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| Knucklehead: Tall Tales and Almost True Stories of Growing up Scieszka | 
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Avg. Customer Rating:  (based on 5 reviews)
Sales Rank: 1417
Category: Book
Author: Jon Scieszka
Publisher: Viking Juvenile
Studio: Viking Juvenile
Manufacturer: Viking Juvenile
Label: Viking Juvenile
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Unknown), English (Published)
Media: Paperback
Reading Level: Ages 9-12
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 106
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 9.9 x 6.6 x 0.5
ISBN: 067001138X
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780670011384
ASIN: 067001138X
Publication Date: October 2, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
How did Jon Scieszka get so funny, anyway? Growing up as one of six brothers was a good start, but that was just the beginning. Throw in Catholic school, lots of comic books, lazy summers at the lake with time to kill, babysitting misadventures, TV shows, jokes told at family dinner, and the result is Knucklehead. Part memoir, part scrapbook, this hilarious trip down memory lane provides a unique glimpse into the formation of a creative mind and a free spirit.
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| Customer Reviews:
A Naughty book! October 24, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Reviewed by Simon Smith (age 9) for Reader Views (10/08)
The "Knucklehead" was very naughty with some crazy tricks. The front of the book makes it look like a comic book but it's really not. It's a chapter book with short chapters and some photos. Jon is a naughty kid who is forever going outdoors or playing tricks on his four younger brothers. This is the story of the author and the funny things that happened when he was a kid.
Once in Sunday School Jon had to write down all of the curse words he knew and show them to the teacher for an assignment. Jon said that the universe stopped when the teacher read the list. She gave him the evil eye, but fortunately, since it was an assignment to write down the curse words, he got away with it.
Another time, when Jon saw this really cool ad that said one-thousand toy soldiers in a footlocker, he bought them all immediately. When they came, he saw that all of the soldiers were no thicker than a dime. He angrily shoved all of the useless soldiers back in the chest. Then the youngest brother Jeff came along and when he asked what it was, Jon showed him the ad and told him that this was one-thousand soldiers in a footlocker and that he could buy it from him for one-dollar and fifty-cents.
His writing is pretty good as writing goes and from the way this is read, it sounds like this information might have been taken from his journal. This book is for people who like sneaky, naughty stories and is probably best for kids, ages seven and up. If you liked "Skinky Cheeseman" and "Other Fairly Stupid Tales," also written by this author, then you'll really like this book, "Knucklehead: Tall Tales and Almost True Stories of Growing up Scieszka."
Proud to Call Jon My Cousin October 22, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
Jon Scieszka tells it like it is growing up in a big family. He is every bit as funny in person as in writing -- get this book and have a great laugh.
 Knuckling under October 14, 2008
4 out of 6 found this review helpful
To adults that don't normally wander through the shelves of children's literature the notion of the autobiography for kids is a pretty odd beast. You write a book about yourself, sure. But why would you make the primary audience for that book people who think that boogers and farts are the height of wit and sophistication? Fact of the matter is an autobiography written with a child audience in mind needs a hook. Your life, particularly your life as a kid, has to have had something interesting about it. Many of us probably look back on those years only to sigh and determine that absolutely nuthin' interesting went on back then that would sufficiently engage a ten-year-old. Not Jon Scieszka. You want a hook? Try five brothers. Five brothers and Catholic school. Five brothers and Catholic school and a mess of stories involving bodily functions and super cool (and not so cool) toys. Mr. Scieszka proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that when it comes to recounting your youth, there's nothing like a plethora of XX chromosomes to keep the readers reading.
He was born the second Scieszka, after Jim, before Tom, Gregg, Brian, or Jeff. You want to know where the author of books like The Stinky Cheese Man gets his ideas? This book provides the answer. Using bite sized chapters rarely more than two to three pages in length we get a firsthand account of what it's like to grow up as a child of the fifties and sixties alongside five other bros where being a guy takes up all of your time. The book is written in such a way that readers are almost encouraged to flip back and forth through it to get all the good stuff, but in the order they prefer. So if you happened to skip Chapter 13 about Gregg's broken collarbone and you get to Chapter 19 which references the incident in passing, never fear. It's easy to take Knucklehead as it comes to you. There are thirty-eight chapters in total and each one's a heckuva lot of fun.
