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Barry Yourgrau

NASTYbook Hardcover – April 26, 2005

by Barry Yourgrau (Author)

3.3 7 ratings

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Nice is Overrated.

"The perfect book for the budding Count Olaf or Sauron in your family... or for you." -- Neil Gaiman, author of Coraline

NASTY ('nas-te) adj. 1. Twisted. 2. Spitefully unfair. 3. Causing dangerous and severe laughter. SYNONYMS: Hilarious. Deliciously fun. Sample usage: "What a nasty, wicked book, filled with mayhem and mischief." "Only nasty criminals would kidnap a cuddly teddy bear!" "Monsters attacking 'cause a kid picks his nose? That's nasty." "A witch on the Internet, a superhero who farts? All nasty too!" ANTONYMS: Nice. Boring. Plain old ordinary.

Why can’t really cool parents dump their uncool offspring?
Why can’t talented imaginary friends desert their boring creators?
Why can’t pop stars be changed... into rodents?

Well, here they can! Barry Yourgrau’s NASTYbook is jam-packed with delightful wickedness for the kind of readers who can’t get enough of bad endings, rude twists, and assorted nasty mischief...(And don’t think we don’t know who you are.)

Reading age

10 - 12 years
Print length

192 pages
Language

English
Grade level

5 - 6
Dimensions

5 x 0.78 x 7.5 inches
Publisher

HarperCollins
Publication date

April 26, 2005
ISBN-10

0060579781
ISBN-13

978-0060579784
See all details

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

These 43 very short—vignettes? essays? anecdotes?—aim at outrageousness but fall curiously flat. An unidentified narrator relates a variety of gruesome, grisly, gross or just plain stupid sketches (there isn't enough meat in any one of them to call it a story) about nose-picking, farting, monsters, poisoning, pimples and assorted dementia, like a boy with a toenail-clippings fetish. Decapitation is a recurrent event. The tone is mostly dark: in "Cake," a boy freezes to death after running away from home and his parents' reaction is to sell off his bike at a yard sale, but the subject matter is mostly grade-school, meaning this will likely miss the mark with its intended audience. An inventive design (the book is bound so that the text appears upside down and many pages appear to bear smudgy black fingerprints) may draw in reluctant readers. The last entry, "Goblins and Their Crimes," is about a "bitter starving writer of exquisitely arty, bad-selling fiction," who decides to write children's books because "how hard can it be to make up a story about some little wizard, like what'shisname; or a bunny that runs down a hole?" As this tedious collection points out, it's harder than it looks. Ages 10-up.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From School Library Journal

Grade 6-8–An author of adult titles brings his surreal perspective to this uneven collection of macabre tales. Unlike the lighthearted gloominess of Lemony Snicket's "A Series of Unfortunate Events" (HarperCollins), the general mood here is world-weary cynicism. The stories vary dramatically in style and quality. "The Werewolf's Garden" is a darkly comic satire of the movie business. "Panda" is a truly eerie account of a disturbed child and his homicidal pet. "Skateboard" is a standard ghost story in the campfire tradition. There are several ironic, just-deserts vignettes in the style of the old "Twilight Zone" series. Practical jokers send the new kid on a pizza delivery to a vampire's lair and find that tomato sauce and blood don't mix. Other stories rely on adult themes, cruelty, and gross-out effects. A lustful pirate mistakes a shark for a willing mermaid and an over-the-hill superhero fights evildoers with powerful flatulence. Characterization is variable as well, sometimes drawn with spare, subtle descriptions and other times in broad caricatures. The book is deliberately printed upside down and illustrated only with scattered black fingerprints.–Elaine E. Knight, Lincoln Elementary Schools, IL
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ HarperCollins (April 26, 2005)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 192 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0060579781
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0060579784
Reading age ‏ : ‎ 10 - 12 years
Grade level ‏ : ‎ 5 - 6
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 9.6 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5 x 0.78 x 7.5 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #5,308,900 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #7,590 in Children's Short Story Collections
- #47,679 in Children's Humor

Customer Reviews:
3.3 7 ratings

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Barry Yourgrau

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Writer & performer Barry Yourgrau is the author of a memoir, Mess, as well as distinctive books of magical short fiction including A Man Jumps Out of An Airplane (new edition, May 2017), Wearing Dad's Head, Haunted Traveller,and The Sadness of Sex, in whose film version he starred. He's appeared on MTV and NPR, written for NY Times, New Yorker.com, VICE, and Paris Review. Born in South Africa, he came to the US as a child. He lives in New York and Istanbul.

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3.3 out of 5

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max mordini

NASTY BOOK REVIEW

Reviewed in the United States on January 23, 2006

My name is Max Mordini and I just get finished reading Nasty. Well I didn't know what was in store for me until I opened the book and realized that it was backwards and upside down. This right away caught my eye that the author was a funny guy. I also didn't know that the book was filled with 43 little halarious storys; I guess. Well the thing is they were only about 4 to 5 pages long so I don't know what to call them. Well as i said before you know that this book wasn't an actual chapter book with a begining, rising action, climax, etc. It didnt have a problem, but there was a problem in some of the short stories. For example, in the story Pizza a delivery boy has to deliver a pizza to a vampire. His friends gave him garlic, but no crucifix, and no silver bullet therefore........well you probubly know what happend. Another example is the story Monster about a boy who has the most ugly face; with pimples, warts, and acne. He decides that there's no point in life, so he drops out of school and starts scaring people for a living. One day he comes home and finds face cream and it works. Now the problem is solved.

