Sides (contributing editor, Outside) fields questions from readers of his column "The Wild File." Focusing on natural history and outdoor lore, this collection includes questions about the strange doings of the natural world. Do beavers ever get squashed by the trees they're chewing down? What good are goosebumps? Why do men have nipples? How do penguins keep their feet from freezing? Why do llamas spit? c. Book News Inc.
Focusing on history and outdoor lore, this collection of musings from "Outside" magazine's "The Wild File" column ranges from the gothic to the comic as it answers quirky questions about nature. 60 illustrations.
Collectible hardcover edition! All new illustrations! Same jaw-dropping mix of fun and information. Now is your chance to own the very first Uncle John's Bathroom Reader For Kids Only in a hardcover edition with all new illustrations! When our younger readers demanded a Bathroom Reader of their own, Uncle John put together this brain-boggling easy-to-read collection of facts, fads, quotes, history, science, origins, pop culture, mythology, humor, and more! Plus it's full of wacky and fun illustrations and Uncle John's famous "running feet"--those fun and fascinating facts on the bottom of every page. Kids will read about… * Who was Dr. Seuss? * Baseball superstitions * The birth of The Simpsons * How carnival games are rigged * Dining on scorpions and tarantulas * Shocking truths about thunder and lightning * Disgusting bodily functions like ear wax and digestion ( and why they're important) * Uncle John's all-time favorite elephant joke: Q: How do you get an elephant up an oak tree? A: Plant an acorn underneath him and wait 50 years! ...And much, much more!
Grab some quiet time for yourself and enjoy hundreds of pages of the world’s most twisted trivia! The crackpot staff at the Bathroom Readers’ Institute has scoured the worlds of pop culture, politics, sports, history, and more to bring you Slightly Irregular, the seventeenth all-new edition in the best-selling series. As always, the articles are divided by length for your sitting convenience. So turn thine eyes away from the shampoo bottle, O bathroom reader, and let Uncle John pepper your brain with these absorbing articles . . . * Women in space * The origin of Kung Fu * The CIA’s secret coup * The great windshield epidemic * Spider eggs in the brain, and other urban legends * What went down at Woodstock * Freedom of McSpeech * How to kill a zombie, and much more!
This fascinating book will be enjoyed both by those interested in the science of poisons and also by general readers who can dip in and find hair-raising horrors and calamities on every page. In this fascinating guide to poisons, Celia Kellett provides information and entertainment in equal measure as she explains clearly what all the different poisons are and how they work, giving us all the gory detail of how, by accident or design, they have led to the demise of so many people. From cyanide to the Black Widow spider, and from the Green Mamba snake to botulism, poisons can be found everywhere from the jungle to the refrigerator. Did you know, for example, that the Emperor Napoleon died from arsenic poisoning caused by the green dye used for the pattern on his wallpaper? Or that the Green Mamba’s venom is so toxic that a bite is fatal within half an hour? Or that 50,000 people die from snake bites every year in India? Poison is rarely out of the headlines, with recent stories including the murder, by polonium poisoning, of Alexander Litvinenko in London, allegedly by the KGB, The Horse Whisperer author Nicholas Evans becoming seriously ill in Scotland after eating poisonous mushrooms, and melamine poisoning in Chinese baby-milk formula. It is a subject that holds a fascination for the general public who (along with budding crime writers, and perhaps the KGB) will want to buy this excellent book in large numbers.
Whether used for the development and support of an existing collection or for the creation of a new collection serving Spanish-speaking young readers, this outstanding resource is an essential tool. Following the same format as the highly praised 1996-1999 edition, Schon presents critical annotations for 1300 books published between 2000 and 2004, including reference, nonfiction, and fiction. One section is devoted to publishers' series, and an appendix lists dealers who carry books in Spanish. Includes author, title, and subject indexes.
