Create wonderful things, be good, have fun.

April 12, 2021 11:20 AM

Klutz Press (link to wikipedia page) published the most informative books I ever read as a child. A December 1996 Stanford Magazine article about one of the founders of Klutz contains gems like this..

As Cassidy's interests have changed, he has steered Klutz into new areas. In the company's first phase, Cassidy and Co. focused on delayed-adolescent novelties--juggling, hackeysack, a lightning-bolt-through-the-head apparatus. The juggling book remains Klutz's all-time best-seller, at 2 million and counting. The company calculates that if you stacked all the Klutz cubes sold (at three per juggling kit), the tower would rise for 813 miles.

Beginning in 1984, when Cassidy's first son was born, he rediscovered the universe of kids and pushed the company in its next direction. His second-phase creations are as much fun and almost as physically engaging as the juggling set, but they are unmistakably educational. The goal is to teach kids--something, anything--in a fun and creative way. The prototype is a project that Cassidy published in 1991 with San Francisco's Exploratorium, called Explorabook: A Kids' Science Museum Book .

The book explains how to construct an anti-gravity machine, bend light waves (the set includes a Fresnel lens, a sheet of plastic with precise ridges that magnify things four times) and how to pull off other feats of science. In the second sentence, Cassidy elevates the Klutz attitude to an ethic: "If you own the Explorabook for more than a few hours, and do not bend or smear any of its pages, nor tear open the agar packets, nor attempt to lose the attached magnet, then you are probably not using it correctly."

Although the original books are hard to find for purchase, on the internet archive you can peruse gems like Kids Shenanigans: Things To Do That Mom And Dad Will Barely Let You Get Away With, The Klutz Book of Magic, and Juggling For The Complete Klutz (the book repeatedly mentioned in the recent thread on juggling!)

The Goodreads results for Klutz go on for 12 pages if you're looking to reminisce about a favorite book. Or read about one you haven't read before, like Earthsearch: A Kids' Geography Museum In A Book

From a 1993 L.A. Times article:

Klutz is preparing geography and math books for 1994.

“You can’t get any more un-fun than math,” says Cassidy, who consults with educators and experts for each project but primarily writes the books himself.

In the new geography book, Cassidy wants to illustrate life in a Third World country without words or photographs. One inclusion will be small packets of rice for kids to cook and eat.

“The activity will be to boil this up and skip lunch,” he says. “That’s a classic example of what we do with a Klutz book.”



(this post was inspired by the obvious love for Klutz shown recently.)

posted by RobinofFrocksley (41 comments total)

I remember the explorabook came with a small bag of rice to illustrate global food scarcity. Wild stuff for a gift-shop purchase.
posted by Think_Long at 11:28 AM on April 12, 2021 [2 favorites]

I had the original Explorabook and Earthsearch. They were great! I remember the rice!
posted by Wretch729 at 11:31 AM on April 12, 2021 [1 favorite]

Before the internet the Klutz books were one of the only reliably interesting things in general I could find that were remotely worth anything. Like if you had asked me to rate everything I experienced up to age 15 I would say the Klutz books were fine, literally everything else was either for toddlers, teenagers who cared about signaling being slutty a great deal, Moms, or Dads. There was nothing in between for kids who didn't care about sluttiness and had mastered the art of reading already. I can't wait to read all of this.
posted by bleep at 11:36 AM on April 12, 2021 [6 favorites]

I was looking for the Klutz Juggling book to buy for a friend recently and was sad to see Klutz no longer publishes it. The link to the copy on Internet Archive was quite welcome - I instantly recognized the cover - that mustache!
posted by mrgoldenbrown at 11:36 AM on April 12, 2021 [2 favorites]

I must be more than a complete klutz, as I had the juggling book, tried to learn from it and never could.
posted by scruss at 11:41 AM on April 12, 2021 [2 favorites]

