Uncle John’s Facts to Annoy Your Teacher Bathroom Reader for Kids Only! (2 page)
Read Uncle John’s Facts to Annoy Your Teacher Bathroom Reader for Kids Only! Online
Authors: Bathroom Readers’ Institute
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SCHOOL DAZE
“Thank goodness I was never sent to school; it would have rubbed off some of the originality.”
—Beatrix Potter, author
“The difference between school and life? In school, you’re taught a lesson and then given a test. In life, you’re given a test that teaches you a lesson.”
—Tom Bodett, author
“School’s a weird thing. I’m not sure it works.”
—Johnny Depp
P
SST!
This book is your secret weapon. You see, adults like to pretend that they know all the answers. But we know they don’t really. For example, ask your teacher or your dad or your friend’s mom (or your friend’s teacher’s mom) why people drive on a parkway but park in a driveway. They’ll probably look confused and blurt out, “Because that’s the way it is!” But after reading
Uncle John’s Facts to Annoy Your Teacher
, you’ll be able to tell them why. (And if they get annoyed by being outsmarted by a kid, that’s a bonus!)
This book is yours. Do whatever you want with it. Draw cartoons in the corners of the pages, mark up the puzzles, color in the pictures. And all the while, you’ll absorb the fascinating information we’ve gathered for you. How can we be so sure? We’ve been making
Bathroom Readers
for kids for a long time, and they’ve all passed the “it doesn’t suck” test. Here’s just some of what’s inside:
•
You want gross? We’ve got gross.
The man who “sang” with farts, booger-licking bison, sweaty facts, and a trip to the vomitorium. (Yuck!)
•
Rebellious kids.
The girls whose tale of real fairies
baffled grown-ups, the future president who got sent to the principal’s office, and a nine-year-old professional guitar player. Oh, and a kid who squirts milk out of his eyes.
•
Surefire ways to annoy people.
Learn to speak hobo, make a bloody eyeball, build a better spitball, and play your armpits.
•
History that isn’t boring.
An escape from Alcatraz, the guy who invented Mr. Potato Head, the origin of the doughnut, and pirate treasure that’s still waiting to be found.
But be warned: After you read this book, you’ll be smarter than most of the people around you. And as Spider-Man’s uncle once said, “With great power comes great responsibility.” (Or was that what Porter the Wonder Dog told me when he sent me to the store for his favorite dog biscuits?) Anyway, it’s your solemn duty to annoy those around you with your newfound wisdom. Speak to them gently, since their brains may not be able to comprehend facts of this magnitude.
Now it’s time to dive into the most fun and fact-filled books in the history of books! (Okay, maybe
one
of the most.) Happy reading. And as always, Go with the Flow!
—Uncle John, the BRI Staff, and Porter the Wonder Dog
Shameless plug:
www.bathroomreader.com
Teachers say a lot of things.
Not all of them are true.
FACT?
Cinco de Mayo (May 5) is Mexico’s version of the Fourth of July.
WRONG!
Cinco de Mayo is more widely celebrated in the United States than in Mexico, where it’s pretty much confined to the south-central state of Puebla. Not only is it not a major holiday, it’s not even Mexico’s independence day. Cinco de Mayo commemorates the 1862 Battle of Puebla, in which the Mexican army fought back an invasion by France. Mexico’s actual independence day—celebrating its freedom from Spain—is on September 16.
FACT?
George Washington had wooden teeth.
WRONG!
In 2005, the National Museum of Dentistry performed tests on four sets of dentures known and proven to have been used by the first president of the United States. The findings: The false teeth contained a variety of materials…but no wood. Washington’s various chompers were made out of combinations of gold, horse teeth, donkey teeth, hippopotamus tusks, and even human teeth. They were held together with metal springs, screws, and bolts.
Flamingos build their nests with mouthfuls of mud.
Cool advice from some cool guys.
“In order to succeed, your desire for success should be greater than your fear of failure.”
—Bill Cosby
“All you need is love. But a little chocolate now and then doesn’t hurt.”
—Charles M. Schulz
“I don’t know what my calling is, but I want to be here for a bigger reason. I strive to be like the greatest people who have ever lived.”
—Will Smith
“Fishing is boring, unless you catch an actual fish, and then it is disgusting.”
—Dave Barry
“Nothing to me feels as good as laughing incredibly hard.”
—Steve Carell
“The three little sentences that will get you through life. Number 1: Cover for me. Number 2: Oh, good idea, Boss! Number 3: It was like that when I got here.”
—Homer Simpson
“You get ideas from daydreaming. You get ideas from being bored. You get ideas all the time.”
—Neil Gaiman
Always do right. This will gratify some people and astonish the rest.
—Mark Twain
7/5 of people do not understand fractions.
You won’t find fried tarantulas in your cafeteria—unless you live in Cambodia. Some people have all the luck
!
P
ICKLED BEET BURGERS
Welcome to Australia—home of kangaroos, dingoes, and…beetroot burgers? Beets, which Australians call “beetroot,” are as common a condiment on burgers Down Under as lettuce and tomato are in the United States. According to beetroot-burger lovers, a slice of the cooked or pickled veggie adds “extra juiciness and an earthy flavor.” Folks who are anti-beet, of course, mention the fact that beets “taste like dirt” as the number-one reason not to include them. The number-two reason? Try getting a beet-juice stain out of your clothes. (A special treat: burgers in Sydney, Australia, often come with beets…and a fried egg.)
FRIED TARANTULAS
Among the best-known delicacies in Cambodia are
a-ping
, or fried tarantulas. And the town that’s made a name for itself by producing the best quality a-ping is Skun, about 46 miles northeast of the country’s capital, Phnom Penh. Tourists and Cambodians flock to Skun every summer when the tarantulas are in season. (The fattest and most plentiful are found in the forest near the town.) Be sure to eat them like the locals: fried to kill the spider’s venom and then dipped in a mixture of garlic and salt. According to some Cambodians, fried tarantulas are tastier than American fast food.
Q: Who is Miley Cyrus’s godmother?
A: Dolly Parton.
ROASTED ANTS
If you went to a movie theater in Colombia and wanted to fit in, you wouldn’t order popcorn. You’d ask for this traditional Colombian snack: a paper cone filled with roasted ants. One tourist said that they are “delicious when salted.”
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THIS MIGHT MAKE YOU GAG
Throwing up after a big meal was considered to be a status symbol in ancient Rome because it showed off your wealth. If you ate so much that you made yourself sick, you were clearly better off than the lower classes, who hardly had enough money to buy food at all. (Even Julius Caesar liked to vomit after a big dinner.) But contrary to popular belief, the Romans didn’t vomit in
vomitoriums
. Why? A vomitorium was actually a passageway in a theater or sports arena that people would “spew out of” when the play or event was over.
Hilarious edibles? Comedian George Carlin once said that kumquats and guacamole were foods that sounded “too funny to eat.”
Why would anybody discourage reading
?
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
, by Lewis Carroll
In 1931, the Chinese government banned this book because it gave animals human emotions and characteristics. “Animals,” one government official said, “should not use human language.”
Blubber,
by Judy Blume
This children’s novel tells the story of a girl who participates in the constant torment of a classmate, only to learn a valuable lesson when she becomes the object of the teasing herself. In 1990, a parent in Louisville, Kentucky, asked that it be removed from her child’s elementary school because the characters “behaved unkindly” (which is the whole point of the book).
A Light in the Attic
, by Shel Silverstein
Cunningham Elementary School in Beloit, Wisconsin, took this humorous poetry collection off its library shelves in 1985 because one poem jokingly encouraged kids to break dishes instead of washing them.
