Reviews for True lies

The average rating for True lies based on 2 reviews is 3.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2019-08-21 00:00:00 Gaetane Lanthier A cute book filled with brain teasers from different cultures and across time that get kids thinking about the nature of truth. The one drawback is while some of the riddles have enough information in them to take a guess on the solution, some don't which might be frustrating for some children. I still like the book and might encourage any parent whose child is frustrated by this book to remind them that these are tricky stories often told on purpose to deceive. So even if they get some of the answers and not all they are doing really well. The introduction gets into the ideas of whole truths, half truths and what is left unsaid that can make a true statement into a lie. These are good concepts for any parent to discuss with a child. Below I summarized each riddle - spoiler warning - I have just for a few of these included the solutions (mainly just for the riddles that would be very difficult to guess - so I can discuss those solutions) but as a result don't go forward if you don't want to be spoiled. 1. A mother allows her kids to make cookies before dinner but on the condition they only eat one each so they won't spoil their dinner. They comply but are much to full to eat dinner, how could that be? 2. A donkey is tied to eight feet of rope, but still manages to get to some carrots 30 feet away. How is that possible? 3. Tyll Eulenspiegel is very good at dancing on a tightrope. Two boys are jealous of Tyll and even cut his rope. He ties it back together and continues and even says that he will dance in their shoes on the rope. The two boys are convinced that he will fall wearing their shoes which aren't the right size so they throw him their shoes, but Tyll wins the bet. How did he do it? 4. A farmer is so busy harvesting his hay he doesn't have time to pick his cherries from their trees. A neighbor offers "If I may have half the cherries, I'll pick them today." The farmer agrees but at the end of the day the cherries are still on the tree and when he goes to his neighbor's house he is sitting eating cherries. What happened? 5. Two brothers are looking for land for their people. The governor offers land no larger than what can be surrounded by the hide of a large ox thinking that they will be so insulted they will refuse their offer. Instead they accept the offer and mark off "enough land to build a few homes and a synagogue." How could this be? Quick note (not the solution) but given the illustrations and the way this story was written I thought this might be a biblical story, but the notes at the end don't indicate that. Each story has a note in the end on its source. This one says it came from the folk literature of the Kurdistani Jews and that it is an international tale which has been found in other versions worldwide. 6. A young man on the street is begging saying "Please help a poor scholar." A man passes by and asks the boy to recite some latin and the boy can't so the man accuses him of lying and not being a scholar, but the boy says he is. This one I found to be a bit challenging since you need to realize that in this case both meanings of "poor" are true for this scholar. 7. Noah Bones is known for his lies and his fellow villagers actual enjoy his tales. They see Noah running by and ask him to join them and tell him one of his lies. He tells them "Got no time for lies today, Nellie's got a batch of her jam about done, but I tripped and broke every jar she needs. I have to get more jars" and he races off. The villagers go to visit Nellie to see about getting a taste of her jam but she says she hasn't made jam in weeks. What was the lie? 8. A poor man finds a bulls horn and a bag of money. He asks a priest what to do. The priest says he must carry the money though the streets and ask if anyone lost it. If no one claims it he can keep it. The man complies and at the end of the day no one claims, why did no one claim it? 9. A bride and groom are heading toward the grooms house. As they pass flocks of cows and sheep, the husband will rub his hand over his whiskers proudly and say "All these are mine." But when they get to the home the bride can't understand why he would live in such a run down house if he owned so many flocks. By my beard and whiskers what could be the truth? 10. Peikko and Matti are friends but Matti is handsome and always gets to dance with all the women at a dance and Peikko feels left out. So when a dance is coming up Peikko asks Matti to guard the door of his cellar so no one steals his gold. Matti promises and is as good as his word although also shows up at the dance, how could that be? Not the answer but a clue - I would think that Matti has made Peiddo's gold even more valuable to thieves than if he wasn't guarding the door. 11. A farmer has brought hogs for sale and describes a hog he has at home that is so tall a fellow can't touch its back if he hold his hand as high as he can. A man is intrigued by this and buys the hog sight unseen and is quite disappointed when he actually sees the hog. I think this is one that is almost impossible to guess just from the riddle alone, but as a clue I will say that the cover gives a strong clue on this one as well as riddles (#3, #4, #6, #8, #10 and #12) 12. A king dares his bride to get a large pumpkin inside a narrow-necked jar without cutting the pumpkin or breaking the jar. She does it, how? 13. Two Talmudic student have sinned and punished by their rabbi by having to put chickpeas in their shoes. The next both do it but only one is uncomfortable - how could that be? 14. Mulla Nasrudin was always bragging about his adventures. His most recent brag "I'm a natural-born leader. Why, just last month, as soon as I appeared in front of a tribe of Bedouins, they snapped to attention and followed me." Every word he said was true, yet what he told was a lie, what is the whole truth? the answer *spoiler* The Bedouins snapped to attention and followed him because he'd just stolen one of their horses. How are you supposed to get that? 15. A man is selling a horse. The buyer asks "Does he pull a good load?" The farmer says "You'll be please to see him pull a load." The buyer later comes back angry with his purchase. Why? 16. A tour guide bets a well-dressed rich man "I bet you five dollars. I've got more money in my pocket than you have." The rich man who has hundreds of dollars in his pocket accepts the bet and loses because the rich man's money is not in the tour guide's pockets. 17. A lazy couple are accused of stealing yams. They take a truth serum. The man saying his hands never touched the stolen yam and the woman saying she never walked near the stolen yams. They both take the serum and pass even though the leader of the village is still convinced they are guilty. How? 18. A man dies saying that his fortune is his vineyard. One son digs through out the vineyard trying to find the buried treasure, while another brother just in just a nice glass of wine. Gray

Review # 2 was written on 2010-02-15 00:00:00 Willie Gilmore This book contains several short stories in which you try to decide the important factor. What parts of each tale is true and which ones false? Many of the answers to what's the real truth behind each story frequently turn up to surprise you. Several times throughout the book I'd guess the outcome of each story and it'd be way off track ,but I'd still enjoy myself in the process. What I really liked about this book though was that it challenged me to look at the situation in a different perspective. Now that I've put myself to test in this hillarious book whenever I'll come to a problem in my schoolwork