Weird & Wacky Inventions: Book Review

Weird & Wacky Inventions: Book Review

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Murphy, Jim. Weird & Wacky Inventions. New York: Sky Pony Press, 2011.

PLOT SUMMARY

A haircutting machine, a gentlemen’s hat that tips itself, a toothbrush for cats and dogs, and a mustache guard. What do all of these unusual objects have in common? They are all a part of Jim Murphy’s assortment of quirky and strange historical inventions, all placed collectively into this book, Weird & Wacky Inventions. Take a journey through history and learn of various inventions and what they were created to achieve, accompanied by illustrated concept images. Think you have heard of all of the world’s crazy inventions? Just you wait!

CRITICAL ANALYSIS

As a children’s nonfiction book, this piece of work is simplistic and informative. Jim Murphy does a good job of putting together a collection of unusual and interesting historical inventions, compiling them and putting them into the various descriptive, organizational categories: From the Neck Up, Something to Wear, Half-Baked Helpers, Household Odds and Ends, Down on the Farm, Getting Around, Self-Improvement Weather You Want to or Not, and One Thing Leads to Another. This serves to help group together similar types of inventions, such as the self-tipping hat and mustache guard in the ‘From the Neck Up’ category.

This book is written and presented in an informative, quiz-type style that can be entertaining and challenging for children and individuals of all ages who are interested in such subjects. Simplistic and easy to follow descriptions are provided for each invention, as well as an invention concept illustration. For example, the page shows an image of a machine that looks like a bucket with metal pieces, and then provides choices to guess from, the following choices being: a. an ice-cream maker, b. a washing machine, c. a swiss-cheese mold, or d. a paint mixer. The correct choice ends up being option ‘b’, and is a washing machine. This book presentation style encourages children to use their deductive and critical thinking skills, as well as their imaginations, to try to guess the correct invention purpose and how it would work, and then provides the correct response, teaching them about the historical invention.

Though this is entertaining in the presentation of strange and quirky inventions, factual in providing historically accurate information, and well organized and easy to follow, it is somewhat bland. While other works of nonfiction may flow as a story, or are presented in a picture storybook format, this book is heavy on the text and provides small, concept illustrations that are not the most imaginative or entertaining. This book is successful in fulfilling its purpose of providing nonfiction information to children, but does not do so in the most entertaining of ways. This is (of course) a personal opinion, and I recommend giving this informational book a try for yourself.

REVIEW EXCERPT(S)

From Kirkus Review: “Some [inventions] look so peculiar that Murphy turns his offbeat catalog into a guessing game: first, he shows the patent diagram and offers one or more clues, with a choices of answers; then, overleaf, he identifies the gadget and tells a little more about it…For a tinkerer’s idle moments, this might do.”

From New York Journal of Books: “Ordinary things we use every day were invented by someone. A person or group had an epiphany, either wanting to improve upon an existing product, or they just got lucky in conjuring a new idea. In Weird & Wacky Inventions by Jim Murphy we can follow the process with great delight, from inception to its current incarnation.”

CONNECTIONS

Use to teach children about various inventions/inventors.

Read other Jim Murphy books such as:

• ·         Baffling & Bizarre Inventions. ISBN 1634501527
• ·         The Giant and How He Humbugged America. ISBN 0439691842