Review: Garbage Pail Kids (National Non-Fiction Day 2012)

I have been caught a little unawares as far as this year's National Non-Fiction Day is concerned. I checked the NNFD website earlier this week and saw it listed as being on 3rd November this year, and as we are away from home until Saturday morning I thought I would leave my NNFD post writing until then. Imagine then my horror when I am on Twitter earlier today and spot it being mentioned over and over that today is National Non-Fiction Day! I had forgotten that NNFD is actually the first Thursday in November every year. This means that I only have one of the books with me that I wanted to write about this year, as the other is sat on my desk at home. I have chosen something a little different this year's NNFD offering, but please believe me when I say that it is a little beauty!

Garbage Pail Kids, a series of stickers produced by Topps in 1985 were designed to parody overly saccharine Cabbage Patch Kids. Each sticker card features a Garbage Pail Kid character depicted in a grotesque and biting image, christened with a humourous character name involving wordplay. The series was the creation of Pulizer Prize-winning cartoonist Art Spiegelman, who in collaboration with other successful artists, turned the cads into a pop-culture phenomenon. Garbage Pail Kids will feature all 206 rare and hard-to-find stickers from Series 1 through 5, originally release in 1985 and 1986 and contains an introduction by Spiegelman. Garbage Pail Kids includes a limited edition set of four rare and unreleased stickers, is packaged in a wax-coated jacket and is guaranteed to appeal to die-hard collectors as well as a new generation of fans.

If you are an adult who was 10 years old or above in 1985 then you don't need me to explain exactly who the Garbage Pail Kids were. If you are a teen or younger, and you have a devilish and macabre (some may say sick) sense of humour, then you have one hell of a treat in store for you with this book.

The Garbage Pail Kids originally appeared as a series of collector stickers, the first series of which appeared in 1985. Money was tight in those days as I come from a big family, so I was not able to become an obsessive collector of these stickers, but I had a number of friends who could afford them, and we would delight in their subversive and frequently disgusting images. I think they were eventually banned at my school, a story that was repeated across many schools in the UK and the USA. Parents and teachers hated them, ergo kids loved them!

The stickers came about as a reaction to the twee-ness of the Cabbage Patch Kids (and also, as explained in Art Spiegelman's introduction to this book, because Topps did not manage to strike early enough to get a cheap license from the makers of those dolls). Instead of images of those rather unnerving looking dolls, they featured horrible (in the best sense of the word) parodies. The artwork on these stickers was invariably of a very high quality, and they became so popular that they ended up running for a massive fifteen series, finally coming to a close in 1989.

Earlier this year the awesome people at Abrams Comic Arts published a retrospective book of the first five series. This book is page after page of artistic nastiness, with each page showcasing a different card in wonderful enlarged format, with every card in these series displayed. This hardcover book has a wax-coated dust jacket, designed to emulate the wrappers in which the stickers and accompanying strip of chewing gum were sold. We are also treated to a packet of four previously unreleased cards, although I haven't yet been able to bring myself to detach them from the inside back cover.

I think this book has huge appeal for today's youngsters, even though I know that there will be some teachers and parents who will frown at me saying so. Children's fiction has changed immeasurably since the late 80s, and kids are now able to read a plethora of books that just would not have seen the light back in those days. Author's such as Darren Shan, Lemony Snicket, Barry Hutchison.... the list goes on and on.... have taken great delight in making kids squirm, whilst also ensuring that the disgusting and macabre are laced with humour.

 

The Garbage Pail Kids book should also not be underestimated for its educational value. Bear with me whilst I explain.... The names of the various GBK kids are great examples of alliteration, word play and rhyming. A few personal favourites of mine (and I will include images at the end of this post) include Adam Bomb, Drew Blood, Toothie Ruthie, Michael Mutant, Hugh Mungous, Brenda Blender, Stormy Heather and Gore May. And there are so many more I could mention.

I love this book, and have already pored through it three times since it arrived on Wednesday from the wonderful Tina at Abrams. She also sent me a similar book that showcases the Mars Attacks cards, again by Topps, but as I left this at home you will have to wait until anther day for my review.

 

(Please note - images are taken from the internet. Those shown in the book are of a very high quality and do not show the die-cut lines that appeared on the stickers)

National Non-Fiction Day 2011

Today is the second National Non-Fiction Day, an annual celebration, initiated by the Federation of Children's Book Groups in partnership with Scholastic Children's Books. It aims to celebrate all that is brilliant about non fiction and show that it’s not just fiction that can be read and enjoyed for pleasure.

