Our reading group has been busy writing and talking about connections we have to the books we are reading. This title had big connecting power!

A Big, Fat Enormous Lie by Marjorie Weinman Sharmat and illustrated by David McPhail (one of my favourite illustrators!) is a book we can all relate to easily.  A little boy lies over one small thing and his lie comes alive in the form of a monster, following him everywhere, bothering him, sitting on his stomach. The monster keeps growing and growing and growing until it can only be escaped by . . . telling the truth. Phew! The relief! This little book sure inspired some powerful writing from our reading group. We all recognized that lies can be pretty powerful but not as powerful as the truth 🙂

Sergio writes: “When I lie, I get bad luck and I crash into everything and my stomach hurts. Oww! Oww! Oww! Ouch that hurts.”

Ricky explains: “Lying is a bad thing. If you lie, you will have bad feelings and your tummy will feel like it’s hurt. When you have a nap, it makes you feel better. But when you wake up, you still have to tell the truth. So if you tell the truth, everything will be okay.”

Annie summarizes the story, “The message of the book is that you should never lie to anyone. You have to admit it. When you don’t tell the truth, you’ll feel like the lie is lying in your stomach. After you tell the truth, the lie is gone.”

Lisa writes, “If you tell a lie, you feel guilty because you just want it to go away. If you did something wrong, you should tell, don’t lie. If you lie, you need to tell someone.  If you don’t tell, it is going to get bad, then worst. You feel guilty if you lie. It feels good if you tell the truth.”