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Whoppers: Tall Tales and Other Lies
This book is a pack of lies!
Whether they've called them windies, whoppers, or gallyfloppers, people have been telling tall tales for as long as anyone can remember. Like the one about the day it rained so hard, people jumped into the river to keep it from drowning... or the one who caught such an enormous fish that the picture he took of it weighed twelve pounds.
One thing is for sure: Whoppers is a whole lot of laughs--and that's no lie!
Whether they've called them windies, whoppers, or gallyfloppers, people have been telling tall tales for as long as anyone can remember. Like the one about the day it rained so hard, people jumped into the river to keep it from drowning... or the one who caught such an enormous fish that the picture he took of it weighed twelve pounds.
One thing is for sure: Whoppers is a whole lot of laughs--and that's no lie!
127 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1975
3 people are currently reading
113 people want to read
About the author
Alvin Schwartz
75 books730 followersAlvin^Schwartz
Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
Alvin Schwartz was the author of more than fifty books dedicated to and dealing with topics such as folklore and word play, many of which were intended for young readers. He is often confused with another Alvin_Schwartz, who wrote Superman and Batman daily comics strips and a novel titled The Blowtop.
For Batman - See: Alvin^^Schwartz https://www.goodreads.com/author/show...
Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
Alvin Schwartz was the author of more than fifty books dedicated to and dealing with topics such as folklore and word play, many of which were intended for young readers. He is often confused with another Alvin_Schwartz, who wrote Superman and Batman daily comics strips and a novel titled The Blowtop.
For Batman - See: Alvin^^Schwartz https://www.goodreads.com/author/show...
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
February 13, 2017
The heat was so bad, in fact, the farmer had to feed his hens cracked ice to keep them from laying hard-boiled eggs.
Alvin Schwartz, best known for Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark presents a steaming pile of ALTERNATIVE FACTS.
This one's a REAL fact, though. When my husband and I were dating, conversation turned one evening to our fathers. At first the men seemed to have nothing in common. My husband's father was a conservative, deeply religious, chemical engineer, while my dad was a liberal, atheistic, college professor. But, somehow we discovered that both men had a deep, almost obsessive, love for the variety show known as Hee Haw. Okay, maybe the Hee Haw Honeys had something to do with their interest.
Or maybe it was the fairly talented musicians that appeared every week. But, I'm guessing it was the awful, corny jokes favored by the shows' writers . . . and apparently, dads everywhere.
One regular segment involved the cast and guest stars popping up and down like gophers in a cornfield while spouting groaningly bad jokes. And, so, yeah, this book reminded me of a Hee Haw cornfield.
It got so cold that winter . . . when people spoke, their words froze. And when these girls tried to quarrel, they couldn't. Instead of insults, ice cubes tumbled from their mouths, one for each word. But they were so angry, they collected the ice cubes in sacks and took them home. Then they melted them and listened to their words and enjoyed a good fight.
Then Grandpa Jones hunkers down, and up pops Junior Samples, who says:
The pond also froze into a solid chunk of ice. It happened so fast that hundreds of ducks that were resting there were trapped. But late that night they flapped their wings so vigorously they flew off with the pond and left nothing behind but a big hole.
And up comes Buck Owens with this zinger:
There is one town where the weather is so pleasant and so healthful that nobody ever gets sick. In fact, they had to shoot a man to start a graveyard there.
And, so on . . .
There are also tall tales about giant mosquitoes that can carry off a cow, and the fabled Santa Fe spider that has one hundred legs with a stinger on each, and a forked tail with two large stingers, and fangs bigger than a rattlesnakes that may remind you of the yarns told at Archie's Barber Shop, another Hee Haw staple.
But . . . a little Hee Haw goes a long way for me, likewise, this book. Though I had a few groans, and a few chuckles, it sure didn't beat Pickin' and Grinnin'.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PoIEM...
Alvin Schwartz, best known for Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark presents a steaming pile of ALTERNATIVE FACTS.
This one's a REAL fact, though. When my husband and I were dating, conversation turned one evening to our fathers. At first the men seemed to have nothing in common. My husband's father was a conservative, deeply religious, chemical engineer, while my dad was a liberal, atheistic, college professor. But, somehow we discovered that both men had a deep, almost obsessive, love for the variety show known as Hee Haw. Okay, maybe the Hee Haw Honeys had something to do with their interest.
Or maybe it was the fairly talented musicians that appeared every week. But, I'm guessing it was the awful, corny jokes favored by the shows' writers . . . and apparently, dads everywhere.
