, TRICKSTERS, AND OTHER WILY CHARACTERS



B. Plot Summary:

McKissack introduces her story collection with “Whippoorwills, lightning bugs, and homemade peach ice cream trigger memories of my childhood summers………..Skipping up five steps placed me in my favorite spot—the porch swing. There I could read for hours or listen to someone tell a story about sneaky foxes or things that went bump in the night.”

There are ghost stories, family stories, and lots and lots of neighborhood tall tales. McKissack does an excellent job of giving friends, neighbors, and family members credit for their help with the stories origin and recollection. Most of the stories are set in place and time near the author’s grandparents’ home in Nashville.



C. Critical analysis including cultural markers and standards of literary merit.

I was so excited about reading this book because of the intro of the peach ice cream and porch swing of my grandparents South but I was very disappointed. The type set used in part of the book is reminiscent of old PICA typewriting but students will not know how to place that in a cultural perspective because they don’t even remember typewriters!

The story I liked best was, “By the Weight of a Feather” It talks of a young boy being mentored and unofficially adopted by and older man in the neighborhood who teaches him how to be the quintessentially untrustworthy used car salesman. Aunt Gran and the Outlaws is pretty good as well.

I did like the use of authentic jargon and colloquialisms such as “aine” rather than “ain’t” which is exactly how we spoke in small town West GA.

I am a big fan of McKissacks’ THE DARK THIRTY and Virginia Hamilton’s THE PEOPLE COULD FLY: AMERICAN BLACK FOLKTALES. I did not think this volume was nearly as good as the two mentioned above but 4 customers on Amazon.com all gave it a 5 star review. Even the artwork left me put off because it wasn’t appealing to me and I thought would only be that much more unappealing to a child without a long historical background of experience.

It wasn't a horrible book at all but I found it blase and I had been expecting so much more.




D. Review Excerpts:

School Library Journal comments, “The tales are variously narrated by boys and girls, even though the authors preface seems to set readers up for a single, female narrator in the persona of McKissack herself. They contain the essence of truth but are fiction from beginning to end, an amalgam of old stories, characters, jokes, setups, and motifs. As such, they have no provenance. Still, it would have helped readers unfamiliar with African-American history to have an authors note helping separate the truth of these lies that allude to Depression-era African-American and Southern traditions. That aside, theyre great fun to read aloud and the tricksters, sharpies, slicksters, and outlaws wink knowingly at the child narrators, and at us foolish humans

Booklist opines, “Without using dialect, her intimate folk idiom celebrates the storytelling among friends, neighbors, and family as much as the stories themselves. "Some folk believe the story; some don't. You decide for yourself." Is the weaselly gravedigger going to steal a corpse's jewelry, or does he know the woman is really still alive? Can bespectacled Aunt Gran outwit the notorious outlaw Jesse James? In black and white, Carrilho's full-page illustrations--part cartoon, part portrait in silhouette.”

E. Reviews accessed from:

http://www.amazon.com/Porch-Lies-Slicksters-Tricksters-Characters/dp/0375836195/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/103-7575722-4136600?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1191040420&sr=1-1

F. Connections:

As mentioned above I preferred Virginia Hamilton’s THE PEOPLE COULD FLY: AMERICAN BLACK FOLKTALES or McKissack’s DARK THIRTY. McKissack’s own FLOSSIE AND THE FOX is an excellent traditional tale with a great African American main character.