One year on and I still don't feature enough non-fiction on The Book Zone. I do read non-fiction, but it is pretty limited to adult fare that I dip in and out of between fiction books. There simply is not enough time in the day unfortunately. However, knowing that non-fiction day was looming I have been saving a couple of cool titles just for today.

The Worst Case Scenario Survive-O-Pedia (Junior Edition)

this one has been going down brilliantly in the school library since I donated my copy. It is stuffed full of great survival tips, such as how to survive a sandstorm or a shark attack, how to deal with being stranded on a desert island, how to cross piranha-infested water and all kinds of advice on what you should do if you are caught in a lightning storm. The boys at school love books like this: they gather around in huge crowds at lunchtime, just as they do with the Guinness Book of Records and the many back-volumes of Ripleys that we stock on our shelves. Every page is festooned with photos, illustrations or small cartoons, so even if they aren't close enough to be able to read the words they are still able to take part in any related conversation that is going on. The book is also littered throughout with interesting facts and my boys love their facts.

This book is possibly a little too gruesome in places for younger readers, but reluctant reader boys of 10 and above will adore it. It is published by Chronicle Books, who I must thank for generously providing me with a copy to review.

Feel The Force! Pop-Up Physics Fun

I love being a book blogger. OK, so that's a case of stating the obvious, as a book addict I don;t think I will ever get tired of receiving books in the post. Some of them are expected, but occasionally a surprise package comes through the door and Feel The Force! was one of them, courtesy of the good people at Templar, and for me it was an extra special treat. Many of you will know that my main teaching subject is Design technology, with a specific focus on Graphic Design. As such, I totally, completely, 100% adore pop-up books. And now I have another one to add to my collection.

Feel the Force! is a pop-up and life-the-flap book about science, and more specifically the physical side of the subject. Every single page has at least one pop-up, or a tab to pull, or flap to lift, and surrounded by Thomas Flintham's colourful and quirky illustrations. My favourite page by far is the one about pressure: a super-cool pop-up of a guy lying on a bed of nails on the left hand page of the spread, whilst on the facing page there is a pull-the-tab water pistol. Learning physics was never this much fun when I was a kid. As well as the interactive elements, each of the sections also contains an experiment or two, designed to complement the scientific theory that is being put across.

Where's Asterix

Love Asterix? A fan of the Where's Wally books? (are they daft questions - surely everyone is an Asterix and who doesn't like the Where's Wally books?). If you are one of the minority who is unable to answer yes to both of those questions then please turn away now. However if, like me, you love them both then read on.

A while back the ever-lovely Nina Douglas at Orion sent me their latest Asterix book - not a new edition of one of the famous Asterix stories, but a brand new book aimed at Asterix fans of all ages. Called Where's Asterix? it plops Asterix and his multitude of Gallic friends (and Roman enemies) into a number of incredibly detailed scenes, and then asks you to find them. When I tell you that it is of course  illustrated by Asterix co-creator Albert Uderzo you will already know the quality of the illustrations within. As soon as it arrived I found myself poring through the pages, looking to score laurel wreaths by finding the likes of Asterix, Obelix, Getafix the druid, Chief Vitalstatistix, and many others. I thought it would be easy - it isn't. These big A3 sized double-page spreads are rich in colour and detail, so even the huge tub of lard that is Obelisk is occasionally difficult to find. This is definitely a worthy addition to my collection of Asterix books.

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A huge percentage of school library budgets is spent on non-fiction books, and yet when I browse through the multitude of blogs that I follow I rarely ever see these books reviewed. Shame on us! And shame on the bookshops who are forever creating amazing displays of the latest fiction releases for kids, leaving the new non-fiction books to sit out of the way on the shelves in the darker corners of the store (I'm not joking - I have seen this on a number of occasions). You boys who love your non-fiction I applaud you, at least you are reading, and don't ever let anyone tell you that non-fiction doesn't count! 

Review: That's So Gross series by Mitchell Symons

Boys love facts. And the more disgusting these facts are, the better. As I have mentioned on The Book Zone in the past, some of the most popular books in the school library are The Guiness Book of Records and Ripley's Believe It Or Not. Every break time there are groups of boys gathered around the various volumes of these that we have on the shelves, and sometimes we have to step in and encourage them to enjoy them in a slightly less rowdy manner, especially where Ripley's is concerned. Thus, when these four books arrived from the generous people at Random House I decided that before going through them myself I would put them to the test in the school library. We took the boys' favourites off the shelf for one break time and had these ready in their place, and then sat back to observe their reaction.

