The Charlatan’s Boy by Jonathan Rogers

What worked:

Readers will immediately feel empathy and sympathy for Grady, the main character. He doesn’t know his parents, and his “guardian”, Floyd, has different explanations about his past. In summary, no one wanted him, and Floyd is stuck with him. Grady is constantly told that he’s extremely ugly, and one of Floyd’s schemes advertises Grady as the ugliest boy in the world. Their most successful con features Grady as a wild feechie. They travel from town to town playing their roles in deceiving skits, but Grady wonders what it would be like to live in one place with friendly neighbors. Grady wants to know his parents and to feel like he belongs and is cared for.

Readers can learn a great deal about the colorful, adventurous lives of traveling charlatans. Floyd thinks up wild schemes to cheat people, but it creates danger for Grady and himself. They must be careful not to appear twice in the same villages, so the citizens won’t recognize them from a previous crime. Grady creates feechie clues in the middle of the night, and he must watch out for hunters. He’s mistaken for a large coon or panther in one chapter and barely avoids being shot full of arrows. Grady and Floyd are “perfessionals”, and they’re annoyed by subpar performances by their competitors. This conflict comes to a head during the height of the feechiefolk scare, the story’s climax. The author includes a section at the back of the book that shows Floyd’s script for a magnet scam, along with suggestions about how to react to hecklers.

What didn’t work as well:

The story’s premise may bother some readers, as Floyd and Grady deceive people out of their money. They profit from the fear and naivety of others. The plot feels redundant at times, but the ending is worth the wait.

The final verdict:

The resolution is a huge surprise, and most readers won’t foresee it as a possibility. The author weaves language and creative ideas into an emotional, innovative tale. I highly recommend you try it for yourself.