Encyclopedia Brown's Book of Wacky Cars

by Donald J. Sobol, Ted Enik

Fasten your seat belts Encyclopedia Brown is back! The boy sleuth has returned with a lively collection of over 100 strange-but-true tales and trivia from the world of cars--plus a brand-new, solve-it-yourself mystery that will challenge and amaze his fans.

They don't come any wackier than this--chameleon cars that change colors; a car that was bought for 999 bananas; and the 1913 Duck, a sporty model in which the driver steered from the rear of the car. Fans of the 10-year-old Idaville detective will delight in this collection of loony traffic laws, crazy cabbies, ridiculous road races, and other automotive anecdotes. When it comes to entertaining young readers, Encyclopedia Brown takes a back seat to no one.

Genres: Childrens, Nonfiction, Mystery

115 pages, Hardcover

First published April 1, 1987

About the author

Donald J. Sobol was an award-winning writer best known for his children's books, especially the Encyclopedia Brown mystery series. Mr. Sobol passed away in July of 2012.

Reviews

[Glen]

Encyclopedia Brown gives us a bunch of trivia about cars. Very interesting. I used to devour these books as a child.

[Kailey (Luminous Libro)]

This book focuses entirely on weird car facts from history. There is only one Encyclopedia Brown mystery at the very beginning, which was disappointing.
I think that boys would enjoy reading the funny and strange facts about cars!

[Sarah B]

To my surprise I really enjoyed this short little book even though it was not what I had expected at all. I thought it would be like a mystery and it did have a short one at the beginning of the book (which I had correctly solved!) but the majority of the book was short little facts and very unusual stories about cars. If you like reading the weird news online you'll probably love this book. Many of the real stories in here are so unusual that they are actually very entertaining. To give you an idea, I'll give you a few samples: how could someone not even in the race win the Indianapolis 500? Or did someone really buy a brand new car for a bunch of fruit? The facts go from the very beginning of the automobile up to the early 1980s. A lot of these made me laugh. The book also covers taxis and limos.

[Eric Williams]

I picked this book up at a booksale for a nephew; since I was a fan of the series when I was his age, I couldn't resist reading it first. Rather interesting book; mostly a collection of trivia about cars, humorous stories, stupid stuff people did, etc. For example, a car dealer advertised a deal to sell a car for a certain number of "bananas" (slang for dollars), a customer was apparently idiot enough to take it literally and take in that number of the fruit and the dealer went through it. Since the dealer got a whole lot of free publicity for the stunt (and presumably an increase in business), it seems the deal was worth it.

[Jenni]

I'm a little sad there was only one mystery in this one. The car facts were entertaining, though.

[Alysha DeShaé]

Well, I enjoy informational books and I remember loving the Encyclopedia Brown books, so I picked this up at the Goodwill store when I was last there thinking my future son might enjoy it.

I read it earlier (a break in the world of Pern The Renegades of Pern) and had a little fun. I even busted out laughing so hard I almost dropped the book when I reached this:

"When a passenger of foot heave in sight, tootle the horn. Trumpet at him melodiously first, but if he still obstacles your passage, then tootle him with vigor."

Aaaahahahahahahahahahaha!!!!! Tootle him with vigor! Still laughing!

This book is essentially a small collection of interesting stories about cars with a mini Encyclopedia Brown story at the beginning of the book. As always, he solves the mystery with his trivia knowledge. :-p

[Cws]

JM-Sob

[Aram]

It was very intresting and funny true stories at least I think they are.