The Charlatan's Boy is a great fantasy book suitable for all ages. It's the ultimate "finding yourself" story. The only life 16-year-old Grady remembers is travelling with con-man Floyd. One part of Grady longs for a home and a family, and he looks for someone who looks like him in every town they visit. As one of Grady's claims-to-fame is being the Ugliest Boy in the World, this search makes for an entertaining narrative. In one town, he does see a women who he thinks may be his mother and he gets very excited, only to realize that he was mistaken.

"I got ready to wrap my loving arms around her and claim her as my long-lost mama, but it was no luck. As she come closer, I seen she was the wrong kind of ugly."

However, Grady also feels an attachment to Floyd. Floyd has always taken care of him, and Grady really doesn't know any other life. When Short Fronie, a pub owner, offers to let Grady stay with her, he considers it. Until Floyd and excitement call again. Even after leaving with Floyd, Grady continues to wonder during the rest of the book if he shouldn't just give it all up and go back to Fronie and finally have a "mama".

Watching Floyd and Grady adapt their act over the years and seeing some of the things they come up with is also a lot of fun. It's not all fun and games, though. Floyd and Grady are travelling hucksters and Grady's starting to wonder if it's really okay to lie to people all the time. What is amusing is how he rationalizes lying to some people about some things. He has categories in his head of who it's okay to fool and which cons are acceptable. And don't start leaving me crazy comments about that. Just read the book. Lying is my number one pet peeve, but I promise the book is funny.

I don't think I can say anything more without giving away too much, but I think readers of all ages will enjoy this story. It's a little bit of "sweet" with a whole lot of "silly".

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Rtc. ( )

I loved this book. I found it to be charming, loveable, delightful, inspiring, giggle-worthy, heart-breaking, tender, sweet, and perfect. I loved everything from the face plate introducing each chapter, to the sweet boy who thought he really was the Ugliest Boy in the World.

As I read this book for the INSPY awards, I was a bit confused as to its inspirational merit, I found it to be extraordinarily well-written, but I wouldn’t necessarily call it a “Christian” book. More of a fairy-tale – think The Ugly Duckling.

Every adventure, every hoax had me groaning and laughing, and all I can really say, because this review is turning into a rave over how wonderful the book is, is that you should read it. You really should. But set aside time to curl up on a sofa and really devote yourself to the story, because it deserves that. ( )

I greatly enjoyed the characters and the atmosphere of the book. The narrator, Grady, has grown up with a traveling showman who has fed him and cared for him, but showed him little love. He longs to belong someplace and to someone and much of the book is about his quest to find his place in the world. His traveling adventures are lively and interesting, his observations of the people around him are insightful, yet understanding. He is an outsider looking into a culture he does not belong to, but he is never bitter or judgmental. He's altogether a delightful character. This book is a great bedtime story - for adults as well as adolescents! ( )

"See a genuine he-feechie alive and in the flesh! Amazing! Astonishing! You've never seen anyone like him!"

The life of a traveling huckster was the only life Grady could remember. He had played the part of "The Wild Man of Feechiefen Swamp" for so long, he believed he WAS a feechie. But ever since people stopped believing in feechies, Grady and "Perfesser" Floyd were having a harder time coming up with new ideas to trick people out their hard-earned money. To top it off, the "perfesser" shocked Grady by telling him that Grady WASN'T a feechie at all. Now, with every new change in venue, Grady wonders more and more where he fits in and whether he could ever have a family or even a friend who would truly like him, let alone LOVE him. When Floyd hits on the idea of reviving the feechie business, the results are often hilarious and the final outcome completely unexpected.

In The Charlatan's Boy, Jonathan Rogers weaves a spellbinding tale that will have you keeping late nights just to read one more page. The characters are believable and the word-pictures Rogers creates stir up the imagination. But the star of the book is Grady, who narrates the story in the first person, telling of the hijinks and hoaxes he and Floyd perpetrate. Although he travels with Floyd helping him make his living by tricking others, it is more out of a sense of belonging and duty that he does so. Grady knows what he is doing is dishonest, but tries to justify the lies by telling himself that it's for a good cause, even if that cause was making Floyd rich. But even here, Grady's conscious is pulling him one way while his sense of duty goes another. "I'm think I'm an honest feller. I want to do what's right, but I ain't had a lot of practice at it. Being in Floyd's employ, a feller don't get a lot of opportunity to exercise his honesty muscle."

The theme woven throughout the book is Grady's down-to-earth musings about life, especially a life characterized by knowing (or the lack of knowing) who a person is. ("A man who makes a habit of telling the truth assumes that other folks is in the same habit.") Unlike many other books of this genre targeting Christian young adults, the tone is never preachy or moralizing. It's simply the story of one boy trying to find where he belongs in the world. Grady, when faced with his new future and finally realizing Floyd's meanness, perfectly summarizes in one sentence the truth we come to see in his story:

"It was true that I was a charlatan's boy, but there was things about me that was a whole lot truer."

Thanks to WaterBrook Multnomah for the providing a review copy of this book. ( )