Trampolines Books

My two-year-old loves this book. When I read it, I leave out some of the words so make it shorter and more succinct. We checked it out of the library several times and now we are going to buy it. We had great fun enacting the scenes from the book with stuffed animals.

Practising a 'deadly difficult quadruple, headfirst flip', the Great Elastic Marvel (five times World Trampolining Champion) misses his trampoline and plunges out of a high storey window. Absorbed in a TV cartoon, his son Felix does not notice that his father is hurtling towards earth and certain death. But is it possible that the Great Elastic Marvel's gymnastic skills can save him? Boing! Boing! they do, time and again as he bounces up and down in a series of extraordinary feats.

This wonderfully entertaining tale with its deadpan, perfectly placed text is illustrated with black line and wash in the French style reminiscent of Bemelmans and Dufy. Stripey awnings and acursive script at dramtic moments reinforce the Gallic flavour and there are lots of delicious jokes in the illustrations. A triumph that will be enjoyed by everyone from five upwards.

Rosemary Stones ("Books for Keeps" magazine September 2004)

The Spider Trampoline is a wonderful book for people of all ages. It has wonderful illustrations hand painted by the author. The setting for the book was based on a favorite vacation spot visited by Laurie and her husband Wally in the early 90's. I am looking forward to many more beautiful stories by Laurie to share with my friends and family.. I know this because she is my Sister-in Law. Linda & TJ Palazzolo

The title of this book was probably created by the publishing company's marketing department to appeal to kids and hence sell more copies but the book is obviously not written in a style for just children to enjoy. It is simple and straight forward so is not complicated and children of any age will enjoy and learn from it but it does have enough detailed information that anyone interested in the origin of inventions just out of interest or conducting research for journalistic articles or university assignments would find it an excellent reference tool. Inside you'll learn about the origins and inventors of false teeth (used to be taken from corpses), post it notes, toilets, toilet papers, snow mobiles and other stuff. You'll also learn interesting pieces of trivia such as Walt Disney beat to death a sleeping owl when he was a kid and was so horrified by what he did that he decided to do what he could to help animals.

This leisure read will delight any young fan of odd facts - and plenty an adult reader. From a New Jersey 8th grader who invented the snowboard to Jules Leotard - who was in love with his image, and the invention of catsup by the Chinese, this delightful compendium for kids covers many a common item and provides delightful facts in a lively photo-embellished presentation.

Have you ever wondered how all those simple inventions, you know, the ones we use everyday and often take for granted, came about? Well fortunately for us, Don Wulffson has always "wanted to know" and has taken the time to research, and compile a fascinating book about the origins of fifty common inventions, many that we use everyday. Find out who invented Post-it Notes, toilet paper, napkins, and the pencil eraser. Or maybe you've always wanted to know how ketchup came about, or hair coloring, deodorant, the toothbrush, or even the vacuum cleaner, and washing machine. Well now you have the opportunity to find out. Each short chaper is written in an easy to read, conversational style, and is chock full of historical information, fun facts, and trivia, including photographs, old advertisements, sidebars, and fact bubbles, to grab your attention, and enhance learning. Perfect for youngsters 9 and older, The Kid Who Invented The Trampoline is a book that whets the appetite, and peaks one's interest, and once your kids start reading, it's a book they just won't want to put down. So find out who invented the birthday cake, and the Happy Birthday song, and enjoy!

For all the busy bees out there - those who say we "just don't get the time to read" - Trampoline Skin is your answer! Sheryl-Paula Pereira Mascarenhas gives us some good tips on how to LIVE a stress-free life and find the "power" within us, that we all have and often forget we do. I liked the book as it was reflective, thought provoking and sincere. The author speaks from her heart with anecdotal references to her family. She may not say something that we've not heard before, but definitely leaves you with things to think about. You may choose to finish reading this small book in half hour or take a lifetime to read this book and make notes in your Trampoline Skin journal.

Trampoline is a fascinating and rewarding book. Among the twenty stories are a dozen that I found to be first rate. Another reader might disagree on the ranking of individual stories but not, I think, on the remarkable overall quality.

