The Charlatan's Boy, by Jonathan Rogers

In the tradition of Southern fiction, Jonathan Rogers, a child of the South, writes The Charlatan's Boy.  Set in the fiction land of Corenwald, which Rogers models after his own Georgia homeland, Grady is the charlatan's boy, who has lived with Floyd (the "perfesser"), a traveling showman who has tried a variety of tricks, displays, and miracle cures to gain copper coins from unsuspecting townspeople.  But his most successful scheme is showing off his feechie boy, who, of course, is simply Grady covered in mud and acting like an animal.  Grady and Floyd create a mythology of feechies, supposedly the native peoples who lived in Corenwald before the civilized people came to settle there.

Told from the perspective of Grady, with colloquial speech resembling an American Southern bumpkin, this is a fun story of a foundling trying to discover himself.  He has no idea where he came from, who his parents might have been, and whether he has a place in the world.  Floyd, unfortunately, is full of stories and tall tales, and little helpful information.

There is potential here for exploration of deeper themes which Rogers only--barely--hints at.  Rogers leaves such exploration solely to the reader.  Thus, The Charlatan's Boy can be read on a variety of levels, and is entertaining and fun no matter how deep you want the message of the book to be.