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Overview
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!
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781429937030 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Feiwel & Friends |
| Publication date: | 11/27/2007 |
| Sold by: | Macmillan |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 160 |
| File size: | 3 MB |
| Age Range: | 10 - 13 Years |
About the Author
Marc Aronson is an author, editor, publisher, speaker, historian, and book producer. His mission is to inspire young people to ask questions, to look around, behind, and inside of the stories the world tells us. He writes a monthly column for School Library Journal on nonfiction for younger readers, and frequently speaks about boys and reading. Marc's books have been awarded the Robert F. Sibert Award for the best in children's nonfiction and selected as a New York Times Notable Book and a School Library Journal best book. In 2006, he was given the ALAN Award by NCTE for service to teenagers, and was named the local spokesman for the History Channel's Save Our History program. He lives with his wife and two sons in Maplewood, New Jersey.
H. P. Newquist has authored more than a dozen books for both children and adults, including the critically acclaimed The Great Brain Book (Scholastic, 2005). To prepare for For Boys Only, Mr. Newquist went scuba diving with sharks in Australia, climbed the Great Pyramid in Egypt, drove some really fast cars, learned a few magic tricks, and read more books than he can count.
Marc Aronson is an author, editor, publisher, speaker, historian, and book producer. Marc's mission is to inspire young people to ask questions, to look around, behind, and inside of the stories the world tells us. He writes a monthly column for School Library Journal on nonfiction for younger readers, and frequently speaks about boys and reading. Marc was awarded the Robert F. Sibert Award for the best in children's nonfiction for Sir Walter Ralegh and the Quest for El Dorado, and his books have been selected as a New York Times Notable Book and a School Library Journal best book. In 2006, he was given the ALAN Award by NCTE for service to teenagers, and was named the local spokesman for the History Channel's Save Our History program. He lives with his wife and two sons in Maplewood, New Jersey.
HP Newquist has authored more than a dozen books for both children and adults, including the critically acclaimed THE GREAT BRAIN BOOK (Scholastic, 2005). To prepare for his book For Boys Only, Mr. Newquist went scuba diving with sharks in Australia, climbed the Great Pyramid in Egypt, drove some really fast cars, learned a few magic tricks, and read more books than he can count.
Read an Excerpt
For Boys Only
The Biggest, Baddest Book Ever
By Marc Aronson
Holtzbrinck Publishers
Copyright © 2007 Marc Aronson and HP NewquistAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4299-3703-0
CHAPTER 1
SUPER CARS
BUGATTI VEYRON
252 miles per hour
Zero to 60 mph in 2.5 seconds
Made by Volkswagen—the same company that makes the "slug bug" Beetle—the Veyron costs $1.2 million. The Bugatti brand has been around since the late 1800s, and this particular one is the most powerful supercar ever made: 1,000 horsepower, equal to more than 200 lawn mower engines.
KOENIGSEGG CCX
242 miles per hour Zero to 60 mph in 3.2 seconds
Made by Swedish carmaker Koenigsegg, the CCX costs $755,000. New owners are encouraged to visit the factory in order to take special driving lessons on how to handle this four-wheeled beast.
MCLAREN F1
240 miles per hour
Zero to 60 mph in 3.2 seconds
Created by America's most famous racing team, McLaren, the F1 is the only American car on this list. It is no longer made, but whenever one is put up for sale by its owner (for a million dollars or more), McLaren Automotive rebuilds it for the new owner. There are only 64 of them in the world.
FERRARI ENZO
217 miles per hour
Zero to 60 mph in 3.2 seconds
Ferrari is Italy's most famous carmaker, and Enzo is the name of the company founder. The car costs $620,000, and buyers fly to Italy to have the car's interior custom fit to their bodies.
PAGANI ZONDA
C12 F ROADSTER
214 miles per hour
Zero to 60 mph in 3.5 seconds
Pagani is another Italian carmaker, and its convertible F costs $690,000. The designer, Horacio Pagani, designed his first supercar at age 12 out of modeling clay.
