Fun for some.
Practical jokers longing for a go-to source of ideas for low-effort pranks need look no further.
Advising readers to choose a victim “who has a sense of humor and can’t flunk you,” and also to “be funny, not mean,” Winterbottom offers over 72 smirk-worthy projects. These range from classics like poking a hole beneath the rim of a can of soda and short-sheeting a bed to slicing a banana without peeling it or creating a fake computer desktop. The entries are neatly alphabetized and interspersed with anecdotes about notable pranks and pranksters through the ages. All offer setup instructions and suggestions for enhancing the effects both verbally and, in Allen’s accompanying cartoon panels, visually. Pranks that will make an unusual mess or require adult cooperation are so flagged. Handy recipes include fake bird poop, edible (theoretically) dog poop, vomit, spilled milk, bloody teeth and two kinds of snot. The author also appends an array of faux can labels (“Cream of Sparrow”), fortune-cookie fortunes, signs, letters from school and other ready-to-use “goods” to cut out or reproduce.
Fun for some. (Faux reference. 10-13)Pub Date: March 12, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-7611-6756-3
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Workman
Review Posted Online: Feb. 17, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2013
In a large, handsome format, Tarnowska offers six tales plus an abbreviated version of the frame story, retold in formal but contemporary language and sandwiched between a note on the Nights’ place in her childhood in Lebanon and a page of glossary and source notes. Rather than preserve the traditional embedded structure and cliffhanger cutoffs, she keeps each story discrete and tones down the sex and violence. This structure begs the question of why Shahriyar lets Shahrazade [sic] live if she tells each evening’s tale complete, but it serves to simplify the reading for those who want just one tale at a time. Only the opener, “Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp,” is likely to be familiar to young readers; in others a prince learns to control a flying “Ebony Horse” by “twiddling” its ears, contending djinn argue whether “Prince Kamar el Zaman [or] Princess Boudour” is the more beautiful (the prince wins) and in a Cinderella tale a “Diamond Anklet” subs for the glass slipper. Hénaff’s stylized scenes of domed cityscapes and turbaned figures add properly whimsical visual notes to this short but animated gathering. (Folktales. 10-12)
Pub Date: Dec. 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-1-84686-122-2
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Barefoot Books
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2010
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A prolific reporter of paranormal phenomena strains to bring that same sense of wonder to 12 “transposed”—that is, paraphrased from interviews but related in first person—accounts of extraordinary experiences. Some feats are more memorable than others; compared to Bethany Hamilton’s return to competitive surfing after having her arm bitten off by a shark and Mark Inglis’ climb to the top of Mount Everest on two prosthetic legs, Joe Hurley’s nine-month walk from Cape Cod to Long Beach, Calif., is anticlimactic. Dean Karnazes hardly seems to be exerting himself as he runs 50 marathons on 50 consecutive days, and the comments of an Air Force Thunderbirds pilot and a military Surgeon’s Assistant in Iraq come off as carefully bland. The survivors of a hurricane at sea, a lightning strike and a tornado, on the other hand, tell more compelling stories. Most of the color photos are at least marginally relevant, and each entry closes with a short note on its subject’s subsequent activities. Casual browsers will be drawn to at least some of the reconstructed narratives in this uneven collection. A reading list would have been more useful than the superfluous index, though. Fun, in a scattershot sort of way. (Nonfiction browsing item. 10-12)
Pub Date: March 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-4027-6711-1
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Sterling
Review Posted Online: Jan. 25, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2011
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