TRADITIONAL LITERATURE BLOG #3: Porch Lies Tales of Slicksters, Tricksters, and Other Wiley Characters

TRADITIONAL LITERATURE BLOG #3: Porch Lies Tales of Slicksters, Tricksters, and Other Wiley Characters

Bibliographic data

Carrilho, Andre. Ed 2006. PORCH LIES TALES OF SLICKSTERS, TRICKSTERS, AND OTHER WILEY CHARACTERS. First Ed. By Patricia McKissack. New York: Random House Children’s Books. ISBN 13:978-0-375-83619-0

Brief plot summary

This book is a collection of original folktales written by Patricia McKissack, an African American author. She introduces the reader to ‘porch lies’ which are orally told folktales that include trickster and noodlehead tales. The author shares with the reader her experience listening to ‘porch lies’ on hot summer evenings at her grandparent’s house in Nashville, Tennessee. The Author’s Note section of the book introduces porch lies and sets the stage for the reader to enjoy the wonderfully written and entertaining 10 folktales or ‘porch lies’ as listed in the table of contents. The trickster tales include Mingo Cass who swindles people with his hundred dollar bill that no one has change for, to Aunt Gran, a sweet old lady who uses outlaws to protect her farm. The stories are entertaining, funny and a genuine joy to read.

Critical analysis with specific literary considerations pertinent to genre

My two favorite stories from the collection are AUNT GRAN AND THE OUTLAWS, and A GRAVE SITUATION.

AUNT GRAN AND THE OUTLAWS is set in the year 1882 during a cold Tennessee winter in the community of Webb Hollow. The KKK made midnight rides on the Webb Hollow citizens, in attempt to torment them into selling their land. When all hope is seems lost two outlaws come riding into town. Gran tricks the outlaws by telling them a story of the Webb treasure and they stay with Gran successfully being uses as a “wolf to chase out the fox.”
The story uses dialogue to reveal character and make the story come to life. For example on page 46, “Aine nobody gon’ disturb you lesson they get by me. And I reckon I can protect the likes of you two businessmen, don’t you think?” Aunt Gran said with a nod and a wink.
The folktale has many of the special literary elements particular to folk literature including a simple setting, good and evil characters, and a fast moving plot. This story is specifically a trickster folktale in that Aunt Gran outsmarts everyone in the story. At first you might think that Aunt Gran is naïve in letting the outlaws stay in her home, but you later learn that she knows the who they really are the whole time and is playing them for her advantage.
The ability to hope, one of the values of fantasy, is present in the story as well. When it seems all hope is lost Aunt Gran prays to god for someone to come and help, and the next day the two outlaws arrive.

A GRAVE SITUATION is set in Lynn Cove, Tennessee. Lincoln Murphy, whose reputation precedes him, arrives back in town after being gone for fifteen years. With his slickster moves he gains both a job as Mis Crickett’s driver starts his own jitney service using her car. When Mis Crickett gets ill, Lincoln saves her from being buried alive. We learn that Goodie Harken is a wolf in sheeps clothing and maybe Lincoln was just the opposite. The story unwinds like a mystery and the reader can form their own decision at the end. The ability to develop a capacity for belief is present in this story. The reader may realize the goodness in people and learn not to judge people before getting to know them. The author uses dialogue to reveal the character. The characters speech is natural and illustrates the characters personality. For example on page 92 when Link is explaining why he dug Ms. Cricket up.
“Mis Crickett’s been like kin to me,” Link explained. “When Mr. Harken didn’t honor Mis Crickett’s wishes, I didn’t know what to do. Who would’ve belived me? So, like a coward, I decided just to leave town. After sitting by the levee all night thinking ‘bout po’ Mis Crickett – I decided come morning to dig her up when no one was around.” Using this dialogue helps the reader to identify and understand Link’s feelings and motives.The author uses figurative language to covey meaning with emotional intensity. For example on page 90: “Once we all got home, Mis Cricket immediately sent for Goodie Harden, Dr.Tate, and the police chief, Joe Sullivan. You could have pushed Mr.Harken over with a broom straw when he found out that Mis Crickett was alive and well.

The Illustrations done by Andre Carilho are done in a black and white. They are part cartoon, part silhouette portraits with the human character always as the focal point. The use of vertical lines direct the readers eye to the action part of the illustration. For example, in A GRAVE SITUATION the thin vertical lines of Lincoln’s legs next to the long vertical line of the shovel direct your eye to the action of digging the grave. The illustrations captivate the eyes with the way they are presented off balance and at various angles

Review excerpt(s)

From Booklist*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."

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.


Connections
Sister Tricksters: Rollicking Tales of Clever Females by Robert and David San Souci
The Dark Thirty by Patricia McKissack
The Barefoot Book of Trickster Tales retold by Richard Walker