For fans of the form, this compendium has plenty of juice.
This collection of top 10 goodies—including “Songs About the Body” and “Amazing Cars for Hire”—has plenty to entertain, if not educate.
Coming at readers like a cross between Man’s Adventure pulp magazines and Ripley’s Believe It or Not, complete with a rainbow-reflective cover and a hefty 320 pages, Terry’s compilation has a pleasing tongue-in-cheek tone—a good number of the lists are “unofficial.” Many of the entries are refreshingly nonhuman, which keeps the book from becoming a celebrity-filled bore. There are plenty of creepy entries from the animal kingdom, including sea lampreys, a great range of natural forces (biggest cave systems, longest coastlines) and a fine gathering of epic structures: buildings with the most ghost sightings, the biggest private house, and did you know there is a cash bar inside Cristo-Rei, the monumental statue of Jesus in Portugal? On each photo-splashed page are “Xtreme Facts” and “Off the Chart” addenda. The sheer busyness of the design—there is not one spare micron of space for eyes to rest on—will endear the book to readers with short attention spans, who might just find themselves looking up after an hour has passed, astonished at their absorption.
For fans of the form, this compendium has plenty of juice. (index) (Reference. 8-14)Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-77085-469-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Firefly
Review Posted Online: Sept. 30, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
Though usually cast as the trickster, Coyote is more victim than victimizer, making this a nice complement to other Coyote...
Two republished tales by a Greco-Cherokee author feature both folkloric and modern elements as well as new illustrations.
One of the two has never been offered south of the (Canadian) border. In “Coyote Sings to the Moon,” the doo-wop hymn sung nightly by Old Woman and all the animals except tone-deaf Coyote isn’t enough to keep Moon from hiding out at the bottom of the lake—until she is finally driven forth by Coyote’s awful wailing. She has been trying to return to the lake ever since, but that piercing howl keeps her in the sky. In “Coyote’s New Suit” he is schooled in trickery by Raven, who convinces him to steal the pelts of all the other animals while they’re bathing, sends the bare animals to take clothes from the humans’ clothesline, and then sets the stage for a ruckus by suggesting that Coyote could make space in his overcrowded closet by having a yard sale. No violence ensues, but from then to now humans and animals have not spoken to one another. In Eggenschwiler’s monochrome scenes Coyote and the rest stand on hind legs and (when stripped bare) sport human limbs. Old Woman might be Native American; the only other completely human figure is a pale-skinned girl.
Though usually cast as the trickster, Coyote is more victim than victimizer, making this a nice complement to other Coyote tales. (Fiction. 9-11)Pub Date: Oct. 3, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-55498-833-4
Page Count: 56
Publisher: Groundwood
Review Posted Online: July 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2017
Gleefully providing ammunition for snarky readers eager to second-guess misguided beliefs and commands of grown-ups, Rondina dishes up the straight poop on dozens of topics from the cleanliness of a dog’s mouth and the relationship (none) between French fries and acne to whether an earwig could really crawl into your ear and eat your brains. Since she cites no readily checkable sources—support for assertions comes in the form of quotations from experts in various fields, but there is no bibliography—it’s hard to tell how accurate some of her claims are—it would be nice to have a citation to the JAMA studies that debunk the sugar-hyperactivity connection, for instance—and too often she provides only an unsatisfying “You Decide” instead of a clear “True” or “False.” Still, it all makes painless reading equally suitable for casual dipping or reading straight through, and Sylvester’s pen-and-ink spot art adds further light notes to every page. An extensive closing catalog of familiar “Parentisms”—“I’m not running a taxi service,” “Because I said so, that’s why,” etc.—adds a chuckle-inducing lagniappe. (Informational ephemera. 9-11)
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-1-55453-454-8
Page Count: 96
Publisher: Kids Can
Review Posted Online: June 28, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2010
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