50 Underwear Questions
A Bare-All History
- Publisher
- Annick Press
- Initial publish date
- Aug 2011
- Category
- Fashion
- Recommended Age
- 9 to 12
- Recommended Grade
- 4
- Recommended Reading age
- 9 to 18
-
Hardback
- ISBN
- 9781554513536
- Publish Date
- Sep 2011
- List Price
- $21.95
-
Paperback / softback
- ISBN
- 9781554513529
- Publish Date
- Sep 2011
- List Price
- $12.95
-
eBook
- ISBN
- 9781554513987
- Publish Date
- Aug 2011
- List Price
- $12.95
Classroom Resources
Where to buy it
Description
Most of us take our underwear for granted, but throughout history our undies have revealed a lot about who we are (king or peasant), how we work (in fields or factories) or the shapes we value (manly calves or tiny waists).
The third book in Annick’s 50 Questions series tackles questions such as “What’s that smell?” (Medieval Europeans thought bathing made you sick) and “Did boxers arrive in the Nick of time?” (When blue jean model Nick Kamen stepped out of his denims to reveal his boxers, sales of the underwear soared.)
Underwear has played a role in ancient crusades, city sieges and even modern economic predictions. Obviously, it’s time to uncover the facts about everything from loincloths and T-shirts to bloomers and lingerie. Young readers will laugh their pants off at the accompanying cartoons and get the bare, but fascinating, facts about the history of our unmentionables.
About the authors
Tanya Lloyd Kyi
grew up in Creston, B.C. She began her writing career as a high school poet, producing pages and pages of work that her mother loved and her best friend religiously archived (possibly for a future blackmailing scheme). The original edition of Canadian Girls Who Rocked the World was Tanya's first book for young readers. She has since published nine other titles, including Canadian Boys Who Rocked The World, which was short-listed for the Silver Birch Award by the Ontario Library Association. Tanya now lives in Vancouver, B.C.
Tanya Lloyd Kyi's profile page
Ross Kinnaird is an illustrator who has worked in London, Sydney, and Hong Kong. He currently lives in Auckland, New Zealand.
Awards
- Short-listed, Silver Birch Award
Editorial Reviews
“... will work as a fabulous booktalk for librarians looking for something fun and different to expand their nonfiction repertoire.”
School Library Journal, 02/12
Librarian Reviews
50 Underwear Questions: A Bare-All History (50 Questions)
50 Underwear Questions: A Bare-All History is Tanya Lloyd Kyi’s second book in Annick Press’s bouncy Question series. Kyi offers a “timeline that stretches through the centuries like a very long piece of waistband elastic” and peeks under hemlines around the globe.Kyi not only gives snappy facts about the development of Lycra and other topics, but also challenges readers to think about important fashion and social themes. She shows how sports, for example, gave rise to long johns, worn in the style of boxer John L. Sullivan. Kyi also points out that female undergarments — crinolines and panniers — influenced ‘broad’ changes in interior designs (wider doorways). Kyi writes well, selecting words that literally help illustrate her topic. Illustrator Ross Kinnaird, of New Zealand, makes the comic best out of phrases such as “1980s: boxer shorts rise up the flag pole of popularity.”
Perhaps it is unavoidable that a book with illustrations of bras and terms such as “crotch,” “breast” and “genitals” will engender middle-grade giggles. While the book holds no inappropriateness in the mind of this reviewer, it is useful to point out that readers need to be able to decode such terms as “loincloth” and “cachesexe.” A glossary and historic images of artifacts might have been helpful. Annick has, however, allotted generous space for a fine index, ideas for further reading and a bibliography. The fresh undies-on-the-clothesline page treatment by book designer Irvin Cheung supports the comic illustrative adornment, the timeline theme and the bold, upbeat writing in this well thought-out approach to the history of underwear.
Source: The Canadian Children's Bookcentre. Spring 2012. Volume 35 No. 2.
50 Underwear Questions: A Bare-All History (50 Questions)
Uncover the facts about everything from loincloths to lingerie in this book filled with hilarious cartoons and fascinating facts about the history of our “unmentionables.” Learn more about men’s garters, breeches and woolly full-body suits; women’s corsets, petticoats, bloomers and bras; and underwear customs from around the world.Source: The Canadian Children’s Book Centre. Best Books for Kids & Teens. Fall, 2012.
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