SUPERCARS ARE THE FASTEST, MOST EXPENSIVE cars that can be driven on American roads. (Racing cars can't be legally driven on because of speed, safety, and noise concerns.) Mainstream car companies like General Motors and Nissan make millions of cars a year; supercar manufacturers make only a few dozen or a few hundred, and each one costs more than most people's homes. They are usually hand-built and require an elite team of physicists to design them so they don't fly off the road or burn up from the heat of their engines and brakes. Some supercars can outrun regular sports cars by nearly 100 mph.
Getting picked up from school in one of these cars would probably make the other kids—as well as all your teachers—stop and stare. Maybe even drool. So start saving your pennies for the coolest cars to ever hit the road. This is the supercar list you might want to have when you get your driver's license.
MERCEDES-BENZ SLR MCLAREN
207 miles per hour
Zero to 60 mph in 3.6 seconds
This is a car you might actually see driving around, as Mercedes is a popular brand in America and the price is only $455,000. This car was designed with the help of the same McLaren team that created the F1, above.
LAMBORGHINI MURCIELAGO
205 miles per hour
Zero to 60 mph in 3.8 seconds
Italy's Lamborghini makes supercars that can only be described as "wicked." This one costs $280,000. Murcielago means "bat" in Spanish and the first time this car was ever used in a movie was Batman Begins.
FERRARI 575M MARANELLO
202 miles per hour
Zero to 60 mph in 4.1 seconds
This supercar sells for $285,000. A Ferrari was featured in the Disney movie Cars as the dream car that the owner of the tire store had waited his whole life for.
SPYKER C12 LA TURBIE
201 miles per hour
Zero to 60 mph in 3.9 seconds
Spyker is an old-time race car company in Holland, and it sells this supercar for $355,000. The car has no keys for the door or ignition; everything is controlled by a computer card. Each La Turbie has been sold before it was even finished.
ASTON MARTIN VANQUISH S V12
201 miles per hour
Zero to 60 mph in 4.7 seconds
This is the fastest car to come out of England. Aston Martins are perhaps best known as the cars used in James Bond movies, and this one sells for $260,000. The Vanquish was called the Vanish in the movie Die Another Day because it could turn invisible. Unfortunately, the real car can't do that—yet.
HISTORY'S WEIRDEST DISASTERS
THE ELEPHANT STAMPEDE
People in Bhubaneswar, India, had always been respectful of the elephants wandering around their village. But in the summer of 1972, a severe drought left both man and elephants crazed from thirst. On July 10, elephants came rampaging out of the Chandka Forest and trampled the tiny village, killing 24 people.
THE BOSTON MOLASSES DISASTER
On January 15, 1919, a huge tank of molasses burst open at Boston's Purity Distilling Company. The tank was 50 feet high, and it spewed more than two million gallons of molasses out into the street.
A wave more than 10 feet high rushed down the street at more than 30 mph, swallowing up people and knocking buildings off their foundations. Twenty-one people were killed and more than 150 injured. To this day, residents of Boston say that you can smell molasses in the streets during the summer.
SNAKES FROM THE VOLCANO
Nearby residents watched daily as smoke and ash from Mount Pelee filled the air on the Caribbean island of Martinique. On May 3, 1902, the ash was so thick that people started evacuating, but they found their way blocked. Hundreds of venomous fer-de-lance snakes, along with biting ants and foot-long centipedes, had filled the streets—driven up from the ground by volcanic rumbling. Fifty people and numerous horses were bitten and died before soldiers and feral cats killed the snakes. Two days later, the volcano erupted, killing some 30,000 people. Only two people in the town survived.
THE TEXAS CHAIN REACTION DISASTER
Texas City, Texas, was a bustling port town on April 16, 1947. That day, a ship full of fertilizer caught fire at the dock. Smoke from the fire attracted the attention of the townspeople, many of whom came to the water to watch. As the ship was being towed away, it exploded, killing more than 500 people. Windows in homes 40 miles away were blown out, and people felt the blast as far away as Louisiana. The explosion caused another ship in the port to erupt, and its explosion knocked a plane flying overhead out of the air. More than 5,000 people were injured in the disaster.