Their reaction spoke volumes. After the initial disappointment at the absence of their glossy, large format favourites they were soon gathered around in their groups, taking it in turns to flick through whichever book they had in search of the grossest fact they could find. Cue raucous laughter and non-stop giggling for the next twenty minutes - Mitchell Symons's That's So Gross books passed the test with flying colours!

If the name Mitchell Symons sounds familiar to you it is probably because he has won several awards for some of his previous fact-filled books, most notably the Best Book With Facts category of the Blue Peter Book Awards in both 2010 and 2011. The end of March saw the publication of his brand series, titled That's So Gross, consisting of four books aimed at the 7+ age range. The four books in the series each focus on a different theme: Human Body; Animals; Creepy Crawlies; and History, and they are all totally rammed full of facts that kids will find really cool and totally gross. And if I'm perfectly honest, I reckon a good number of adults will also have a lot of fun flicking though these - us Brits are world renowned for our fondness of toilet humour and these certainly deliver in that respect.

These books are aimed at the 7+ market, but they definitely have appeal to older children (the boys we tested them on in the library were 11/12 year olds). Some more conservative parents may be surprised at the content of these books as a handful of the facts might be deemed a little too 'extreme' for kids of this age, so if you feel that this might be a problem it is definitely worth having a quick read through these before giving them to your children. However, if this sort of thing doesn't bother you, or your children are a little older, these are perfect for journeys or holidays as not only are they great fun to read, they are also fairly small format and easily packed in a child's day bag. To find out more then why not pop over to Mitchell's Gross Books website at http://www.grossbooks.co.uk

Review: The Official Zombie Handbook (UK) by Sean T. Page

Since pre-history, the living dead have been among us, with documented outbreaks from ancient Babylon and Rome right up to the present day. But what if we were to suffer a zombie apocalypse in the UK today? 

Through meticulous research and field work, The Official Zombie Handbook (UK) is the only guide you need to make it through a major zombie outbreak in the UK, including:

· Full analysis of the latest scientific information available on the zombie virus, the living dead creatures it creates and most importantly, how to take them down - UK style 
· Everything you need to implement a complete "90 Day Zombie Survival Plan" for you and your family including home fortification, foraging for supplies and even surviving a ghoul siege 
· Detailed case studies and guidelines on how to battle the living dead, which weapons to use, where to hide out and how to survive in a country dominated by millions of bloodthirsty zombies.

Packed with invaluable information, the genesis of this handbook was the realisation that our country is sleep walking towards a catastrophe - that is the day when an outbreak of zombies will reach critical mass and turn our green and pleasant land into a grey and shambling wasteland. Remember, don't become a cheap meat snack for the zombies!

I love zombie films. I also love zombie books, and there are many of these around at the moment as zombies seem to be the in thing in YA literature right now. I also know many boys at school who have seen and loved the likes of Shaun of the Dead, Zombieland, The Walking Dead, and a smaller handful who have seen some of the classics of the genre, even though technically they are too young to have done so (do any parents pay attention to movie certification  these days?). And yet can I get these reluctant readers to read a zombie fiction book? At a push, I have managed to convert a small number of them to the joys of reading Charlie Higson's The Enemy books, although many are a little daunted by the number of pages, but that's where it ends. So, armed with the knowledge that many reluctant reader boys can be sucked in by non-fiction I am going to give this book a try next term: The Official Zombie Handbook (UK) by Sean T. Page.

Sean contacted me out of the blue a while back asking if I would be interested in reviewing a copy of his book. He explained that although when writing it he had been aiming it at an older audience, when he was out signing books a significant proportion of buyers were much younger than this. This doesn't surprise me at all, as even when struggling with fiction boys will often happily pick up a non-fiction book, happy in the knowledge that they can dip in and out of it at their leisure, often picking pages at random, and not have to worry about picking up a plot line later on.

I have seen a number of these books in book shops or online stores, but having flicked through them I found many of them to be very US-centric. Sean Page's book differs from the norm in that it is very much UK focused and therefore British readers will find it very easy to relate to the advice given. And this book is full of advice - in simplest terms it is a survival manual for what you should do should the zombie apocalypse ever occur in modern day Britain. An implausible concept? With all the advances in modern medicine and biological warfare I am not so sure - perhaps it is only a matter of days/weeks/months/years before we wake up to find the walking dead roaming our streets. And if that does happen, thanks to this book our young people could be the most prepared to survive it.

