For Boys Only: The Biggest, Baddest, Best Book Ever! by Marc Aronson, H. P. Newquist, HP Newquist

From the Publisher

Hey, Boys!

Want to have some fun? Maybe learn how to land an airplane in an emergency? Or fight off an alligator? Escape from being tied up? How about taking a ride on one of America?s scariest roller coasters? Learn how to make fake blood or turn a real bone into a pretzel. What if you could find out how to identify some of the world?s most horrifying creatures? Or learn the secret of making a blockbuster movie? What about guessing the top 11 greatest moments in sports history? Find buried treasure? And once you?ve found the treasure, find out just how much it would cost you to buy one of the world?s most expensive cars.

You?ll find all this?and much more?over 250 pages of the biggest, baddest, and best information on just about everything. Plus we?ve placed a special, mind-bending, solve-the-code puzzle on random pages throughout the book that will lead you to a really cool solution! Now, that?s fun!

VOYA

AGERANGE: Ages 11 to 14.

From mysteries, myths, and monsters to science, sports, and secret agents, this title contains a wealth of conventionally formatted, graphically illustrated, "bite-sized" informational commentaries bound to please trivia enthusiasts and attract reluctant readers. The authors occasionally use a conversational tone at the end of an article to address readers with personal insights and humorous asides. The content is diverse, genuinely of interest to most boys, and does not need to be read sequentially. A unique aspect of this book is that readers are challenged to solve four levels of secret codes disbursed throughout the text. They are also invited to visit a Web site where bonus fun facts are revealed. The title is misleading. It is not only boys who might find the book's eclectic content attention grabbing. It hardly qualifies as the "biggest" in terms of page count, and the only topics that would possibly qualify as being the "baddest" concern basic disgusting creatures and well-known natural disasters. Because of a confusing table of contents and the lack of an index, this book would not serve well as a reference tool and may be frustrating for readers to navigate. Some topics, however, are interesting and could prove to be catalysts for further investigation. Although books with a similar premise seem to be flooding the market, this one is engaging and entertaining and would be an acceptable choice to take on a trip or keep on the bedside table. Reviewer: Lynne Farrell Stover
April 2008 (Vol. 31, No. 1)

School Library Journal

Gr 5-8- Aronson and Newquist add to the number of recent books targeted at boys with a pleasantly jumbled miscellanea of odd facts, sports stories, and forensic lore. There's a page of math tricks, information on how to create, or solve, a coded message, and maps that show the possible locations of hidden treasure. Plus! There are coded puzzles scattered across the bottoms of most pages, including a final "PUZZLE SUPREME." It's all appealing stuff. Unfortunately, the book falls flat when it comes to its design and illustrations. The latter are stiff, square, and about as much fun as a chart of road signs in a safety manual. One section is called "Fear Factor: Americ's Scariest Amusement Park Rides," but there are no pictures of any of them in action. Another is "Supercars," with descriptions of Ferraris, Lamborghinis, and other dream vehicles-but only tiny outline drawings of them that will not satisfy boys interested in these kinds of cars. A book like this one cries out for cool photographs. Most boys will pick this book up, flip through it, and put it back down again.-Walter Minkel, New York Public Library

Product Details

• Table of Contents
• Read an Excerpt

Table of Contents

Read an Excerpt

?That is so interesting.?

?Wow!?

?I didn?t know that.?

How many times have you said these things, when you landed on a neat Web site, or glanced at a magazine? Harvey and I are writers who love discovering new things. We thought it would be fun to have a book about the most interesting stuff we could find. Not a record­ book with endless tables of facts. We wanted a book that would be as filled with adventure and the unexpected, as all the snakes, and battles, and sports cars, and ridiculously poisonous dart frogs we talk about. This is a book to get lost in, and find your own way out?and don?t be sure that when you?ve read a page once, you?ve seen all that?s there. Look again, look back, look ahead! There are things here to do, to see, to think about; codes to break, puzzles to solve, even mysteries we couldn?t figure out, which we hope you can. And while you do all that, we?re gathering even more amazing entries for next time.?MA

Cool stuff is all around you?adventure, sports, animals, magic, warriors, movies, video games, and even danger. A lot of it you learn about in school and at home. But sometimes you just want the really good parts and nothing else; you don?t want to sit through the boring junk. Marc and I know that?it?s the way we?ve felt ever since we were kids. So when we wrote this book, we made sure it would have only the best stuff. We skipped everything else. And on those occasions where we had different ideas on what was the very best, we put it all in to let you decide. So there?s something to do, mind-boggling to figure out, and cool to learn on every page. We?ve got bloodthirsty barbarians, sports heroes, vicious predators, ancient mysteries, anddaredevils all over this book. And that?s just the beginning . It?s a big world out there, with a lot of amazing things for you to explore. Welcome to the coolest place to start.?HPN