cover image Guess Again: More Weird & Wacky Inventions

Guess Again: More Weird & Wacky Inventions

Jim Murphy. Bradbury Press, $13.95 (91pp) ISBN 978-0-02-767720-1

The author of Weird and Wacky Inventions is back with another collection of inventions almost too preposterous to believe. Only Murphy's assurances could convince the reader that someone really did invent a coffin with an escape hatch (to comfort those afraid of being buried alive by mistake), or the tapeworm trap (a spring-loaded, metal tube baited with food and swallowed whole). The list goes on and on, each more hilarious than the last, all illustrated with original patent or magazine drawings. Murphy includes true stories of creative problem-solving like the revelation that the modern centralized kitchen was invented by Catherine Beecher in 1869, and modeled after a ship's galley. Guess Again is just as wacky as its predecessor. (All ages)