Liar, Liar: The Theory, Practice and Destructive Properties of Deception

by Gary Paulsen Narrated by Joshua Swanson

Overview

Kevin has a big talent. Some might call it compulsive lying. He calls it common sense.

Kev doesn't mean to cause trouble by lying all the time; he's just trying to make everything easier for everyone (and himself). And, of course, a few harmless, um, falsehoods are crucial to his plan to convince Tina that he's the perfect boyfriend for her.

In Gary Paulsen's irresistible and chaotic comedy, Kevin's lies spiral out of control until he's faced with the need to do the unthinkable: tell the truth.

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

"I'm the best liar you'll ever meet," announces the glib narrator of this funny and touching novel. Fourteen-year-old Kevin inventively bends the truth to his advantage—or so he thinks. He convinces his partner on a school project that he suffers from "chronic, degenerative, relapsing-remitting imflammobetigoitis" so that she'll do all the work, pits his older siblings against each other, and surreptitiously asks his father's permission to go to a concert after his mother says no. When Kevin falls madly in love with a classmate and decides that he needs more free time to win her over, he fabricates elaborate excuses for skipping classes and feigns interest in student government to try to wiggle his way into her "inner circle" ("Like any good military mind, I decided that a direct assault was the wrong move"). In an affecting scene, the four-year-old who Kevin babysits awakens him to the value of telling the truth, setting him on a quest to untangle the web he has woven. Kevin's grappling with family troubles adds further emotional dimension to Paulsen's novel. Ages 8–12. (Mar.)

School Library Journal

Gr 6–9—Kevin has real talent—as a perpetual liar. According to this confident eighth grader, lying is really just a way to make life easier and happier for everyone. He lies to keep his friends happy, to make his teachers feel successful, even to teach his brother and sister to be better people. Really—it's practically a public service. However, when Kevin plies his "talent" to try and convince the girl of his dreams that he is the perfect boyfriend, his lies spiral out of control and hurt those he cares about most. Kevin discovers that he must try something new to put things right—tell the truth. Gary Paulsen's brief, humorous story (Wendy Lamb Books, 2011) is narrated by Joshua Swanson who provides a convincing voice for Kevin. He draws listeners in with his excellent pacing, witty portrayal, and light touch. This tale will appeal to reluctant readers as well as those just looking for a fun listening experience.—Deanna Romriell, Salt Lake City Public Library, UT

DECEMBER 2011 - AudioFile

It's a delight to hear Paulsen himself introduce us to the character that "came" to him and sparked both LIAR, LIAR and FLAT BROKE. Narrator Joshua Swanson delivers an authentic first-person voice for Kevin Spencer, the 14-year-old who uses ever-escalating lies as his "superpower." Swanson has a sly, wry, young-sounding voice that makes Kevin's cocky teen attitude palatable. The kid only tells people what he thinks they really want to hear. There's a sharp jab of truth in his cynical observations and a funny story about friendship, family, and science projects gone wrong. Kevin eventually discovers the downside of lying, which—let’s face it—is what we really want to hear. Narrator and character share a charisma that sells what might otherwise sound cynical and makes us cheer when we finally stumble across "accidental truth." M.M.C. © AudioFile 2011, Portland, Maine

Kirkus Reviews

Eighth grader Kevin has a talent most adults can't fully appreciate: He's a gifted liar. He tells adults what they want to hear, that he's done his homework, had a great day at school and there aren't any dirty dishes in his room. Unfortunately, faced with a team project with a very focused, annoying classmate, he lets the lies get away from him. To avoid working with Katie, he tells her he has a severe chronic illness. In order to get closer to his major crush, Tina, he begins to skip classes, providing teachers with creative (but surely unbelievable) excuses. On a roll, he hits a little closer to home, playing his teen siblings off each other, then inadvertently widening the gap in his parents' relationship by lying to both of them. Each lie encourages another until, finally, the truth comes out and Kevin must face the consequences of his creative storytelling. This brief, humorous effort will appeal to reluctant middle-school readers, who will recognize the truth behind witty Kevin's inventive deceptions. (Fiction. 9-12)

Product Details

BN ID:	2940172617126
Publisher:	Brilliance Audio
Publication date:	03/08/2011
Series:	Gary Paulsen's Liar Liar Series , #1
Edition description:	Unabridged
Age Range:	8 - 11 Years

Read an Excerpt

1

A GOOD LIE FURTHERS YOUR AGENDA

By midmorning Monday, I had Katie Knowles believing that I suffer from a terrible disease. One that modern medicine doesn't recognize, can't identify and is powerless to treat.

