Great for an African American folk perspective on popular tall-tales ( )

This was a great book to listen to-the readers did a wonderful job of making me feel like I was out on the porch on a summer night, sitting back and listening to some porch lies. A great book to share as a family, too. ( )

Subjects/Content Studies/AASL Standards:
Tall Tales, African American Oral Storytelling, Family, Culture.

4.2.4 Show an appreciation
for literature by
electing to read
for pleasure and
expressing an interest
in various literary
genres.

I have to admit I was rather disappointed in this book. The design is beautiful, and it's easy to be sucked in by Andre Carrilho's great illustrations, which invoke both humor and horror in early 20th century settings. McKissack's stories, however, are really wanting. She sets up the book as if it contains popular African-American folklore (which I was expecting), or at very least, stories she heard as a child. Based on the little introductions to each tale, though, it looks like they were merely "inspired" by pre-existing persons and legends, such as the famous story of Robert Johnson and the Devil.

All of that is very well - I certainly don't mind a new spin on old material. The problem is I didn't find most of the stories terribly unique. It's pretty easy to tell where each one is going shortly after it starts, and even then, the "punch" of the story is frequently obscured by an anti-climactic ending. I kept reading because I kept believing the stories would get funnier, scarier, or just more grandiose than they really were. Most of them just never seemed to realize their potential. Happily, the best story in the book is the last one - the two-part tale of "Cake Norris Lives On" - but it doesn't do enough on its own to save the whole book from feeling rather average. ( )

I don't think kids would just pick this book up to read cover-to-cover, but there are some excellent short stories and this is a great resource for teachers. Each short story can stand alone and has its own merits. I think this book would serve very well as a mentor text and for historical fiction. I liked "The Devil's Guitar" and "The Greatest Lie Ever Told." The writing really stands out in that every story really sounds like a story an older relative might tell you that you're not quite sure whether or not to believe. ( )