Author: Jaspar Utley
Publisher: Penguin
Year: 2003
Language: English
Pages: 164
ISBN/UPC (if available): 0143335766
Description
Riveting yarns of adventure and romance told with gentle wit.
Great-grandpa claims to be over a hundred years old, and no one is about to contradict him. He is a South Indian gentleman of immense character, though he might not look it. All that distinguishes him are his enormous hennaed moustache, which he is very proud of, and his walking stick, which he makes every attempt to hide. Dressed in his trademark white dhoti and cotton shirt, he sits in his battered white cane chair in the garden all day, and drinks cup after cup of hot, sweet, milky tea. And tells his great-grandson the most incredible stories.
There isn't a thing Great-grandpa hasn't done in his younger years, it appears. He has captured a tiger single-handed, won a classical music contest as a rank outsider, run a detective agency, come face to face with a ghost in Fort St. George, been captured by the French for spying in Pondicherry, had his brush with fame as a film actor, beaten the Viceroy's team in an impromptu cricket match, and even encountered the world's last surviving unicorn in Mohenjodaro.
All this would seem extremely unlikely, if it were not for the verve with which Great-grandpa tells the stories, and the detail he embellishes them with. One doesn't quite know whether to believe him, but it's great fun listening to him anyway. And one can't really put the heroic deeds past him. After all, hasn't he recently hypnotized a combative crocodile at the zoo by dancing in front of it and making it go cross-eyed?
Tall Tales is a delightful collection of funny, feisty stories that children of all ages will thoroughly enjoy.
Contents
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The Freedom Fighter
The Funeral
The Archaeologist
The Politician
The Athlete
Out of Step
The Black Sheep
The Musician
The Spy
The Ghost of Fort St George
The Detective
The Extra
The Tiger of Madras
The Marriage