MONSTERS and DINOSAURS
AMERICAN INDIANS WHO LIVE in what is now South Dakota tell tales of water monsters fighting thunder spirits. The ancient Greeks believed that the griffin (body of a lion, claws of an eagle) lived in Asia and guarded gold. But did these creatures ever really exist? In a way, yes. The South Dakota hills are filled with dinosaur-era bones, some from fins, others from wings. The Indians were just making sense of the bones around them. When scholar Adrienne Mayor went to the supposed homeland of the griffin, where people went gold prospecting in ancient times, she found bones of Protoceratops—a dinosaur that had a beak, like an eagle or a griffin.
THE EASTLAND ROLLOVER
The Eastland was a 269-foot-long cruise ship docked in the Chicago River on July 24, 1915. The boat was scheduled to take 2,500 passengers on a picnic ride from downtown Chicago across Lake Michigan. As the ship was getting ready to depart, passengers rushed to its upper deck to wave to friends. The ship was already top-heavy (it had added extra lifeboats for the trip) and the weight caused the Eastland to wobble. It started to lean to one side, and then suddenly tipped over into the water. Although it was still attached to the dock and lying in only 20 feet of water, 844 people died in the accident, many of them sucked underwater by the huge wave caused by the falling ship.
HOW TO FIGHT A SHARK
YOU'RE NOT LIKELY TO. ever get attacked by a shark, especially if you don't go in the ocean. Living in the desert will keep you 100% safe.
The fact is that only about four people in the entire world are killed by sharks in any year. (More than 600 people die in the United States every year from falling out of bed or a chair. Sleeping and sitting may be more dangerous to your health than a hungry shark.)
Out of the nearly 400 types of sharks, only five are considered man-eaters: the great white, tiger, hammerhead, bull, and mako sharks. But let's say you come face-to-face with one of these teeth-filled beasts while you're minding your own business out there in the ocean. What do you do?
Punch him. Just like shark hates to get punched. But you have to punch him in one of three places.
Start with the nose (Fig. A), out there in front of the teeth. Scientists think the tip of the shark contains extremely sensitive nerves that help it detect prey. So, punching it in the nose is like bashing its brain; it will get confused and wonder just what is happening.
If the shark is swimming by you, punch it in the eye (Fig. B) or up against its gill slits (Fig. C). Again, these are sensitive parts of the shark, and sharks don't like having these parts touched, let alone punched. Dolphins have been known to fight off sharks by ramming their snouts into the gill slits.
Above all, DO NOT thrash around. Sharks are attracted large fish and seals, animals that move around a lot, and the thrashing helps guide sharks to their dinner. Also, try not to bleed too much. Those nerve endings are designed to detect blood in the water, and blood to a shark is a huge sign that reads ...
"EAT ME."
ODDS ARE ...
ODDS AREN'T PREDICTIONS, they're estimates of the chance that something might happen. But reporters use "odds" as if they were stating a future fact. Odds are figured out using mathematical formulas that consider how often things have happened in the past, as well as where and when.
Odds that you are reading this right now: 1 in 1
Odds that your house has at least one container of ice cream in the freezer: 9 in 10
Odds of being born a twin in North America: 1 in 90
Odds of writing a New York Times best-selling book: 1 in 220
Odds of catching a ball at a major-league ball game: 1 in 563
Odds of fatally slipping in the bath or shower: 1 in 2,232
Odds that Earth will experience a catastrophic collision with an asteroid in the next 100 years: 1 in 5,560 Odds of finding a four-leaf clover on the first try: 1 in 10,000
Odds of winning an Academy Award: 1 in 11,500
Odds of becoming a pro athlete: 1 in 22,000
Odds of being stung by a bee, or bitten by a snake or other venomous creature: 1 in 83,930
Odds of experiencing an earthquake: 1 in 100,000
Odds of dying in an airplane accident: 1 in 354,319
Odds of being struck by lightning: 1 in 576,000
Odds of dying from a dog bite; 1 in 700,000
Odds of being killed by lightning: 1 in 2,320,000
Odds of spotting a UFO: 1 in 3,000,000
Odds of becoming president: 1 in 10,000,000
Odds of winning a state lottery jackpot: 1 in 14,000,000
Odds of becoming a saint: 1 in 20,000,000
Odds of dying from a shark attack: 1 in 300,000,000
Odds of a meteor landing on your house: 1 in 182, 138,880,000,000
SPORTS PUZZLERS
Q:How can you hit a fair ball out of the park, and be called out?
