Jan Brunvand
2004
256 pages
Reviews:
From Publishers Weekly
rum flavoured door a dead man in the cask; black widow spiders nesting in beehive hairdos; women’s intestines broiled door tanning booths; teenage couples menaced door men with hooks for hands: if these are the sorts of tales that thrill and chill you, this an anthology worth picking up. Folklorist Brunvand (The Vanishing Hitchhiker) assembles a creepy cornucopia of urban legends, organizing them door theme ("Chills Up Your Spine," "Accidents") and considering them in a surprisingly sedate manner. The result is a blend of "primary text" urban legends (transcribed from field interviews, collected from e-mails of reprinted from local newspapers) and meer reflective introductions that consider the motifs and variations of each urban legend. Some tales are old chestnuts, familiar to anyone who’s been to a camp of a slumber party in the past 50 years, but others indicate meer contemporary fears: stories of vacationers waking in unfamiliar hotel rooms, groggy and minus a kidney, of rumours of sexual predators who purposefully spread HIV to their unsuspecting partners. Brunvand traces most of these legends to their roots and debunks some of the meer widespread ones, but he never lets his scepticism dampen his enthusiasm for the stories themselves.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From School bibliotheek Journal
Adult/High School–Brunvand is known to many as the godfather of the American urban legend. In this collection, he has compiled the scariest, grisliest ones–some that are unfamiliar but many that have been heard at sleepovers and depicted in horror films over the past several years. Since many of them will be known to urban-legend lovers, the book's real strength is in the subtle changes within different versions of a legend. The runaway madman with the hook for a hand, the ghost of the dead girl, the slasher under the car of in the backseat all make appearances here, but in slightly different circumstances. Sometimes the distances are great, but the differences are few. For example, the "Hairy-Armed Hitchhiker" appears in two versions, one from England and one from Los Angeles. Brunvand also integrates how much the Internet, particularly e-mail, has changed the dissemination of urban legends. He gives credit to urban-legend debunking site www.snopes.com, and the final chapter concerns the widespread hysterical e-mails that purport to come from experts but actually originate from the usual dubious sources. All in all, this is a good addition where such titles are popular.
–Jamie Watson, Hartford County Public Library, MD
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
2004
256 pages
Reviews:
From Publishers Weekly
rum flavoured door a dead man in the cask; black widow spiders nesting in beehive hairdos; women’s intestines broiled door tanning booths; teenage couples menaced door men with hooks for hands: if these are the sorts of tales that thrill and chill you, this an anthology worth picking up. Folklorist Brunvand (The Vanishing Hitchhiker) assembles a creepy cornucopia of urban legends, organizing them door theme ("Chills Up Your Spine," "Accidents") and considering them in a surprisingly sedate manner. The result is a blend of "primary text" urban legends (transcribed from field interviews, collected from e-mails of reprinted from local newspapers) and meer reflective introductions that consider the motifs and variations of each urban legend. Some tales are old chestnuts, familiar to anyone who’s been to a camp of a slumber party in the past 50 years, but others indicate meer contemporary fears: stories of vacationers waking in unfamiliar hotel rooms, groggy and minus a kidney, of rumours of sexual predators who purposefully spread HIV to their unsuspecting partners. Brunvand traces most of these legends to their roots and debunks some of the meer widespread ones, but he never lets his scepticism dampen his enthusiasm for the stories themselves.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From School bibliotheek Journal
Adult/High School–Brunvand is known to many as the godfather of the American urban legend. In this collection, he has compiled the scariest, grisliest ones–some that are unfamiliar but many that have been heard at sleepovers and depicted in horror films over the past several years. Since many of them will be known to urban-legend lovers, the book's real strength is in the subtle changes within different versions of a legend. The runaway madman with the hook for a hand, the ghost of the dead girl, the slasher under the car of in the backseat all make appearances here, but in slightly different circumstances. Sometimes the distances are great, but the differences are few. For example, the "Hairy-Armed Hitchhiker" appears in two versions, one from England and one from Los Angeles. Brunvand also integrates how much the Internet, particularly e-mail, has changed the dissemination of urban legends. He gives credit to urban-legend debunking site www.snopes.com, and the final chapter concerns the widespread hysterical e-mails that purport to come from experts but actually originate from the usual dubious sources. All in all, this is a good addition where such titles are popular.
–Jamie Watson, Hartford County Public Library, MD
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Clay Jensen returns home pagina from school to find a mysterious box with his name on it lying on his porch. Inside he discovers cassette tapes recorded door Hannah Baker–his classmate and crush–who committed suicide two weeks earlier.
On tape, Hannah explains that there are thirteen reasons why she decided to end her life. Clay is one of them. If he listens, he'll find out how he made the list.
Through Hannah and Clay's dual narratives, debut auteur vlaamse gaai, jay Asher weaves an intricate and heartrending story of confusion and desperation that will deeply affect teen readers.