Hey! Look at This! Ripley's Believe It Or Not 2013

STEP RIGHT UP! ENTER THE HALL OF WONDERS!

Wonders and curiosities have always had their appeal, from the carnival side show to the museum exhibit. People love to see the biggest, the smallest, the strangest of the ide world, and Scholastic Books Ripley's Special Edition 2013 (Ripley's Believe It Or Not Special Edition) (2012) offers the latest compendium of curiosities, from a “towering teen” girl who comes in at 6 feet 9 inches, to a man who can touch his shoulders together in the middle of his chest (easy if you’re lacking a collar bone)!

How about a woman who has worn nothing but pink for years and years? Or a woman in Florida whose hair is twenty feet long? A man whose tongue can reach up to his eyebrows?

From the sublime (bioluminescence in an Australian lake) to the ridiculous (a one-legged man who walks on crutches eleven feet high), from the awesome (Elephant Rock in the Joshua Tree National Park) to the downright grotesque (a coconut-sized kidney stone), this book is a portable sideshow, a book of wonders and a collection of “gee whiz” moments. Fact boxes add tidbits of scientific or historical information or, in the case of the “Let’s Talk” boxes , biographical bits from interviews with some of the people featured.

A compendium of awesome oddities and wacky wonders, this non-fiction entry carries on the long tradition of Robert Ripley, somewhat of a peculiar personage in his own right. This is a book with appeal over a wide range of ages and interests, with subjects ranging from geographical and animal to human wonders, inventions old and new, art and magic. Come one, come all!