Little Cliff and the Porch People

Little Cliff and the Porch People

By Clifton L. Taulbert

Paintings by E. B. Lewis

Grade Level K-2

Have you ever been in a situation in which you were told by your parents to go get something? But on your way to get something you are sidetrack by others wanting to talk to you or give you something.  This predicament is similar to what happened to Little Cliff when he was trying to get some special butter from a neighbor, in the story Little Cliff and the Porch People, by Clifton L. Taulbert.  It is a great story that demonstrates the closeness of family, and has some warm paintings that are filled with great detail.

            The story begins with an introduction of the character Little Cliff, who lives with his great grandparents Poppa Joe and Mamma Pearl in their house in Mississippi.   Every Saturday Poppa Joe would take Cliff down to Greenville and they would spend the day together getting frozen custard and hot crusty French bread.

            However, on this Saturday Cliff and Poppa Joe couldn’t go to Greenville, as they had to visit Cousin Lulu Harris, who was sick.  So Cliff sat on the porch for a while daydreaming about his trips with his Poppa. That was until Mama Pearl called him and told him she was making Poppa favorite dish candied sweet potatoes.  Mama Pearl gave Cliff some money to take so he could buy a pound of Miz Callie’s special butter, which was an important ingredient for the sweet potatoes. 

So Cliff went on down the road to Miss Callie’s house remembering what Mama Pearl told him about not stopping along the way and to get back “lickety-split”.  However, the good manners that Poppa Joe taught Cliff, said that he should greet his elderly neighbors as he passes them.  Not wanting to be rude Cliff made sure to stop and say hello to his neighbors. 

When he passed Uncle Abe Brown, he wants to show Cliff how to trim hedges but Cliff remembers what he was told an tells Uncle Abe what he is doing.  After hearing, this Uncle Abe   offers fresh nutmeg when he hears what is cooking in Mama Pearl's magic skillet. When he walks by Mr. Boot-Nanny, he provides Cliff with some vanilla from New Orleans to help with the recipe.   And when he passed by Cousin Savannah she insisted on giving him a small jar of fresh grease to add to the skillet.

When Cliff finally returns with the butter, he unloads all of the other ingredients he got from his neighbors, so Mama Pearl could get to work on the sweet potatoes.  When suppertime came all of the neighbors who helped with the ingredients showed up to help enjoy the sweet potatoes, and watched as Little Cliff took his first bite of the sweet potatoes, which he enjoyed very much.

This book in my opinion is an example of a good book.  It allows student’s who many not be familiar with the lifestyle of people living in the south a better perspective.  The ways that the characters are presented are done beautifully due in large part of the great illustrations, which the students will love.  The watercolor paintings on each page make readers feel as if they are in taking the walk with Cliff down the road, passing each porch.

With this book, I as the teacher can help introduce the importance of making characters in stories come alive of the page.  I do realize that this book may cause some small challenges for students, as the Southern vernacular that is used in this book could be confusing for them.  However, I feel that if this book is read aloud to the students, and the new vernacular is translated into language that they would understand then this problem would not be an issue. Finally, this book is as a good tool to teach the students about respect and good manners.

I would have this book in my classroom library and would allow the students to read it during independent reading time in the general fiction shelf in the library.

Connection to the MA ELA Framework

RL. 3 grade 1: Describe characters, settings, and major events in a story, using key details.

RL. 7 grade 1: Use illustrations and details in a story to describe its characters, setting, or events.

RI. 4 Kindergarten: With prompting and support, ask and answer questions about unknown words in a text.