I told her that I have chronic, degenerative, relapsing-remitting inflammobetigoitis. Which doesn't exist. I culled symptoms of mono, plantar warts, shingles, borderline personality disorder and a bladder infection, as well as listing a bunch of side effects from some TV ads for drugs.

Even for me, this was a whopper.

But I had to come down with whatchamacallit so that I wouldn't have to team up with Katie for the working-with-a-partner project in social studies this semester.

Cannot. Deal. With. Katie.

She's some sort of mechanized humanoid, made up of spare computer parts, all the leafy green vegetables that no one ever eats and thesaurus pages. We're only in eighth grade, but everyone knows she's already picked out her first three college choices, her probable major and potential minor and the focus of her eventual graduate studies. To Katie, middle school is a waste of time, so she takes more classes than she needs to and does extra credit the way the rest of us drink water. She's probably got enough credits already to graduate from high school.

The Friday before, we'd been assigned to be each other's partner for our social studies independent study project: a ten-page paper and an oral presentation in which we would "illuminate some aspect of our government relevant to today's young citizen."

Thanks, Mr. Crosby, way to narrow the scope.

We wouldn't have class for the next week so that we could go to the library or the computer lab to work on our projects. This was going to teach us about independence and self-determination. Or something like that; I wasn't really listening.

I really dig Mr. Crosby; he's pretty laid-back except when he starts talking about what he calls "government pork," and then he gets all wild and upset. I must have irked him somehow to get assigned to Katie. My best friend, JonPaul, and our buddy Jay D., who are the biggest troublemakers this side of a prison riot, were project partners, and even the Bang Girls (I call them that because they're BFFs who have identical haircuts with the exact same fringe hitting their eyeballs in a weird way that makes my eyes water if I look at them too long) had been paired. Before I could ask Crosby what I'd done to set him off, he'd announced, "Once partners are assigned, there will be no switching."

I am not a guy who gives in easily, so I spent the weekend thinking of ways to convince Crosby to change his mind, and avoiding Katie, even though she'd been calling, emailing, IM-ing and texting. It was only third period on Monday morning and already she'd left a couple of notes at my locker and had tracked me in the hall between classes.

"Kevin."

I flinched. Katie has one of those bossy yet whiny voices that make you want to stab pencils in your eardrums to make the noise stop. I turned and broke out a killer smile. I can always tell when it's time to crank up the charisma.

"Hey, Katie, I meant to—" I started, but she cut me off before I could come up with plausible and inoffensive reasons why I'd ignored her all weekend.

"It doesn't really matter." She flipped open her notebook and handed me a sheaf of papers. "I utilized the time by getting started on the initial research. You can see that I brainstormed about a dozen ideas we could examine that I believe to be unique and ripe for exploration. Why don't you take the packet home, read everything over, and then let me know by this time tomorrow, if not sooner, what you've decided? I'm okay with any choice you make, and we should, after all, be democratic about how this partnership functions, because of, you know, the class subject and all."

"Uh . . . yeah, right. I see that you, wow, you typed up—what's an abstract, again?"

"A brief summary and succinct explanation, the theoretical ideal, if you will, behind the project topic." She tapped her foot impatiently, probably wondering why I hadn't been writing abstracts since nursery school.

"Sure, that was what I was going to guess. You did an . . . abstract thingie . . . for all twelve ideas?"

"Of course"—she pushed her glasses a little higher on her nose—"because that kind of organization and attention to detail will enable us to make the best possible choice among our options. Besides, I'm sure I can put the seemingly superfluous work to good use in the form of extra-credit projects later in the year."

"Uh-huh."

"Like I said, why don't you take this home and—"

I cut her off. "No, I don't need to do that; let's pick number, um, seven. Yeah, that looks like a great idea."

"The analysis of data collected during the most recent national census about the underserved population and how they interact with and regard the government services structure, especially pertaining to the link between educational grants and future acts of public service?"

I really should have read her summaries, but it was too late. The analysis of the something census and how the something interacts with something as it pertains to something it was.

She beamed when I nodded, and I knew that I'd somehow chosen right even though I didn't know what the peewadden she was talking about, and I was sure, if I'd tried, really hard and for a very long time, I could not have come up with a more butt-numbing topic.

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