A nice mixture of fine work by veterans (Carol Emshwiller, Jeffrey Ford, Karen Joy Fowler, Maureen McHugh) and newcomers (Christopher Rowe, Shelley Jackson, Alex Irvine, Vandana Singh, John Gonzalez, Christopher Barzak). All, it seems, are original to his collection except for the extraordinary KING OF SPAIN by Dave Shaw.

The collection shows the strong presence of editor Kelly Link. Common themes crop up: Barzak and Jackson find interesting things to do with dead boys, McHugh and Fowler deal with lost children. This gives Trampoline a cohesion akin to that of a single author collection.

Anthologies of original stories have long been a place where Speculative Fiction redefined itself (i.e. Ellison's Dangerous Visions and Moorcock's New Directions ushering in the tumult of the 1960's New Wave). The last couple of years have seen a number of important titles: Conjunctions 39: The New Fabulists, (ed. Peter Straub),McSweeney's Mammoth Treasury of Thrilling Tales (ed. Michael Chabon), Album Zutique (ed. Jeff Vandermeer). A common trend in these books and others I haven't mentioned, maybe the one that will prove definitive, is a tendency toward 'Slipstream', the melding of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror with mainstream fiction.

This is a basic aspect of Trampoline. Even stories that utilize genre tropes: IMPALA's Virtual Reality or DEAD BOY FOUND's necrophilia, use them to explore emotional abuse or the death of the spirit. The wonders glimpsed by the fabulous slackers in GUS DREAMS OF BITING THE MAILMAN or almost caught in the waters of Hawaii in SHIPWRECK BEACH are filtered through much too much beer and cannabis or mad-making psychological damage. Three strong pieces: KING RAT, EIGHT-LEGGED STORY and KING OF SPAIN provide all the illumination and wonder and fear we look for in SF and Fantasy and Horror with little more of the uncanny and inexplicable than most of us find in our daily lives.

I ordered this Anthology on the strength of Editor Kelly Link's reputation and fiction. I first read Ms. Link's work in Conjunctions 39 and was blown away (Lull, IIRC). With Authors like Jeffrey Ford, Alex Irvine, etc and Kelly Link at the helm, this had to be a must have anthology.

Trampoline couldn't have disappointed me more. Many stories have barely any speculative elements whatsoever. There's also a disturbing case of 'literaryitis' to quite a few of the stories here -- I guess I have a low threshold for affected stories heavy on character and zippo in the plot department. Maybe I'm just an old fashioned curmudgeon expecting things that keep those pages turnin' -- you know, quaint things that literary writers seem to have a pathological aversion to, like plot, tension, conflict and resolution.

I guess that's what ultimately killed this anthology for me. Most of the stories simply didn't engage me, and within a few pages I was already flipping ahead to see how many more pages I had to endure.

There were very few bright spots. Shelly Jackson's "Angel" floored me, and is the only story in the collection I consider a must read. While there are a few other enjoyable stories, overall the navel gazing pomposity overshadows the few gems in Trampoline.

If you're looking for quality slipstream/magic realism/weird/outre short story collections, I can't recommend highly enough 'Conjunctions 39', Jonathan Carroll's 'The Panic Hand', James Morrow's 'Bible Stories for Adults', Jeffrey Ford's 'The Fantasy Writer's Assistant', Jeff Vandermeer's 'City of Saints and Madmen' and Borges' 'Labyrinth'. Although I've only read the first few stories, Leviathan III (edited by Jeff Vandemeer) is also shaping up nicely (keeping my fingers crossed).

Trampoline mixes a group of writers from the literary edge of genre (Irvine, Hirshberg, Ford) with another group of fugitives from the mainstream (Park, Hunt, Jackson), proving that some of the most interesing fiction being written right now is sprouting in the cracks between the two. ItÕs remarkable what a coherent collection this is, given that the only thing that really binds these stories together is a uniformly high quality of writing and a willingness to doggedly pursue an individual vision. What really distinguishes these stories is a sense of possibility and adventure; Trampoline is fiction as a form of play and risk-taking rolled into one. The stories here proceed as if the constraints of genre simply donÕt exist and move from there in some pretty strange but wonderful directions. There are a handful of stories that don't quite work, but even those are worth your time. An extremely strong collection.