Fifteen-year-old Annie is used to twisting the truth to her own benefit. After all, Annie’s Mama is Madame Caterina, a fake medium who claims to speak to spirits, but whose sham séances are about as real as a wooden nickel. Cross her palm with silver, or better yet, cold hard cash, and she’ll tell you anything you want to hear. But now that Mama wants Annie to pretend to be a drooling idiot so people will carelessly speak their deepest thoughts around her—thoughts that Mama can then use when pretending to tell their fortunes—Annie’s decided that she’s sick and tired of lying for Mama. She’s going to hatch a new scam that benefits her, and now Mama’s the one who’s going to have to learn to play along! This totally hip hist. fic., set in upstate New York in 1924, is full of the fascinating tricks of the trade that scam artists used to make grief-stricken people believe that they were communicating with the dead. I had a ball learning how a few strings, a hidden bell, some low light, and a double-jointed big toe could convince folks that they were really speaking to their beloveds who had “crossed over.” How Annie undermines and breaks free of sly Mama will leave you cheering and feeling grateful that instead of grifters, your parents are just ordinary teachers, stockbrokers, or truck drivers!
Did we ever finish this book? And what do you think about Animal Farm, like what do you think about it?
Hi Nile,
we didn’t, but I have it in the library and you can check it out!
I like Animal Farm, it really shows the sad fact of how people take advantage of each other, even when they claim to have each other’s back. Are you reading it in class right now? How do you like it?
I loved Animal Farm, I thought their was a deeper story to the book than just Animals talking, additonally, like you said, it does show the sad fact of how people do take advantage of others… even in real life, this stuff does happen. I know this is a late response but, yeah. I read it last year, by the way… I’m a year late. Haha.