Ripley's Believe It Or Not!: Special Edition 2010 » (Special)

It Can't Be . . . Can It?

A real-life Transformer?

A glow-in-the-dark tattoo?

And tiny parasites living on your eyelashes?

It's all weird, and it's all inside--Believe It or Not!

Children's Literature

Like Phineas T. Barnum, Robert Ripley knew that there "is a sucker born every minute." As the illustrator of his name sake's syndicated cartoon column (begun in 1918), he took the freak show out of its "museum" and circus context, gleefully updated it to the twentieth century, then tossed it right back into his own "museums." Ripley added justification for his voyeuristic exhibits in the form of "scientific explanations." This compilation of both classic and modern displays proves their absurdly long-term interest to a still credible, paying public. Yet who would not be stopped cold by a two-faced calf (caused by "a rare condition, called diprosopus"—a term not found in the OED), or a two-tailed mouse? Then there are the baby-faced vegetables, and the Ferris wheels created from 27,000 toothpicks, and . . . Hey, the book has got to be a bargain if one includes its library binding and 3-D lenticular cover of a Kiwi lizard man! Check it out. Reviewer: Kathleen Karr