I thought something good came out of the reading although i was expecting a chapter book. I am actually glad that I stumbled on to this book, but it wasn't the best book iv'e read i mean some of the storys made absolutely no sense, so I decided to try to think what the author was thinking and how wacky he is in real life. The book wasn't very exciting as much as it was funny though. The author was very creative I think. I wouln't of come up with the wacko ideas he had. They were absolutely out of the box, I mean way out.

If I had to rate this book I would give it 3.5 stars. You should read this book if you just want to kick back and relax and have a couple good laughs particularly around summer time. I recommend this book for boys and girls 9 and up. All in all The Nasty Book wasn't so nasty, but it was funny.

2 people found this helpful

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Harry

Not For Children

Reviewed in the United States on August 23, 2011

The Nasty Book is a collection of really, really short stories (2-3 pages) that are filled with dark humor and tragic endings. For example: A story about an elephant that goes to school, and an oafish guardian angel. The style of the book is present tense, for those interested, and is very quick paced. If you like non-traditional stories, which are exceedingly weird, then this is for you. It's definitely something that you can read while on the toilet. However, I do not recommend this for younger children, despite the simple language. It is for older kids and teenagers. Keeping that in mind, have fun, there are surprises awaiting you.

Reviewed in the United States on August 12, 2005

This book is as collection of stories. The stories are comical, creepy, gorey, scary, gross, and nasty. Some of them have a mission to scare you, while others just live up to the name nasty. They are all good for a night of sleepless-ness.

Opinion: This book was ok. The author did a good job on making up nasty stories. Many of them were to unbelievable. They weren't that nasty because I know some of the events couldn't happen. However, some of them really sent the hair on my neck rising.

Reviewed by a student reviewer (age 12) for Flamingnet Book Reviews

Visit [...] for preteen and young adults books reviews and recommendations

2 people found this helpful

Helpful

Teen Reads

Graphic and visceral short stories that will disturb and delight

Reviewed in the United States on August 11, 2005

A boy is sent to a doctor to learn to stop picking his nose. A hot teen movie star gets transformed into a gerbil. A boy tickles his girlfriend until she explodes. A pirate captain becomes violently seasick. These are just some of the scenarios in Barry Yourgrau's NASTYbook, a collection of gruesome and grotesque stories intended to disgust and delight young readers.

My first mistake in reading NASTYbook was to be fooled by the cover, which is put on backwards, so readers looks like they are reading the book upside down. My second mistake was thinking that it wouldn't actually be as nasty as the title suggests. Do not underestimate the nastiness of this book. Along with normal gross-out nose-picking and bodily fluids, NASTYbook contains all sorts of bad behavior, including decapitations, animal rampages, and revenge from beyond the grave.

The stories in NASTYbook are short, usually just a few pages long, and extremely effective. One type is a fable with the ironic punch of Kafka, like "Peanut Shells," about an elephant who's caught cheating on a test with notes it cannot in fact read, or "Ugly," a story about a boy with bad skin who becomes the monster he feels himself to be. Other stories have the tone of Hilaire Belloc's CAUTIONARY TALES FOR CHILDREN, about juveniles whose bad behavior is rewarded with bad ends. Still others are just plain grotesque, or unnervingly scary, like "Oof Oof" about the ghost of a teddy bear who comes back to haunt its tormentors. The collection is visceral and disturbing, and exactly the sort of thing many kids would enjoy reading, even as many parents would find it inappropriate or upsetting.

Yourgrau's work, whether for children or adults, is at its best when he writes lean stories ripped with vivid imagery. His work is like a window into other people's nightmares. Even though they are clearly prose, there is something poetic about even the nastiest stories in NASTYbook. Yourgrau's work reminds me of Shel Silverstein's. It has the same awareness that childhood isn't just sweetness and innocence, but also can be filled with fear, superstition and brutality.

NASTYbook is fun to read and truly distressing, a book that will convince many young people that reading is more exciting than they previously thought. It does not seek any kind of moral or artistic redemption, but may find it anyway. NASTYbook is likely to be on the banned books list for many years to come.

--- Reviewed by Sarah A. Wood

3 people found this helpful

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Skepy Largnos

This is one of the worst!

Reviewed in the United States on August 14, 2005

It is incredulous! How can this even be published? The many stories were disgusting and nonsense. Now, don't get me wrong, I do enjoy nonsense, but it isn't even funny nonsense! What is the matter with this! I think no one should read it! It is a big NO! If you want to read something don't waste your time with this upsidedown madness!

3 people found this helpful

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NASTYbook Hardcover – April 26, 2005

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