World of the Weird is one of those books you pick up now and again to have something, mmm, weird to add to a conversation. Author Tracey Turner explores real-life stuff — the sport of extreme ironing, for example — and leaves you wondering whether we’re all crackers or we’ll do anything to avoid boredom. If you’re looking for obscure scientific facts and instructions on growing a bacteria colony, this book is for you.

What cool and bizarre curses have happened? Are there any weird jobs you want to read about and then maybe try? From scientists to insects, you can learn anything and everything that’s bizarre about our world. The author explores the past and future of the weird world in which we live. Some things were gross or awesome. This book even showed you neat experiments to try at home!

I liked the interesting facts in this book because some things were new stuff to me and some stuff was just plain interesting. The other fun thing I liked were the cool projects that were related to the subject matter.

I also learned a lot from this book. I learned how to make ectoplasm, for example, which is said to help you find ghosts in your home. Another thing I learned was how scientists do dangerous things just to find answers to their questions. With this book I laughed, was confused, and sometimes scared. But the best thing was I had fun and learned a lot. The only thing I didn’t like was the fact that when I got to the end of the book there was no more to read.

Nothing about this book needs to change because that’s how the author decided to write the book, and I will go with the author’s instincts. Here’s a warning, however: read this book and you will have bizarre thoughts for the rest of your life!

(Originally published in the January/February 2010 issue of YES Mag.)