Paper Moon, Joe David Brown

They say my mama, Miss Essie Mae Loggins , was the wildest girl in Marengo County, Alabama. I couldn't say about that. There's not much I remember about her at all. What I can recall are mostly little things. Like how after she put polish on her fingernails, she would spread her fingers wide, hold out her arms, and go waltzing around the room while it dried. I used to try to do the same thing and we both would laugh and laugh because I would get dizzy and tumble down. I remember one time a man she didn't like came to the house, and she took off her shoe and chased him right out the door. 


This book, which McKenzie reviewed, sounded really interesting, so I borrowed it from her and...I was hooked. I always like to read books about enterprising con men and women who you can sympathize with. Addie Pray is eleven years old, and she travels around Alabama and a few other states with Long Boy, who is possibly her daddy, and they fleece a whole bunch of gullible people.

I agree with Kenzie in that this one should have become more of a classic. It's really entertaining; not what I would call "high-brow literature" (whatever that means), but fun to read. I think they made a movie out of it though. I didn't find the dry patch that Kenzie referred; there were a lot of various different types of cons that were described, and I liked that. I wanted their adventures to continue. I probably liked this one a lot because I really like the movie The Sting (which incidentally was made around the same time as this book was published), which also about con men during the Depression. So now you have two reviews motivating you to read it.

240 pages (in this copy)
 

Outstanding Book That Will Stay On My Bookshelf For Rereading (jf I own it)!