My Own Little Corner of the World: My Thoughts on the Charlatan's Boy by Jonathan Rogers

As the CSFF Blog Tour wraps up, I wanted to leave you my final thoughts on The Charlatan's Boy by Jonathan Rogers.

This book was getting four stars from me until the last chapter. Once reading this book, I gave it 5 stars and a standing ovation (really, I did!) I don't think I've ever given a book a standing ovation before!!

Grady only knows himself as a feechie (for more information on this, please refer to YouTube video posted on Monday of Jonathan telling us about feechies or check out his website for more info!). He's a good feechie too! He can scare the best of them! Floyd is a not-so-great charlatan (is there such thing as a good one?!?) who is using little Grady to make a few bucks here and there. Grady loves his life as a feechie...until the day Floyd tells him that he's not really feechie. Floyd also drops another bombshell...he's not Grady's dad.

Throughout the remainder of the book, Floyd and Grady go on some pretty amazing journeys as they travel around trying to make some coppers. Grady goes from "feechie" to "mind measuring assistant" and back to feechie while he tries to figure out who he *really* is. Would he ever find someone to love him for him and not for a money making venture?

My favorite feature of this book was the beginning of each chapter. I just love how Grady introduced each new chapter! You see a crystal ball (much like on the cover) with somewhat of a sarcastic or funny remark about a new adventure. I found myself chuckling at Grady's humor and wanting to box Floyd in the ears!!

I highly recommend this book for youngsters on up. There are so many beautiful and valuable lessons to be learned in this book that represents how life was back in the "Old West". I found myself thinking back to my childhood when I was involved in a musical (Going West) where I was a part of the traveling salesman group peddling some sort of healing elixir.

I am very excited to see what is in store for Grady in his next adventure, which will start in 2011!

Many thanks to Jonathan Rogers for the time invested in making this tour possible (writing the book, visiting our blogs, answering interview questions, etc) as well as Waterbrook Publishers who provided the copy of the book for review.