A: Jimmy Piersall was a good outfielder who did things his own odd way. In 1961, when he hit his 100th home run, he ran the bases in order—but turned backwards, his behind leading the way to each base.
As a result, Major League Baseball officials changed the rules. Now, you must run the bases facing forwards. If you copy Jimmy, you're out—and out of the game.
Q: How can an umpire call a batter out and not out on the same play?
A: Picture a batter up with runners on first and second and fewer than two outs. If the batter pops up the ball to the infield and the ump thinks a fielder would normally make the play, he can yell out, "Infield fly, batter is out!" The infield-fly rule prevents the fielder from deliberately letting the ball drop so he can make an easy double or triple play. But even if the ump calls the batter out, and the ball drifts foul and is not caught, it is just another foul ball, and the batter lives again.
Q: How can you score in football if you get the ball when there is no time left on the clock to run off a play?
A: When a player calls for and makes a fair catch on a punt, his team has the option to try a field goal from the place where he received the ball. His team will have the chance to run the play, even if the clock reads 0:00. Not only that, but they kick from where he received the ball, and the defense must start out ten yards away. The last team to score using this play was the Chicago Bears, in 1968.
MARK YOUR CALENDAR!
JULY IS NATIONAL ICE CREAM MONTH. Vanilla is the overwhelming favorite flavor, accounting for almost a full third of all the ice cream sold. (Chocolate is far behind, at 8.9 percent, and butter pecan at 5.3.) October is National Pizza Month—which makes it confusing that National Pizza With the Works Except Anchovies Day is November 12, followed the next day by National Indian Pudding Day—which shares time with Gingerbread House Day—all of which fall smack in the middle of National Split Pea Soup Week. None of which makes any sense, except that November 15 is National Clean Your Refrigerator Day—which, with all of that petrified ice cream, cold pizza, old pea soup, dry Indian pudding, and stale gingerbread lying around, is the only sensible choice.
WHAT DO YOU EAT?
CEREAL. AMERICANS EAT
an average of 160 bowls of cereal per year. That means we slurp down about 10 pounds of cereal apiece. Which cereals? Cheerios are the big winner, followed by Frosted Flakes, and Honey Bunches of Oats. How come we eat those cereals? For one thing, advertising—one third of the cost of every box of Cheerios is spent on making sure you keep picking it, and so does your kid sister.
MOST POPULAR SNACKS FOR AMERICAN BOYS, AGES 8 TO 12
1. fruit
2. potato chips
3. chewing gum
4. ice cream
5. candy
BONE PRETZEL
LEAVE A LONG CHICKEN BONE to soak in vinegar for a week. The vinegar dissolves the calcium in the bone and makes it rubbery. When you take the bone out, you should be able to tie it in a knot!
HOW TO LAND A PLANE IN AN EMERGENCY
WHEN YOU SEE AN AIRPLANE emergency in the movies, there's always someone on the plane who can land it when the pilot gets injured. If this ever happens when you're on a flight, we think you should be that one passenger who saves the day. Here's how to land a Boeing 767, which seats about 300 passengers—all of whom are now depending on you to land.
Take the pilot's seat on the left side of the cockpit. In front of you is a steering wheel (known as a yoke). It turns left and right and pushes in and out. This controls your direction and whether you go up or down. The throttle, a lever or bar on your right, controls your speed.
Make sure you're even with the horizon ahead by looking out the front window. If the horizon is below the window, push the steering wheel in to nose the airplane down. If the horizon is above the window, pull back on the wheel to get level.
Turn the wheel to make sure the wings are flat and even with the horizon. Once you're flying level, the plane will fly just fine. Now, there's a button on the steering wheel called a push-to-talk button. Press it and say, "Mayday, mayday, mayday." This should put you in contact with an air-traffic controller.
Steer in the direction the controller gives you. When you get near the runway, make sure the plane faces it straight-on.
Put the landing gear down. Very important. The round knob to do this is located right next to your knee. Ease the wing flaps down a couple of notches; the flap lever is right beside the throttle. Make sure the speed brake, on the left of the throttle, is pulled back. This will turn on only when you touch down, so don't worry about anything happening right now.
