Adult/High School-An entertaining and occasionally informative collection of urban legends, celebrity rumors, scams, pranks, and hoaxes. Craughwell begins his introduction with a good working definition of the term "urban legend"-a demonstrably untrue story that uses humor or horror to teach a lesson about the consequences of disregarding societal taboos. He then notes that for most people the only real criterion is that the story is plausible, although patently false. The first chapter is devoted entirely to stories and legends that circulated following September 11. The author briefly discusses the psychology behind the origin of these tales and mentions that many of them were covered in a New York Times article, although no citation is provided. In fact, the lack of documentation throughout is the book's weakness. Since the volume contains items that sometimes show up as reference questions, such as the statue of a military hero on a horse indicating the manner of the hero's death by the number of hooves off the ground, some sort of explanation or source material is mandatory. However, as entertainment, the book succeeds. Teens will enjoy the variety of selections and may be surprised to find that they have been taken in by some of these absolutely true stories that happened to a friend of a friend of a friend.
Jody Sharp, Harford County Public Library, MD
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Product Description
What's an urban legend? It's a story that gets passed around so frequently that no one really knows how it began. All we know is that the tale is so amusing, dark, coincidental or ironic that, whether it's true or not, we are dying to believe it-and pass it on.
In the successful tradition of Alligators in the Sewer and The Baby on the Car Roof, this all-new collection of over 200 urban legends offers the latest and greatest tales so weird and funny that they just have to be true. Including:
- The firemen who rescued a stranded cat and then ran over it.
- The baby born in flight who was given free air travel for life.
- The drug-test cheater who was caught when his urine sample revealed him to be pregnant.
Organized by genre, each story in THE CAT IN THE DRYER runs one or two pages, and features possible variations and embellishments. Subjects range from famous people to disturbing pranks, from holiday nightmares to creepy stories, and from military misadventures to pet disasters.
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