Reviews provided by Syndetics
Publishers Weekly Review
Paulsen, who has written several volumes of memoirs, once again reaches back to his boyhood in northern Minnesota, this time to recount his and his pals' attempts to pull off stunts that live up to their billing as "outrageous" and "extreme," even by today's standards. An expansive foreword (which includes vivid details of the then-12-year-old author's almost catastrophic endeavor to ride over a dam in a covered wooden pickle barrel) and a don't-try-this-at-home admonitory note precede five swaggering tales of his contemporaries' derring-do. In the title story, a newsreel report about a new world record for speed on skis inspires a 13-year-old to try to break it-by attaching himself to a car on the flatlands. Elsewhere, a boy rigs up a hang-glider of sorts from an army-surplus target kite and a piece of hockey stick, and lands in a pig pen; impressed by the daredevil shows at county fairs, the gang imitates the stuntmen's maneuvers on their Schwinn bikes, etc. Paulsen laces his tales with appealing '50s details and broad asides about the boys' personalities, ingenuity and idiocy. Despite (or maybe because of) a heavy residual tinge of the fish story, this collection will likely hook adults as much as young readers. Ages 10-up. (Jan.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
School Library Journal Review
Gr 5 Up-Paulsen recounts his escapades as an adventurous 13-year-old who believed that he and his friends could do anything, including wrestle a bear, ride a waterfall in a barrel, and hang glide with an Army surplus kite. Told with humor and a strong tall tale flavor, these accounts will have readers laughing aloud. Audio version available from Brilliance Audio. (c) Copyright 2013. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Booklist Review
Gr. 6^-9. Every boy who is 13 or about to be 13 or who remembers being 13 should read this short story collection based on people and events from Paulsen's own life. Even though the action takes place 50 or so years ago, they will recognize themselves. And every girl who has ever liked a 13-year-old-boy, or been related to one, or wondered about one, should read this, too, because although the book doesn't explain why boys like to do things like pee on electric fences, it does give an insight into how their funny little minds work. Writing with humor and sensitivity, Paulsen shows boys moving into adolescence believing they can do anything: wrestle with bears; shoot waterfalls in a barrel; fly eight-by-twelve-foot Army surplus kites--and hang on, even as they land in the chicken coop. None of them dies (amazingly), and even if Paulsen exaggerates the teensiest bit, his tales are side-splittingly funny and more than a little frightening. --GraceAnne A. DeCandido
Horn Book Review
(Intermediate) This is Paulsen's take on extreme sports, 1950s-style, when a few supplies from the army surplus plus equal measures of guts and teenage lunacy were all it took to attempt breaking world speed records. The book is awash in nostalgia and goes off on many tangents but never loses its cranked-up pace and comic tone as it relates stories of Paulsen pals who flew over town on a giant kite, wrestled bears, and hitched skateboard rides off the bumpers of Hudsons. That many of these farcical feats end in near-disaster likely nullifies the need for ""kids, don't try this at home"" warnings. Paulsen, who serves as a dryly humorous narrator, is usually only an accomplice in his friends' exploits, though he does share a couple of his own, which include riding over a waterfall in a pickle barrel and taking a girl named Eileen on a sweaty, silent ""nightmare"" of a matinee date, which, for a thirteen-year-old boy, might be the most daring, scary, and extreme activity of them all. (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. All rights reserved.
Kirkus Book Review
Dedicated to all 13-year-old boys ("The miracle is that we live through it"), Paulsen's latest collection of possibly autobiographical anecdotes, his most hilarious yet, celebrates that innate impulse to try really stupid stunts, just to see what happens. What sort of bad ideas can a group of lads in a small Minnesota town come up with? "Angel" Peterson ties himself, on skis, to a fast car, earning his sobriquet after claiming to hear angels singing "Your Cheatin' Heart" when the attempt goes disastrously awry. Because some girls are watching, Orvis Orvisen goes toe to toe with a live sideshow bear; others try various primitive, ill-considered forms of hang-gliding, bicycle-jumping, and skateboarding, capped by a sidesplitting outtake from the author's Harris and Me (1993), featuring a wildly misguided attempt at bungee-jumping. Related with the author's customary matter-of-fact tone and keen comic timing, these episodes will not only keep young readers, of both sexes, in stitches, they're made to order for reading aloud. (Biography. 10-12)