A Fraidy Pants Liar

A Fraidy Pants Lair
By The Turk & Toph
Published by Your Nickel’s Worth
Reviewed by Jessica Eissfeldt
Price $24.95 ISBN: 978-1-894431-47-7

Colorful illustrations help underscore the rambunctious monsters that populate the page in this lively and vivid children’s book about the monstrous consequences of lying. The main character, Freddie, fears her older brother will kill her when she breaks a string on his shiny new guitar. She lies about it to her mother. And that’s when the monsters start appearing. The more lies she tells, the more monsters appear.

Cleverly weaving together an entertaining tale with multiple, vivid drawings on each page, A Fraidy Pants Liar serves as a great, yet gentle, guide to help youngsters realize “it’s important to be honest with ourselves to create a world where love is power,” as the reader’s note states.

With this ingenious twist on a morality tale, the authors The Turk and Toph use ugly, persistent monsters to illustrate the point that lying is not the path to follow. Being afraid of the consequences of lying is far scarier than being able to speak up and tell the truth. Children will love the cartoon-filled book – the illustrations seem to jump off the page. And parents will surely enjoy this story as much as their children, knowing such a solid and heartfelt message underlies the plot.

But this tale, though direct in its moral point, still serves up great storytelling. Freddie, the main character, is empathetic and believable, and children will be able to relate to her antics, her fears, and her ability to help her best friend out of the same predicament she found herself.

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