Everything I Know About Cars: A Collection of Made-Up Facts, Educated Guesses, and Silly Pictures about Cars, Trucks, and Other Zoomy Things - Hardcover

Lichtenheld, Tom

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0689843828 ISBN 13: 9780689843822

Publisher: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, 2005

Synopsis

Stop!
What's Your Car I.Q.?
The fastest kind of car:
A. A jet-powered dragster
B. An invisible spy car
C. Any car that is red and has flames painted on the sides
Cars were invented by:
A. Karl Benz
B. Professor Flubber
C. Two horses in Ohio who got tired of carrying people around all day
Souped-up cars are made with what kind of soup?
A. Chicken noodle
B. Pea
C. No actual soup is used
Answers inside!

About this title

About the Author

Tom Lichtenheld has illustrated several bestselling picture books, including One Big Pair of Underwear; Shark vs. Train; Duck! Rabbit!; and Goodnight, Goodnight, Construction Site. He lives with his wife in Illinois. Visit him at TomLichtenheld.com.

Reviews

Grade 1-4–Like Lichtenheld's Everything I Know about Monsters (S & S, 2002), this pseudo-nonfiction book presents a wealth of made-up stuff. It's chock-full of fun fake facts about automobiles, such as "Red cars are the fastest kind" and horses invented cars (hence the term horsepower). Other sections focus on the history of motor travel (beginning with cavemen putting steering wheels on animals), how cars work ("the transmission…transmits; the suspension…suspends"), and how to be a passenger ("Your next duty is to test the power windows. Down. Up. Down"). The book ends with tips for kids on how to design and draw their own vehicles. The conversational text is plentiful, but is made less intimidating by the plethora of wacky cartoon illustrations. Using ink, colored pencil, gouache, and watercolor, Lichtenheld depicts everything from an ancient Egyptian dune buggy to a "Heli-Hat" to a detailed map of a family road trip. The illustrations and the narrative have just enough body and potty humor to amuse readers but not gross them out. The result is Mad Magazine, Jr. meets Auto Repair for Dummies. The mix of madcap illustrations, irreverent text, and kid-friendly humor is sure to attract even the most reluctant readers.–Catherine Callegari, San Antonio Public Library, TX
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Gr. 2-4. Lichtenheld, the author of other witty compendiums such as Everything I Know about Pirates (2000), takes a similarly wacky approach to cars. Although the book is classified as nonfiction, the author claims expertise on made-up cars, not real ones, so readers will learn, for instance, that two horses (Winnie and Nay) in Ohio invented the first car in 1904. The section on how a car works reads like a test paper by a student who is totally unprepared, but still game: "Some other car parts you should know about are the transmission, which transmits; the suspension, which suspends; and the pistons, which, well . . . they work real hard too." Just as funny and accessible as the text are the colorful, cartoon-style illustrations with their helpful and amusing labels. Some kids will giggle through the whole book, and few will read it without cracking up at least once or twice. With an eye-catching jacket and a terrific section on how to draw a car, this large-format book has something for everyone (except maybe someone who actually wants to know about cars). Carolyn Phelan
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Edition details

• Publisher: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
• Publication date: 2005
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0689843828
• ISBN 13: 9780689843822
• Binding: Hardcover
• Illustrator: Lichtenheld Tom
• Number of pages: 40