The Official Zombie Handbook (UK) is chock full of information on how to survive a zombie apocalypse in the UK, including establishing a 90 day zombie survival plan, the best modes of transport to use, the best places to hole up in order to survive, the best melee weapons, and so on. It is a very text heavy book with a small handful of simple black and white illustrations so I doubt many boys will want to read it cover to cover, but I am sure they will love dipping in and out. They will also enjoy reading the details of previous outbreaks that have occurred throughout history, and the What If...? case studies that demonstrate how the authorities might react should an outbreak occur at a major British port or airport.

My thanks go to the author for sending me a copy to review. Sean also very kindly sent an extra signed copy which I will be giving away as a prize on a contest sometime in the next few weeks. The Official Zombie Handbook (UK) is published by Severed Press.

National Non-Fiction Day 2010

Today is the inaugural National Non-Fiction Day, an annual celebration, initiated by the Federation of Children's Book Groups in partnership with Scholastic Children's Books. It aims to celebrate all that is brilliant about non fiction and show that it’s not just fiction that can be read and enjoyed for pleasure.

When I first received an email about this day I felt a little guilty as I realised that I had never reviewed a non-fiction book on The Book Zone. This is despite first hand experience of seeing how popular non-fiction can be amongst reluctant readers, and especially boys, but as fiction is my own personal preference (and always has been) and there is only so much time in the day to read, that is the direction I have taken with this blog. However, even boys who claim that they never read probably do read more often than they realise, but quite often they have been conditioned to believe that only fiction counts as 'proper' reading. Last year my school took part in a reading survey for the National Literacy Trust, and one of the questions asked students which, out of an extensive list, did students read outside of class at least once a month. That list included (in this order): websites; blogs/social networking sites; newspapers; magazines; comics or graphic novels; emails; fiction books; song lyrics; poems; plays; text messages; non-fiction books; and manuals/instructions. Yes... all of these count as reading, and a quick glance shows that many could be counted as non-fiction. I aim to use the rest of this post to highlight some of the great non-fiction books that are out there at the moment.

Ripley's Believe It Or Not!

Following hot on the heels of last year’s best-selling edition, Ripley’s Believe It or Not! 2011 offers a whole new feast of bizarre facts and features to enthrall and entertain. Be amazed at the pink dolphin, the girl no bigger than her schoolbag, and the island of lost dolls. Gasp at extraordinary true tales about vampires, the Ripley's waxwork gallery, and the feats of sword swallowers past and present. Illustrated throughout with colour photographs and two pullouts featuring astounding lifesize images, this fascinating book is a must-have for anyone who loves jaw-dropping images and unbelievable facts.

Without a doubt, the most popular two books in our school library are the Guiness Book of Records and Ripley's Believe It Or Not! In fact, some boys race into the library at the beginning of break time in order to get their hands on these. The first of these two books looks very different from the text heavy volumes that were published when I was a child - these days it is page after page of colour photos and images, and the text has been significantly cut down. Ripley's Believe It or Not! is a similar format, although the content (at least most of it) is wildly different. If you have not yet laid eyes on these annual volumes then you may be in for a shock - they are the printed version of the Victorian freak show, combined with myriad bizarre and amazing facts. In other words, just the kind of thing that eleven year old boys love; I have watched them devour these books at breaktime, standing around in groups laughing or squealing at its various weird and wonderful contents. And they are not just looking at the pictures, they delight in reading out loud to each other the commentaries that accompany the often lurid images.

Ripley's Believe It Or Not! is published by Random House (the adult rather than the children's section of the company), and the 2011 edition is out right now. Have a look at it - at first glance it may not look suitable, but your boy will love it. And if he does, it is worth noting that Arrow Books (an imprint of RHCB) now publish a series of fiction books under the heading Ripley's Bureau of Investigation, that are great fun reads for the 7-11 age group.