One regular segment involved the cast and guest stars popping up and down like gophers in a cornfield while spouting groaningly bad jokes. And, so, yeah, this book reminded me of a Hee Haw cornfield.
It got so cold that winter . . . when people spoke, their words froze. And when these girls tried to quarrel, they couldn't. Instead of insults, ice cubes tumbled from their mouths, one for each word. But they were so angry, they collected the ice cubes in sacks and took them home. Then they melted them and listened to their words and enjoyed a good fight.
Then Grandpa Jones hunkers down, and up pops Junior Samples, who says:
The pond also froze into a solid chunk of ice. It happened so fast that hundreds of ducks that were resting there were trapped. But late that night they flapped their wings so vigorously they flew off with the pond and left nothing behind but a big hole.
And up comes Buck Owens with this zinger:
There is one town where the weather is so pleasant and so healthful that nobody ever gets sick. In fact, they had to shoot a man to start a graveyard there.
And, so on . . .
There are also tall tales about giant mosquitoes that can carry off a cow, and the fabled Santa Fe spider that has one hundred legs with a stinger on each, and a forked tail with two large stingers, and fangs bigger than a rattlesnakes that may remind you of the yarns told at Archie's Barber Shop, another Hee Haw staple.
But . . . a little Hee Haw goes a long way for me, likewise, this book. Though I had a few groans, and a few chuckles, it sure didn't beat Pickin' and Grinnin'.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PoIEM...
July 25, 2022
This book was fun and quarky . I know the way it was written( certain words) were drastically spelled wrong and made it a little difficult to read. Those words were done intentionally i know, but as a reader it just made it hard. Overall it was quite enjoyable. The illustrations were classic as well. It just was a little hard to read. I loved this concept though!!
March 23, 2025
This is a fun collection of larger than life tales known as whoppers. These whoppers are stories, anecdotes, and jokes culled from folklore and the printed page by Alvin Schwartz. The book is filled with excellent examples of purposeful exaggeration (lies) and showcases how entertaining and funny a well crafted tall tale can be. There are also notes on sources of variants of the stories contained in the book. And the bibliography is an excellent source of research materials for those interested in discovering more tall tales.
February 6, 2019
A cute little book and a very quick read.
July 16, 2019
A short book of tall tales. Great for all ages.
June 17, 2020
Some cute bits, but it did nothing for me. At the end, I had gained nothing worth holding onto.
June 30, 2008
2.5 stars really. I feel very torn when rating this book because I think the author succeeded at what he was trying to do but it wasn't to my taste. I think this is a great collection of American tall-tales but I don't feel particularly attached to the book itself. Perhaps the part of the book that interested me most was the "Notes and Sources" section at the end where Schwartz discusses different kinds of stories and where he found the tales included in this book. That said, I think this book would be rich source material for creating fairy tales and other more intricate stories. So many fairy-tales come out of clever tricks or exaggerated feats and this book is full of those. Some of my favorite stories from the books are: the cat who uses it's wooden leg to hit mice on the head and kill them, the duelers who were so accurate that all of their shots hit one-another and melted in the middle to for a hot pile of lead, the fish that is taught to walk on land but dies one day because he falls into the river and drowns, all of the stories pertaining to big mosquitoes, the log that slid back and forth until it was just toothpick (when you tell this story you end by producing the very toothpick that used to be a tree), and the whole chapter about the weather.
I also like some of the short stories such as:
"Have you heard about the man who swam halfway across the ocean, then decided he couldn't make it and swam back?"
"There is a stream near here that twists and turns so often that when you jump across you land on the same side where you started."
So I guess maybe I liked more of this book than I thought. Less than half of the stories are great but the ones that catch the imagination really stick.
I also like some of the short stories such as:
"Have you heard about the man who swam halfway across the ocean, then decided he couldn't make it and swam back?"
"There is a stream near here that twists and turns so often that when you jump across you land on the same side where you started."
So I guess maybe I liked more of this book than I thought. Less than half of the stories are great but the ones that catch the imagination really stick.
September 5, 2011
This book is a pack of lies, or so it says on the back cover. And in the opening paragraph. And indeed it is. But if you want a pack of lies told with more verisimilitude and veracity, read Sid Fleischman's McBroom books, not this one. The lies are here, but they're not very good. Or perhaps I shouldn't have read the book in one sitting. Or maybe Josh McBroom tells them better. Anyway, I was a tad disappointed.
Want to read
December 16, 2008sounds fun!
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews