Open anywhere and be prepared to be amazed, amused, and, occasionally, revolted.
A compendium of hoaxes, urban myths, true/false posers, unlikely exploits, strange pictures, and wacky inventions designed to give readers’ “Baloney!” buzzers a real workout.
In no particular order, between accounts of the arboreal octopus of the Pacific Northwest (“Fake!”) and cluster-balloonist “Lawn Chair Larry” (“Real”), Krieger presents over four dozen credibility testers. She rates each main entry for veracity on a “fib-o-meter” and for changes of pace mixes in lists of bizarre headlines or inventions and strings of real or reworked photographs. Though she includes classics like Piltdown Man and the BBC’s 1957 report on the spaghetti-tree harvest, most of these dillies are relatively recent. Each entry features one or more photos, plus an appropriately surreal patchwork collage that Cocotos assembles by placing snipped-out images of human teeth or other features onto animal faces or bodies. Some of the factual entries are the real surprises here: yes, Theodore Roosevelt really did go on to deliver a speech after he was shot, Buzz Aldrin was the first man to pee on the moon (no details on that are provided), and diapers for chickens are a thing. So, apparently, are sheep-nose bot flies (“Insect Lives in Sheep Snot”) and pet-food tasters. So the author claims anyway, though she cites no sources or URLs, and at least some of her “facts” are, at best, moot.
Open anywhere and be prepared to be amazed, amused, and, occasionally, revolted. (index) (Nonfiction. 7-10)Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4263-2405-5
Page Count: 208
Publisher: National Geographic Kids
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2016
This genuinely clever math book uses rhyming couplets and riddles, as well as visual cues to help the reader find new ways to group numbers for quick counting. It’s a return to number sets, with none of those boring parentheses and <>signs. Here the rhyme gives a clue to the new ways of grouping numbers. For example: “Mama mia, pizza pie, / How many mushrooms do you spy? / Please don’t count them, it’s too slow, / This hot pie was made to go! / Let me give you some advice, / Just do half and count it twice.” A quick look at the pizza, and the reader can see each slice has the same number of mushrooms. Count by threes for half the pie, and double it. Each rhyme is given a double-page spread. The extra-large, brightly colored images leap off the page but never distract from the author’s intent. Some riddles are very challenging, but the author provides all the solutions in the back. Once the reader has seen the answers, the strategy is obvious and can be applied to other situations. Great fun for math enthusiasts and creative thinkers, this might also teach adults some new tricks. A winning addition. (Nonfiction. 7-10)
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-439-21033-X
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2000
Chicken sexer? Breath odor evaluator? Cryptozoologist? Island caretaker? The choices dazzle! (Informational picture book....
From funeral clown to cheese sculptor, a tally of atypical trades.
This free-wheeling survey, framed as a visit to “The Great Hall of Jobs,” is designed to shake readers loose from simplistic notions of the world of work. Labarre opens with a generic sculpture gallery of, as she puts it, “The Classics”—doctor, dancer, farmer, athlete, chef, and the like—but quickly moves on, arranging busy cartoon figures by the dozen in kaleidoscopic arrays, with pithy captions describing each occupation. As changes of pace she also tucks in occasional challenges to match select workers (Las Vegas wedding minister, “ethical” hacker, motion-capture actor) with their distinctive tools or outfits. The actual chances of becoming, say, the queen’s warden of the swans or a professional mattress jumper, not to mention the nitty-gritty of physical or academic qualifications, income levels, and career paths, are left largely unspecified…but along with noting that new jobs are being invented all the time (as, in the illustration, museum workers wheel in a “vlogger” statue), the author closes with the perennial insight that it’s essential to love what you do and the millennial one that there’s nothing wrong with repeatedly switching horses midstream. The many adult figures and the gaggle of children (one in a wheelchair) visiting the “Hall” are diverse of feature, sex, and skin color.
Chicken sexer? Breath odor evaluator? Cryptozoologist? Island caretaker? The choices dazzle! (Informational picture book. 7-9)Pub Date: April 14, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5362-1219-8
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Nosy Crow
Review Posted Online: Nov. 23, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
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