Customer Reviews

Coco Twain Tells the Truth

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On a hot day in August 1958, when Coco Twain arrives at the Reynolds house with Sonja and her mother Daisy they have a surprise encounter with two escaped convicts. The men, Buford and Al are hungry and desperate. Daisy's a lousy cook and when they get a taste of her runny eggs and uncooked sausage, Coco and Sonja figure they won't stay long. It just so happens that Buford is a great cook so he takes Daisy and the girls shopping and cooks up a meal. Daisy is very young single mom and life in tiny little Whitchit, Oklahoma, lacks the excitement she craves. Instead of turning the convicts in she allows them to stay at her secluded farmhouse. Much to Sonja and Coco's horror, she falls for Buford over their long weekend of captivity.

Eventually they let Coco go back home and Daisy makes up a story about why the men are staying with her. For the rest of the summer Coco must deal with her own confusion about the situation. She knows what Daisy is doing is wrong but she has also gotten to know the two men and is no longer scared of them. Mostly she'd like the whole thing to just go away. But it's not about to and she's going to have to deal with it, along with helping Sonja cope with having two convicts living with her.

Is it wrong to care about convicted criminals? Are they human beings like the rest of us? Coco struggles with these questions throughout the book. The last thing she ever expected that hot August day was to meet two escaped convicts who would change her life forever. "Coco Twain Tells the Truth" is a brave and perhaps controversial look at the gray area between right and wrong. Porter's details about life in the late 50s in a sleepy little Oklahoma town add a fascinating richness to this sometimes humorous, sometimes tragic story.

At a time when most books for young teens are written about wizards and magic powers, Coco Twain Tells The Truth is a breath of fresh air. Judith Porter has written this wonderful book that is fun to read and tells a great story. Coco Twain and Sonja Reynolds are two fourteen year old girls who live in the most boring little town in America, Whichit, Oklahoma.

Life gets a lot more exciting, however, when Daisy Reynolds returns home with her daughter Sonja and Coco Twain to find two escaped convicts have taken over the house. Daisy is a single mom with hopes. She latches onto Buford, one of the convicts and places her hopes of love and a brighter future squarely on him. Coco Twain, a girl with a lot of common sense, has to decide if turning the convicts in, is better or worse for her friend Sonja and her mother.
Coco blooms before the reader as she sorts these things out.

This book is very well written with a sense of humor to match. The characters are fully developed and believable. Add to that, it is a great story, and you have a classic. I recommend it for young and old, alike. I thoroughly enjoyed it from beginning to ending.

In "Coco Twain Tells the Truth" Judith Porter has tapped into a refreshing spring of adolescent verisimilitude that produces an enjoyable and memorable reading experience for adults young and old. Coco Twain, a likeable fourteen-year-old girl living in the town of Whitchit, Oklahoma, in 1958, stumbles upon an adult world populated by two escaped convicts and a woman anxious to seize upon what may be her last chance for love. Coco and her best friend Sonja are forced to cope with such adult issues as loyalty, loneliness, and tolerance, but they never cease to think and act like teen-agers. The adults -- Buford and Al and Sonja's mother Daisy -- remain always mature in their actions and emotions, as these are filtered through the eyes and mind of Coco. She comes across as wise, funny, and completely credible. Her solid common sense and willingness to adjust her thinking prove to be her ticket out of Whitchit. Details of small town life are skillfully incorporated throughout, and the Rainbow girls' trip to the federal penetentiary at McAlester is a small masterpiece of comic invention. This debut novel by Ms. Porter promises more good stories from her pen in the future.

Oklahoma--small town--1950's--the romance of Charlie Starkweather. Take innocent but bright pov character Coco, her best friend,the too-worldly Sonya, both 14, and Sonya's single mom, Daisy, hairdresser, dreamer, not yet 30. Make them the hostages of the desperate escaped convicts Buford and Al in the summer heat and what do you get? Judith Porter's Coco Tells the Truth, a short novel of unexpected tension, memorable characters and surprising humor.

Porter has invested unique qualities into her characters--qualities that have real implications for the story. Her dialogue is witty and the setting clearly defined as an innocent '50's tableau, in which Coco learns of life's serious consequences. Porter infuses Coco with enough charm, humor and realism that the reader accepts Coco's words and insights; she's a kid we can believe.

I found the book to be a concise, quick read, satisfying in plot and characters with enough surprises to produce a conclusion that's well-earned.

Coco Tells the Truth will appeal to a young, female audience but readers of either sex, of any age, can connect with the plight of Porter's characters who are forced to share their time, their hopes, and their lives that hot summer of 1958.

Jack Galvin
co-author of Within Reach: My Everest Story