No Dribbling the Squid: Octopush, Shin Kicking, Elephant Polo, and Other Oddball Sports [Paperback]

Michael J. Rosen (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 20, 2009

In No Dribbling the Squid, armchair athletes--and anyone who enjoys tales of the strange and unusual--get a front-row seat at some of the world's most mind-blowing feats of strength, endurance, and eccentricity.

Here are profiles of more than 70 fringe, far-fetched, and frightening sports, all featured in up-close-and-personal photos. With everything from wayward warfare (Japanese mudflinging, team snowball fighting, professional shin kicking) to displaced races (swamp soccer, outhouse racing, underwater cycling, or elephant polo), to toe- and finger-wrestling, chess boxing, extreme mountain unicycling, spitting and hurling contests, city-wide brawls, and recess games gone grown-up, there's something here to tickle any competitor's freaky streak.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Michael J. Rosen has written or edited more than 80 books for both adults and children. He has spent numerous years directing programming at the Thurber House, the cultural center in James Thurber's boyhood home, where he edited four collections of Thurber's work, created a three-volume humor biennial, and established the Thurber Prize in American Humor. An educator, author, poet and illustrator, Michael lives in Glenford, Ohio.

His collaborator, Ben Kassoy, coauthored No Dribbling the Squid. He attends Emory University. M. Sweeney Lawless, comedy writer and performer, lives in New York City and can hide up to five bees secretly in her mouth.

Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: Andrews McMeel Publishing; Original edition (October 20, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0740781200
• ISBN-13: 978-0740781209
• Product Dimensions: 7.1 x 5.1 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,979,056 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Greetings and thanks for welcoming me into your home. Since I write books for both young readers and adults, I've cooked up two long-winded paragraphs.

Kids first: So, I'm the author of some four dozen books for children of all ages. The fall of 2011 brings four new titles: MY DOG! A Kid's Guide to Keeping a Happy & Healthy Dog (the idea go-to dog guide for families); a pop-up book with Robert Sabuda, Chanukah Lights, which just received a starred review in Publisher's Weekly: "A stunning achievement"; The Hound Dog's Haiku and Other Poems for Dog Lovers, illustrated with Mary Azarian's woodcuts; and Night of the Pumpkinheads, illustrated entirely with extraordinary jack-o'-lanterns.
Other favorites are The Cuckoo's Haiku and Other Poems for Birders; Our Farm: Four Seasons with Five Kids on One Family's Farm (which I both wrote and illustrated with some 400 photographs); A Drive in the Country; Don't Shoot!; A School for Pompey Walker, and Elijah's Angel. (And, yes, there's the Britiish Michael--no "J."--Rosen whose many books are often confused with mine.) For over 35 years, ever since working as a counselor, water-safety instructor, and art teacher at local community centers, I've been engaged with young children, their parents and teachers. As a visiting author, in-service speaker, and workshop leader, I frequently travel to schools and conferences around the nation, sharing stories, poems, creativity, and humor.

Several of my books here show my work as editor/anthologist or illustrator. It has been my privilege to have enlisted hundreds of other authors and artists to create 15 philanthropic books that aid in the fight to end childhood hunger through Share Our Strength's national efforts, or that offer care to less fortunate companion animals through The Company of Animals Fund, a granting program I administered for a dozen years.

Now, for adults. I can start by saying I'm a poet. I went to Columbia from 1979-1981, and received my MFA there. Poems are now collected in three volumes, which are all featured here at Amazon. Moving home to Ohio, I worked as an illustrator (while in NYC, I began selling spot illustrations to The New Yorker and Gourmet magazines); one of my first real clients was The Thurber House, the soon-to-be-restored home of Columbus's native son, James Thurber. For almost twenty years, I helped to restore the home, develop the programs there, and edit much of Thurber's uncollected work. (Those volumes are also featured here.) It was there, I began to edit short story anthologies, commission great writers to contribute to books about dogs, horses, and even VW Beetles. That's also where I started Mirth of a Nation, a three-volume humor biennial that constitutes almost 2,000 pages of the best contemporary humor.

Most recently, I've been working in humorous nonfiction. No Dribbling the Squid features profiles of 70-some of the world's most wayward competitions. (You can see the Web site and Facebook pages, as well.) And, most recently, there's Any Body's Guess: Quirky Quizzes About What Makes You Tick.

Otherwise, my Website has a good deal about my life on the 100-acre farm I share in Central Ohio. Thanks again for reading along with me.

www.fidosopher.com

for lots more about MY DOG!, including recipes, training tips, cool projects, games, and so forth: www.workman.com/mydog

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Dribble it!, December 19, 2009

By 

I. Cohen - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: No Dribbling the Squid: Octopush, Shin Kicking, Elephant Polo, and Other Oddball Sports (Paperback)

Michael J. Rosen and Ben Kassoy's No Dribbling the Squid: Octopush, Shin Kicking, Elephant Polo and Other Oddball Sports is a vibrant and hilarious account of the world's most quirky and unconventional competitions, which includes such bizarre sports as wife carrying, sauna endurance contests, and professional rock, paper, scissors.

Each page is a spectacle in itself, exploding with high-action, full-color photos (whether of snowball fighters, lawnmower racers, or mountain unicyclists), along with clever and punchy writing that gets you in, out, and onto the next eccentric contest.

With the holidays approaching, I bought several copies for family and friends, even those aren't sports fans (being a lover of the weird and whacky will do). I could picture my nephew practicing his cannonballs off the high dive after reading about professional splashdiving or, in winter, mounting a toilet on skis to prepare for the outhouse racing season. My sister, the world traveler and festival-seeker, might have to stop by Spain's giant tomato fight, England's shin kicking competition, or Scotland's Bog Snorkelling Championships after reading about them in No Dribbling the Squid.

I also love checking out the Featured Freaky Sport of the Week on the book's website, [...], and, as a fan of Squid on[...], I took the Find Your Inner Oddball Athlete quiz to discover, with great amusement, that I am destined to be a chess boxer. My areas of expertise: brains, brawn, and books! Squid is a knockout (or, if you will, a checkmate)!

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Worth Adventures, December 19, 2009

By 

James (Atlanta, Georgia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: No Dribbling the Squid: Octopush, Shin Kicking, Elephant Polo, and Other Oddball Sports (Paperback)

If you often find yourself looking at an odd assortment of objects, and come up with a MacGyveresque sport or game, then this is the book for you. It is a humorous attempt to find the world's wackiest and zaniest sports, and I have to admit I often found myself wanting to join in.

This makes a great stocking stuffer for anyone, but especially those wild and raucous individuals who need a few suggestions on how to spend that extra time on their hands. Whether it is bog cycling, wife carrying, or Zorbing they will certainly get some laughs and new ideas for wild and zany sports.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Perfect gift!, December 1, 2009

By 

GBC Tech "QueenDone" - See all my reviews

This review is from: No Dribbling the Squid: Octopush, Shin Kicking, Elephant Polo, and Other Oddball Sports (Paperback)

Michael Rosen and Ben Kassoy have done it! They've put together the perfect gift this holiday season. I initially picked up 'No Dribbling the Squid' with the intention of buying my 21-year-old nephew something he could read on his flight abroad this winter. The underwater cover jumped out at me as offering an interesting spin on the average sports book. I began flipping through the pages and found the graphics and descriptions totally engaging. I've never taken an interest in sports but the quirkiness featured in this book could entertain anyone (check out the section on wife carrying)! I highly recommend 'No Dribbling' to anyone looking to brighten his or her (or someone else's) book collection. You can't go wrong!