The Way Cool License Plate Book [Hardcover]

Leonard Wise (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 7, 2002 | Age Level: 6 and up | Grade Level: 1 and up

Everywhere you go you see vanity plates. The best of them are those that make you think and then reward you with a good laugh. Now there is a book that captures all the fun and excitement of vanity plates from across North America.

Inside The Way Cool License Plate Book you'll find plates that show how their owners feel about the cars they drive (or wish they drove!), the work they do, the sports they play and the dreams they have.

This book is the perfect companion for any vacation or road trip. Parents will be happy knowing that the games in this book strengthen math and reading skills as well as provide hours of fun. Kids will enjoy spotting plates from across the country and reading the hundreds of vanity plates inside. Categories of vanity plates include:

• Cars
• The work we do
• Sports
• Animals
• Places
• Music
• PL8 fun

and there are 8 pages of games for car trips.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Just right for holiday road trips, the paper-over-board The WayCool License Plate Book by Leonard Wise presents traveling games("Picture This" challenges players to find license plates with symbolsor pictures) and more than 400 amusing-and revealing-vanity platesorganized by subjects such as occupations, animals and car terms (canyou guess what kind of vehicle has the "4RD TRK" plate?). A briefhistory of the license plate kicks off the volume; "Plate Facts"sidebars offer license plate trivia throughout.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From School Library Journal

Grade 4 Up-This title can provide several hours of fun for the whole family. The introduction explains what vanity license plates are and how to read them. A short history discusses the origin of license plates, the various kinds of materials that have been used to manufacture them, and collecting as a hobby, followed by six pages of directions for various license-plates-related games that can be played while traveling. The main body of the text is a collection of vanity plates from all of the Canadian provinces and the U.S., arranged by such categories as occupations, animals, sport terms, etc. The average page contains colorful reproductions of eight plates, though many have as few as five to accommodate road signs, drawings, and/or "blank plates" that feature trivia. Each reproduction is accompanied by a clue to help readers decipher the tag's message. Accuracy as to the correct design and colors of some of the illustrations might be questioned; e.g., the design shown for the Kansas plates was the standard one for that era, not the vanity motif that was actually used. This, however, neither changes nor damages the potential appeal of the book for readers who enjoy the challenge of deciphering codes. This is one of those titles that libraries should have "just because."-Eldon Younce, Harper Elementary School, KS
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 6 and up
  
• Hardcover: 64 pages
• Publisher: Firefly Books (September 7, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1552976866
• ISBN-13: 978-1552976869
• Product Dimensions: 11.1 x 8.8 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,679,014 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Every fun thing you ever wanted to know about license plates, November 15, 2003

By 

Lawrance M. Bernabo (The Zenith City, Duluth, Minnesota) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (COMMUNITY FORUM 04)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)   

This review is from: The Way Cool License Plate Book (Paperback)

In this travel book for kids stuck in the back of the car without modern conveniences like DVD players, Leonard Wise does for the license plate what Aristotle did for all types of human knowledge in his day, to wit, provides a detailed taxonomy (okay, he classifies them into discrete categories, but I am trying to go with the flow here and also be way cool). "The Way Cool License Plate Book" contains both a brief history of the license plate, which began as simply the initials of the owner of the car, and a list of games for everyone from kids for cannot yet read to those who read Aristotle in the original Greek. But most of this book is devoted to vanity plate categories, with dozens of examples of real license plates: occupations (K9TUTR, ISU4U, TV NUS), animals (2NAFISH, MEOW, EEGL), car terms (THEJAG, FASTNUF, EAT DUST), exclamations (OIMSOL8, CHILOUT, CYAH), sports terms (1STBASE, RDWINGZ, 4MULA1), and sayings (NOSMOX, 2 DY4, H82BL8). These examples indicate the wide range of what you will find in these pages and the general rules for license plate shorthand, which can help inspire you to come up with your own vanity plate for some where down the road. I have never had a vanity plate, mainly because I could never really come up with anything prefect enough; but my mother has had MOMSCAR for years. Some of these examples are totally obvious (YANKEES, ADIOS, MS PIGGY), but others require to wrap your warped brain around them (XCAV8R, IW84NO1, FNOMNL). Likewise, the games go from beginner to challenge level. As you go through the hundreds of way cool license plates there are also dozens of plate facts (first state to have license plates, last state to have license plates, etc.). The bottom line is that this travel book, which has color photographs of all of these license plates, is both distracting and informative. You can even try to figure out if all of the states and Canadian provinces are represented (What? After all that work you think I am going to tell you?).