How to Do Nothing with Nobody All Alone by Yourself [Hardcover]

Robert Paul Smith (Author), Elinor Goulding Smith (Illustrator), Paul Collins (Introduction)

Book Description

Age Level: 10 and up | Grade Level: 4 and up

Remember how to make a spool tank? How to whip apples? What to do with a discarded umbrella? Whether "pennies" comes before or after "spank the baby" in mumbly-peg? And your kid never knew any of these things in the first place, to forget in the second place? Robert Paul Smith remembers, and he has set it down for all to see — these things and many others, like rubber-band guns, and slings, and clamshell bracelets, and the collection, care, and use of horse-chestnuts. This book frees children from video games for a few hours, a handbook on the avoidance of boredom, a primer on solitude — a child’s declaration of independence. It reveals "how to do nothing with nobody all alone by yourself" — real things, fascinating things, the things that we and our parents did as kids. It’s a book for kids, but parents are not prohibited from reading it.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Every great book reminds us that we're all alone in the world. At least this one provides us with the means to entertain ourselves while we're here." — Lemony Snicket

"It's what you'd get if you crossed the Boy Scout Handbook with The Anarchist's Cookbook, and it's definitely the wildest how-to manual I've seen this year." —Greg Cowles, The New York Times Paper Cuts blog


"What a joy to give children something they can do without 'hollering for help'...How to Do Nothing with Nobody All Alone by Yourself is replete with the sort of fun that childhood should be, and too rarely is." —Blogcritics.com

"Had I known about it, Robert Paul Smith's 1958 book, 'How to Do Nothing with Nobody All Alone by Yourself,' would have been my Bible. Smith gets down to the nitty-gritty on the first page: 'These are things you can do by yourself,' he writes. 'You don't need any help from your mother or your father or anybody.'"—Laurie Hertzel, Minneapolis Star Tribune

"This classic 1958 guide reintroduces kids to those natural urges that have to turn random objects into crazy great stuff...Readers will love that everything in this book was invented by kids and passed along by kids, that nothing costs money and that each of the projects is a seat-of-the-pants creation."—Where the Best Books Are!

"You'll never hear 'I'm bored' again with this illustrated guide to simple, nostalgic fun."—Canadian Family

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 10 and up
  
• Hardcover: 130 pages
• Publisher: Tin House Books; Reissue edition (February 23, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0982053959
• ISBN-13: 978-0982053959
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 6.4 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.1 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #491,030 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A part of my childhood, February 25, 2006

By 

Dave Culp - See all my reviews

This review is from: How To Do Nothing With Nobody, All Alone by Yourself (Hardcover)

This book was given to my brother and I when we were 4 and 6 years old. Whenever we were "bored," our mother handed us "the book."

With comprehensive, easy to read how-to's from mumbly peg to spool tanks to cockleburr baskets, "How to do nothing" is one of the enduring memories from my childhood

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Things you can do following the instructions in this book, February 16, 2010

By 

Daniel P. Smith "Daniel P. B. Smith" (Massachusetts, USA) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: How to Do Nothing with Nobody All Alone by Yourself (Hardcover)

Things you can do following the instructions in this book:

Make a spool tank (a homemade windup toy that creeps forward slowly like an army tank); a "button buzz-saw;" a handkerchief parachute; a harmless handkerchief "blackjack." Make a squeaky noise with two blades of grass. Do cool things with dandelion stems and leaves. Make a little basket out of burrs. Put your name on a pencil. Give a pencil a decorative checkerboard grip. Play Mumbly-Peg with a boy scout knife. Make a bracelet out of a clamshell. Make a needle dart. Make a leather sucker. Play "killers" with horse chestnuts. Make a Spanish bolas with horse chestnuts. Make a bull-roarer, an indoor boomerang, an outdoor boomerang, several kinds of slingshot, a throwing-stick. Make a bow and arrow out of a broken umbrella. Make polly-noses from maple tree wing things. Pop jewel-weed pods. Make willow bees and cats. Make a pin piano. Make a "bavoom-thing," a peach-pit basket, a rubber-band-powered paddlewheel boat, a paper airplane, a paper helicopter, and a thing made from a wishbone that surprises people by jumping suddenly into the air.

A 1958 video interview of Robert Paul Smith can be found at (...)

5.0 out of 5 stars One of my favorite books from childhood., December 16, 2010

By 

Michael F. Kennedy (Roanoke, VA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: How to Do Nothing with Nobody All Alone by Yourself (Hardcover)

As a kid, I checked this out of the library a bunch of times. I made a lot of the stuff in this: the spool tank, the needle darts, and other things. I still "shoot" clover blossoms at people with a trick I learned in this book. I taught myself mumblypeg with it. Putting this one in the cart for the kids.