Customer Reviews

Prisoners' Inventions

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4 star:		(1)
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Totally entertaining - everyone's getting this for Christmas from me this year. Yes, the drawings are nifty, but the text about prison life which necessitates such inventions was more fascinating, to me anyway. Although weapons and drugs are not covered, it's still worth every penny.

When all you have isn't much, and much of what you could use is contraband, you learn to make do. "Angelo", the author/illustrator of this work, is a prisoner who has explained and illustrated various ways that prisoners make do with what little they can get ahold of in ways that would make MacGyver proud. Making chess pieces, drinking cups and dice out of paper mache (toilet paper and sugar); a cigarette lighter out of tape, wire and two D-Cells; cooking using toilet paper as fuel; turning an old hot sauce bottle into a showerhead; converting empty butane lighters and lip balm tubes into salt and pepper shakers; recycling glue from pastry boxes, various ways of using immersion heaters, or building your own out of paper clips, rubber bands, metal tabs from a notebook binder and a toothbrush, etc. A fascinating look at how people can improvise in some of the most dire of circumstances.

This book is an inspiring testament to the human spirit. It's especially interesting for anyone with an engineering mind or a knack for making things. We are all inventors at heart!

If you have any interest in multiple intelligences, ingenuity, prison culture, or even just crafts I can't recommend this book enough. If you work in any type of detention facility this should be required reading!

This is a great book for anyone interested in off things. I pick it up occasionally and am always fascinated.