Read enough of these authorial auto-bios and after a while you start seeing similarities. That section about peeing on the heater in the bedroom? Well that's mighty similar to the peeing on the heater section in Chris Crutcher's book King of the Mild Frontier. Not because one was cribbed from the other or anything. It just seems that peeing on heaters is one of those universal things boys like to do, and it sure does make for great reading. As I read Scieszka's book I also started flashing back to some talks I've heard fellow author Eoin Colfer give about his own years with a big family, and the disgusting hijinks he and his siblings engaged in. When the candid and the funny are one and the same, you've got the makings of a hit on your hands.
Actually, maybe I shouldn't use the word "candid". Since the subtitle of this book says that it involves "tall tales and mostly true stories" then the readers should have some fun trying to figure out where Jon exaggerates. It's tough. A lot of these are so weird you can't help but think they're true. That story about how Jon would faux call the Bad Boys' Home while brother sitting? Sounds about right. The one about breaking Gregg's collarbone? Jon has the photographic proof right there (and even a picture where Gregg looks like he's a "third-grade pro football player"). No, I think my doubting Thomas nature came into play more along the lines of the chapter called "Car Trip" which involves brothers, a cat, and an unfortunate pecan nut log in a vomit-fest that certainly strains at the tensile threats of my credulity. And maybe the dry cleaning bag incident. I mean it's just too cool.
The design of this book is groovy, keen, awesome, neato no question. From the faux ads on the back to the sheer overwhelming swath of photographs, graphs, x-rays, pictures, and clip art peppered throughout, this puppy's a visual humdinger. The kind of thing that makes you scratch your head and say, "I wonder if he would have gotten this much cool art design help if he wasn't our National Ambassador of Children's Literature?" Which is an uncharitable thought, perhaps, so you'd have to banish it from your brain forthwith and just enjoy the pictures instead. It's clear that Mr. Scieszka, creator of the Guys Read movement that encourages boys to read, knows how to make an autobiography that reluctant readers will dig. Everything about this book is tailor made for the kid who thinks that they don't like books. The chapters are very short and the text continually broken up by the visuals.
In New York anyway the go-to autobiography assigned by teachers over and over again is Jerry Spinelli's Knots in My Yo-Yo String. Now at long last it looks as if Jerry will finally see a challenger to his throne. I've heard Mr. Scieszka present one or two of the chapters of this book live and since he has a tendency to go off-script (particularly when he's discussing his own life) there are things he has mentioned live that didn't quite make it into Knucklehead. That's okay. I don't think anyone's going to accuse the man of not including enough information. As a reluctant reader pick and the kind of autobiography kids are going to fight to read first, this book is definitely a must-add title for any library's shelves. Good clean stuff. Without the "clean" part so much.
Knucklehead October 4, 2008
7 out of 7 found this review helpful
This is an awesome funny book. My husband was raised in Michigan and has a sweet routine of telling my two boys ages 6 and 11 stories of his childhood at bedtime every night. He found this book and bought it for our 11 year old. He loves it. Last night he read it outloud to me and we both laughed so hard my faced hurt! Awesome book.
Another great book October 3, 2008
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
As the mother of four boys (and a child of the 70s), I adore what Jon Sciezska has done for male-accessible literature. My sons are reading again and again the adventures of Jon and his brothers who "don't know" how mischief happens. Perhaps my favorite part of this book is his description of how the term "knucklehead" changed from being a deragatory term to a phrase of endearment. My boys love the funny stories of what happens when you get a pack of boys together.
We also love the book he edited, Guys Write for Guys Read, full of great authors that boys/men and the women who love them like to read.
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