Porch Lies

McKissack, Patricia C. (2006). Porch Lies: Tales of Slicksters, Tricksters, and Other Wiiy Characters. Ill. by Andre Carrilbo. New York: Schwartz & Wade Books

This is a collection of ten short stories described family storytelling. It is easy to see the old folks sitting on the porch with all the” young’uns” gathered at their feet asking for stories of Gramma’s or Uncle’s childhood. Each story is placed in the past childhood memories.

Each story describes someone the elders knew who outsmarts others. In the first story, Pete cozens coconut cream pie out of the local baker. In the third, Bukka takes on the identity of a famous blues player to make a living and be revered. He is confronted by the Devil who owns the famous blues player’s soul. In the eighth, Red claims to be protected by an “earth bone”, a natural protection against ghosts.

Many of these stories are transformed onto “tall tales” by exaggerated or supernatural antagonists. The protagonist must use trickery or slyness and outsmart and overcome the antagonist. Pete uses the baker’s pride against her flattering her out of her wares.. Bukka plays well enough to be mistaken for a famous blues player, so well in fact, that the real player is booed and the Devil extends his offer of fame.. Red claims an ability to destroy ghosts. Fearing he is correct, the ghosts compromise. They agree to share the property on Red’s terms.

*Starred Review* Gr. 3-5. Like McKissack's award-winning The Dark Thirty (1992), the nine original tales in this uproarious collection draw on African American oral tradition and blend history and legend with sly humor, creepy horror, villainous characters, and wild farce. McKissack based the stories on those she heard as a child while sitting on her grandparents' porch; now she is passing them on to her grandchildren. 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--combine realistic characters with scary monsters. History is always in the background (runaway slaves, segregation cruelty, white-robed Klansmen), and in surprising twists and turns that are true to trickster tradition, the weak and exploited beat powerful oppressors with the best lies ever told. Great for sharing, on the porch and in the classroom. Hazel RochmanCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
From School Library JournalGrade 5 Up–These 10 literate stories make for great leisure listening and knowing chuckles. Pete Bruce flatters a baker out of a coconut cream pie and a quart of milk; Mingo may or may not have anything smaller than a 100-dollar bill to pay his bills; Frank and Jesse James, or the Howard boys, help an old woman against the KKK-ish Knights of the White Gardenia; and Cake Norris wakes up dead one day–again. Carrilhos eerie black-and-white illustrations, dramatically off-balance, lit by moonlight, and elongated like nightmares, are well-matched with the stories. 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.–Susan Hepler, formerly at Burgundy Farm Country Day School, Alexandria, VA Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

This would work well with any thematic units about African American history or culture. Also, it would make an excellent addition to any language arts units studying the similarities or differences among traditions or cultures.