In the book Liar, Liar and in the short story Inside Out are wonderful fictions written by Gary Paulsen and Francisco Jiménez, respectively. There are differences and similarities of traits, relationships, conflicts, power and social issues. In Liar, Liar, Kevin is a lying boy that pretends to be a person that he isn’t and lies to everyone, mainly for Tina – the girl who he was falling in love with. In the story Inside Out by Francisco Jiménez, the main character Francisco is a Mexican boy who moved to the USA. He had problems speaking in English and had to deal with them. Some of the aspects that are different in both books are that the characters act differently over the situation that they were going through, the conflict that is present in both stories, the power imbalance that existed in the community and the social issues of self acceptance and language communication. The similarities are that both main characters want to improve their relationships with the people around them.
In both books the main character’s traits are different. In Liar, Liar, Kevin lies in some situations that had to go through, mainly when he had fallen in love with Tina and to conquer her, he thought that needs to lie. He said “Liars like me”. In Inside Out, Francisco acts differently, when Ms. Scalapino reads a story, but Francisco doesn’t know english, so he looks at the images of the book, but as he could not read the story, he made up his own story in spanish based on the images he saw. The conflicts are also different. In Liar, Liar, readers can notice the conflict when Kevin asks Tina’s friends what Tina likes to do and her preferences. Some time later, Kevin acts as if he also likes the same things as her and Tina starts to be interested in him but all is a big lie because in reality, he doesn’t like these things. In the book Inside Out, the conflict is that Francisco entered the school but his school just has classes in English and Francisco doesn’t know English, only Spanish, because he is a Mexican boy.
The power imbalance in the books are different. In Liar, Liar Kevin has more power over the people that he lies to because he pretends to be a person that he isn’t. Kevin, when lies to Tina, thinks that he will conquer her. On the other hand, Francisco has less power than Ms. Scalapino, his teacher, because she can speak English but Francisco cannot communicate with any people in the school except for Arthur because he speaks a little spanish. The social issues in both books are different. In the book Liar, Liar, the social issue is self-acceptance, because Kevin has difficulty entering in the community, because he can only lie. In Inside Out, the social issue is language communication because Francisco doesn’t know how to speak English and he moved to another country that doesn’t speak your language. He is excluded from the community and passes through many difficulties.
One point that readers can see a similarity is that Francisco and Kevin tried to improve their relationships with people that were around them. Kevin tries to improve his relationship with people around him by lying but at least he tries to do something. Kevin thinks he had to lie to stay friendly with each other and be included in the community. Francisco also tries to improve his relationship with people around him by trying to learn English but it is complicated for him to communicate. Roberto – Francisco’s brother – helps him in the school and teaches English to him because he knows a little bit.
Both Francisco and Kevin try to improve the relationship between people around them. Kevin does it by lying and Francisco by trying to learn English. Kevin is a boy that needs to lie to earn things. On the other hand, Francisco doesn’t need to lie to conquer anything, he is just dedicating himself. Kevin has more power than others because when he lies he pretends to be a person that he isn’t. However Francisco has less power than Ms. Scalapino because Ms. Scalapino can communicate with school but Francisco cannot. The social issue present in Inside Out is the language communication because Francisco has difficulty communicating with other people who don’t speak Spanish. However the social issue in Liar, Liar is self-acceptance because Kevin had difficulty entering the community by just lying. The third body paragraph has one similarity. The similarity is that Francisco and Kevin try to improve their relationship between people around them. Francisco tries to improve the relationship by trying to learn English and Kevin tries lying. The lesson readers can learn is that it’s important to relate to different people, but lying can also push them away.