When you get down to 500 feet, put the wing flaps down. Start reducing the speed by pulling back on the throttle. Keep the horizon as level as possible in front of you.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from For Boys Only by Marc Aronson. Copyright © 2007 Marc Aronson and HP Newquist. Excerpted by permission of Holtzbrinck Publishers.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Introduction 6 * Reader! Before You Start This Book, Stop Right Here! 9 * Supercars 10 * History's Weirdest Disasters 12 * Monsters and Dinosaurs 12 * How to: Fight a Shark 13 * Odds Are . . . 14 * Sports Puzzlers 14 * Mark Your Calendar! 16 * What Do You Eat? 16 * Bone Pretzel 16 * Pizza Stats 17 * Dates to Know: Snacks in America 18 * How to: Land a Plane in an Emergency 20 * Fun Math Tricks 22 * Oobleck 23 * Most Venomous Snakes 24 * Most Dangerous Snakes 25 * Explorers and Adventurers 26 * Ultimate Frisbee 30 * Fear Factor: America's Scariest Amusement Park Rides 32 * Dates to Know: Attractions and Amusement Parks in America 34 * Nature's Deadliest Poisons 36 * Brain Teaser: The Missing Money 37 * Great Mysteries: What They Left Behind 38 * Weapons That Changed History 40 * Fake Blood 42 * Card Trick 1: "The Flipped Card" 43 * How to: Escape From Being Tied Up 43 * Spies 44 * Detective Stuff 46 * How to: Collect Fingerprints 46 * Dental Evidence 47 * Chromatography 47 * Blood Testing 48 * DNA Testing 49 * How to: Get out of Quicksand 50 * What Are You Really Worth? 50 * Word Games 51 * Codes: There is Danger May Come Very Soon 52 * Card Trick 2: "The Math Genius Magic Trick" 53 * Presidents 54 * How Does It Work? Satellites 58 * Brain Teaser: The Four Triangles 60 * Liquid Rainbows 60 * Secrets for Drawing in 3-D 60 * How to: Win at Rock, Paper, Scissors 61 * Top Eleven Greatest Moments in Sports History 62 * Athletes Who Changed the World--Literally 64 * Amazing Comeback--Upset--Refuse-to-Lose 66 * Best Individual Performance 68 * Dates to Know: Sports in America 72 * Treasure: Buried or Otherwise 74 * Wonders of the World 80 * The Two Most Horrifying, Hideous, and Disgusting Creatures in the World 84 * The Great Game of 21 86 * Fantasy Wars: Who Would Win? Vikings vs. Pirates 88 *Crushing Conquerors 90 * Fantasy Wars: Who Would Win? Aztec vs. Inca 92 * How 3,000 Men Beat 50,000, and Other Great Battle Stories 94 * Fantasy Wars: Who Would Win? Mongols vs. Romans 96 * How Does it Work? Cell Phones 98 * Computer Byte Sizes 99 * So You Want to Be a Rock Star 100 * The Only Four Sports Dynasties Worth Mentioning, and Why No One Will Ever Top Them 104 * Major League Brothers 105 * Largest Sports Facilities in the United States 106 * The Most Successful Movies Ever Shown in America 112 * Earth's Extremes 114 * Moon Man Facts 116 * Road to the Red Planet 117 * Space Distances 118 *Cool Things to Expect in Your Lifetime 120 * Great Mysteries: Fake 121 * Video Games 122 * Do Not Trade or Throw Out! 126 * Billions 126 * Rich 127 * Great Mysteries: Spooky 128 * World's Greatest Daredevils 130 * Speed Records 132 * Speeds . . . in Miles Per Hour 133 * Dates to Know: Transportation in America 134 * How Does it Work? MP3 Player and iPod 136 * Monster Hunting 138 * Things to Remember Your Whole Life 142 * U.S. States and Capitals 143 * People, People Everywhere . . . 148 * Baseball's Best 148 * All-American 149 * Predators--Kings of the Hill 150 * Kings of Ancient Hills 151 * How to: Fight Off an Alligator 152 * Diseases You Definitely Don't Want to Get 153 * The Biggest Man-Made Things on Planet Earth 154 * Things You Didn't Know (But Probably Should) 156 * The Simple Coin Vanish 157 *