Bathroom Readers� Institute - Uncle Johns did you know--? : bathroom reader for kids only!

by the

Bathroom Readers
Institute

Bathroom ReadersPress
Ashland, Oregon

UNCLE JOHNS
DID YOU KNOW?
BATHROOM READER
FOR KIDS ONLY

2006 by the Bathroom Readers Press (a division of Portable Press). All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. Bathroom Reader, Bathroom Readers Institute, and Uncle Johns Bathroom Reader for Kids Only are registered trademarks of Baker & Taylor. All rights reserved.

For information, write:

Bathroom Readers Institute

P.O. Box 1117, Ashland, OR 97520

www.bathroomreader.com

Interior design/illustration and cover illustration:

Patrick Merrell

( www.Patrick.merrell.org )

Cover design:
Michael Brunsfeld

( )

Uncle Johns Did You Know?

Bathroom Reader For Kids Only
by the Bathroom Readers Institute

ISBN-13: 978-1-60710-687-6

E-book Edition: October 2012

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READERS RAVES

Heres what our faithful fans have to say about Uncle Johns Bathroom Readers.

I love Bathroom Readers ! Theyre interesting and funny. I cant stop reading them.

Kevin

Im a teacher, and every morning I put a factoid from your books on the board. I have kids who cant wait to get to class to see what weird thing is on the board that day. You are a never-ending source of information and enjoyment. Thank you.

Elly

I have been a fan of the Bathroom Reader for over a decade now. Maybe one day there will be a whole course on bathroom reading, and quoting your text will not only be expected and encouraged, but required!!!

Jessica

Your books are awesome!! (Meow, my cat agrees.) I have two books, Uncle Johns Top Secret Bathroom Reader For Kids Only and Uncle Johns Puzzle Book . Both of them have helped improve my grades by 20%!

Veronica

I really love your Bathroom Reader For Kids Only . Im 12, and I read it everywhere (not just in the bathroom!). I like it so much.

Beka

THANK YOU!

The Bathroom Readers Institute thanks those people whose help has made this book possible .

Gordon Javna

Amy Miller

Patrick Merrell

Stephanie Spadaccini

Angie Kern

Maggie McLaughlin

Brian Boone

Thom Little

Jay Newman

Julia Papps

Lorraine Bodger

Zackery Weimer

David Battino

Claudia Bauer

Michael Brunsfeld

Connie Vazquez

Dan Schmitz

Judy Hadlock

John Dollison

Jennifer Thornton

Raincoast Books

Banta Book Group

Terri Dunkley

Sydney Stanley

JoAnn Padgett

Scarab Media

Steven Style Group

Jennifer Payne

Melinda Allman

Laurel, Mana, Dylan, and Chandra

Matthew Furber

Shobha Grace

Gideon and Sam

Porter the Wonder Dog

Thomas Crapper

While at sea, the crews of United States nuclear-powered submarines wear blue coveralls called poopie-suits.

TABLE OF
CONTENTS

GREETINGS FROM UNCLE
KNOW-IT-ALL

Okay, nobody can know everything not even Uncle John. But its fun to know a little about a lot of different subjects. Thats where your faithful friends at the Bathroom Readers Institute come in. We love to collect fascinating facts and tantalizing trivia. Then we quiz each other: Hey, Brian, did you know that you can hear an elephants stomach rumble from 200 yards away? Or, Hey, Patrick, did you know that only 1% of the water on Earth is drinkable? Or, Hey, Stephanie, did you know that spiders sometimes get trapped in their own webs? We could go on all day (and night) doing that, couldnt you?

Hey, what a great idea for a book!

So here it is: our kooky compendium of weird and wonderful factsjust like the encyclopediaonly fun. Use it to test your teachers, freak out your friends, mesmerize your mom, dazzle your dad, and baffle your brothers and sisters. (You may even feel yourself getting smarter.)

Happy reading and as always, Go with the Flow!

Uncle John and the Bathroom Reader Staff

Hard hats were invented and first used in the building of the Hoover Dam in 1933.

The sandals that the Statue of Liberty is wearing are size 879. (Theyre about 25 feet long.)

The Great Wall of China stretches 1,500 miles and contains almost a billion bricks.

On a clear day, you can see four states from the top of Chicagos Sears Tower: Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin, and Michigan.

The Eiffel Tower is repainted every seven years. It takes 60 tons of brown paint to do the job.

Theres evidence that after the Pilgrim ship Mayflower sailed from England to America (and back), it was taken apart and made into a barn in England.

What kind of stone is Mount Rushmore made of? Granite. It was carved mostly with dynamite.

Egypts Great Sphinx is 260 feet long, 20 feet wide, and 65 feet tall, making it the largest stone statue in the world.

While the rest of the world had wheels, the Aztecs had no knowledge of them.

Even if you speak it, theres still plenty to learn about it .

Very few words in English use en to pluralize them. Some are: ox (oxen), brother (brethren), child (children), man (men), and woman (women).

While many Western languages, such as Spanish, Italian, and French, are Latin-based, English isntits mostly derived from German.

There are 812 three-letter words in current usage in the English language, and 857 fifteen-letter words.

The Brooklyn accentsaying dese, dem, and dose for these, them, and thosecame from the Dutch accent of the original settlers. Want to hear a Brooklyn accent? Just listen to Bugs Bunny.

In 1737 Benjamin Franklin made a list of American slang terms for drunkennessand came up with 228 of them.

Pants was a dirty word in England in the 1880s.

Dreamt is the only English word that ends in the letters mt.

The North American National Scrabble Association recognizes five words worth 392 pointsthe most anyone can score in a single turn: OXAZEPAM, BEZIQUES, CAZIQUES, MEZQUITS, and MEZQUITE.

Some of the things you could tell a visiting Martian about your home planet .

Lake Baikal in Russia is the worlds deepest lakeits deep enough for five Empire State Buildings to stand in it on top of each other.

Millions of years ago, the Earth consisted of one land mass surrounded by a vast ocean. Geologists call the land Pangaea (Greek for all land); they call the ocean Panthalassa (all sea).

Sometime between 180 and 200 million years ago, Pangaea broke into two parts: Laurasia , which consisted of what is now North America, Europe, and part of Asia; and Gondwanaland whats now South America, Africa, Australia, India, and Antarctica.

Wheres the Earths core? Directly under your feet, 4,000 miles down.

Tallest mountain on Earth: Not Mt. Everestits Hawaiis Mauna Kea, which rises 33,476 feet from the floor of the Pacific Ocean.

Want to travel as fast as a jet plane while standing still? Stand on the equator. The Earths spin is greatest there, moving you at more than 1,000 miles per hour.

What do you call the tip of a glacier? The snout .

The way at which the Earth is tipped on its axisat an angle of 23 is what causes the seasons.