Porch Lies — Patricia C. McKissack / Pat McKissack

Side-splittingly funny, spine-chillingly spooky, this companion to a Newbery Honorâ€"winning anthology The Dark Thirty is filled with bad characters who know exactly how to charm.

From the author's note that takes us back to McKissack's own childhood when she would listen to stories told on her front porch... to the captivating introductions to each tale, in which the storyteller introduces himself and sets the stage for what follows... to the ten entertaining tales themselves, here is a worthy successor to McKissack's The Dark Thirty. In "The Best Lie Ever Told," meet Dooley Hunter, a trickster who spins an enormous whopper at the State Liar's contest. In "Aunt Gran and the Outlaws," watch a little old lady slickster outsmart Frank and Jesse James. And in "Cake Norris Lives On," come face to face with a man some folks believe may have died up to twenty-seven different times!