The Spy's Guidebook and The Detective's Handbook

Last month I wrote a review of one of Simon Cheshire's Saxby Smart detective books, as well as his new Detective Handbook, a non-fiction book that young detective fans will really enjoy. In that post I briefly mentioned two books that had been well-read favourites of mine when I was at primary school - The Spy's Guidebook and The Detective's Handbook, both illustrated by Colin King (with text by a variety of contributors) and both published by Usborne. Little did I realise when I wrote that review that Usborne still publish both of these books, and now my long-lost paperback copies have been replaced by two stunning volumes, spiral bound between hardcovers.

I simply cannot praise these books enough as far as encouraging boys to read is concerned. I was always an avid reader, and loved mystery stories, but my younger brother hated reading and rarely ever picked up a book voluntarily. Except for these that is: I think he wanted to learn about codes and stuff so he could spy on me, and this led to him regularly 'borrowing' my copies for hours on end, and I think modern reluctant readers between 7 and 11 will find these books just as fascinating as we did. However, be prepared to provide your new young detectives and spies with all kinds of items that they will need to equip themselves with, such as talcum powder for fingerprint kids, old clothing for disguises, torches for flashing morse code and plaster of paris for taking casts of footprints. 

The Spy's Guidebook: A classic Usborne title for anyone who wants to be the best spy in the business.Packed with tips, hints and advice on all the tricks needed to be a super spy, including how to write and break codes, how to use disguise to avoid detection and how to stalk and shadow enemy spies effectively. Includes spy-tests, observation quizzes and code-cracking challenges to check how much budding Bonds have learnt.

The Detective's Handbook: Packed with tips, hints and advice on how to be an intrepid, quick-thinking super-sleuth.Includes how to identify fingerprints and handwriting and how to examine witnesses and find clues. Contains observation tests and code cracking quizzes to hone those investigative skills.

Horrible Histories by Terry Deary

I am not sure these really need much of an introduction but they are huge favourite of mine, and they turned my godson's brother on to what we think could be a life-long love of history. Written by Terry Deary, and illustrated in the most part by Martin Brown, these books have become firm favourites with children all over the country since The Terrible Tudors was first published back in 1993 (that one is still my favourite but it is a little scary to think that these have been around for more than seventeen years). Everybody talks about the Harry Potter books being the publishing phenomenon of the world of children's books, but surely some of that honour should go to Mr Deary and this incredible series. 

The Horrible Histories books have become such a huge part of the lives of many children since then it is hard to believe that in their early days they met with quite a lot of resistance from teachers and parents. But Terry Deary was spot on with his vision of fuelling an interest in the past in children by giving them "history with the nasty bits left in", in much the same way that thousands of children have been turned on to reading in recent years by the wave of horror books that have been published. Kids like gore, they love uncleanliness and they adore rude jokes, and the Horrible Histories books have all of these in abundance. Another wonderful aspect of these books is that they are timeless; barring a return to a society akin to the Puritan period that followed the Civil War I think these books will be enjoyed by children for many, many years to come, especially now that there is also a hugely popular BAFTA Nominated TV series to accompany them. New editions of the books have been published to tie in with this TV show, but more excitingly Scholastic and Terry Deary have also now started producing a brand new series, with the subtitle "A High-Speed History". There are two books in the series so far (Egypt and Tudors) containing all the nasty facts that made the original books so appealing, but presented in comic strip form and therefore being far more attractive to reluctant or struggling readers than their text heavy predecessors.

Horrible Science by Nick Arnold (illustrated by Tony de Saulles)

Following the huge success of the Horrible Histories books, the all-knowing people at Scholastic must have put their heads together and brain-stormed what they should publish next that would be in a similar vein. They came to the same conclusion that I am sure many primary school teachers would have...... science. Kids love science and all those messy and incredibly exciting experiments! And so was born the Horrible Science series, with the writing baton passed to the hugely talented Nick Arnold, ably assisted by illustator Tony de Saulles. Titles such as Chemical Chaos, Disgusting Digestion and Deadly Diseases soon saw this series producing a legion of young science buffs, and I am sure that there will be many a university science student who can trace the genesis of their passion back to reading these books at primary school. More recently Scholastic have also published a series of Horrible Science handbooks, larger format books, with full colour throughout, that are page after page of really cool experiments that kids can easily and safely (but possibly messily) carry out. Confession time - I tried a few of the activities out in this book and they were so much fun; if you're kids like science then they will have hours of fun out of this book.  

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This has been such a great fun post to write, and I really will try to feature more non-fiction books on The Book Zone in the future. My huge thanks go to the generous people at Scholastic and Usborne for providing me with review copies for this National Non-Fiction Day post.