Oh man, I had SO MANY of those books growing up! From the Yo-Yo one, the science one, there was a cat's cradle book, the marbles book... and one thing I haven't found documented online is their excellent mail order catalog, the Flying Apparatus. I would flip through those for ages and even convinced my parents to order one of the really nice laser-carved yo-yos with the removable axle and some other things from there. I really loved all that stuff!
posted by Maaik at 11:42 AM on April 12, 2021 [1 favorite]

I learned to play harmonica from a Klutz book! It came with a Hohner which I still have.
posted by phliar at 11:56 AM on April 12, 2021 [6 favorites]

I had Explorabook and Earthsearch and absolutely adored them. Both are among my most beloved childhood objects. I occasionally search online for them and have never been able to figure out why they're not in print. They're the ideal kids' gift: fun for the child while making the giver appear virtuous.
posted by hoyle at 12:10 PM on April 12, 2021 [1 favorite]

I picked up both juggling and harmonica from the Klutz books. Alas, hackey sack turned out to be my kryptonite.
posted by Eikonaut at 12:11 PM on April 12, 2021 [2 favorites]

I loved these books! Especially the juggling book.
posted by kcalder at 12:11 PM on April 12, 2021

...I still have my rice.
posted by KChasm at 12:12 PM on April 12, 2021 [4 favorites]

Those juggling balls were fun... and that book was read and practiced again and a gain. While I never learned all the different techniques in the books, but I've got about 3 different juggling styles that prove that I'll always be a complete Klutz not a complete klutz.
posted by Nanukthedog at 12:17 PM on April 12, 2021

YES!
Despite being on the other side of the country, I had the Explorabook and loved it to death, along with the rest of the Klutz line. What a great set of books, ugh. It was incredible to be granted to freedom to just fuck around and find out.

They also had a road trip activity book which was a lifesaver when my parents were still under the impression that 8+hour drives with two kids under ten was a totally reasonable concept.

(I lived for their catalogue, although can only remember a few pages from it. I really hope someone digitizes it, so I can have something other than old American Girl doll catalogues to give me full-body nostalgia.)
posted by kalimac at 12:37 PM on April 12, 2021 [3 favorites]

When it looked like covid lockdowns were going to be a sure thing in early 2020, there were three things I leapt onto the internet to buy:

1) Exercise equipment and play structures
2) Decent webcams
3) Klutz activity kits

The Klutz activity kits saved our sanity and kept our kids from being even more miserable in a shitty situation.
posted by benzenedream at 1:01 PM on April 12, 2021 [4 favorites]

These were so irresistible. I still have a koosh ball from one but I'm at a loss as to what activities the book would have included. Does anyone know?

I also had harmonica (learned mainly that harmonicas gross me out), board games, knots (that knot one was great, my then-husband really applied himself to learning them and always knew the right kind of knot for a clothesline, etc.), I think hacky sack, and the coolest one that taught you to make all these neat little insects and animals from wire and beads.
posted by HotToddy at 1:03 PM on April 12, 2021

These were so irresistible. I still have a koosh ball from one but I'm at a loss as to what activities the book would have included. Does anyone know?

The cover of The Official Koosh Book (internet archive link) says that it includes 34 "kooshy activities" such as:

"Koosh Squoosh"
"Cut n'Run"
"Nose Bonk"
"Bop the Brother"
posted by RobinofFrocksley at 1:12 PM on April 12, 2021 [2 favorites]

I think I'm too old to have had much by Klutz when I was a kid, but they were WONDERFUL for my kids (and I can't say I didn't love them myself at this point). The Encyclopedia of Immaturity and its sequel were huge hits.

Window Art was also immensely popular with all of us; my house is festooned with a number of window art pieces more than a decade later. We went way beyond the book and did some fancy peel-and-stick stained-glass art, including Clifford the Big Red Dog (our house is on Clifford Street), a big cornucopia, and a Yellow Submarine.
posted by dlugoczaj at 1:14 PM on April 12, 2021 [1 favorite]

I also had Explorabook and have shared it with the next generation. The Lego books were pretty great too, a good source for gears, axles and stuff.

But it's too bad Cassidy thought math was "un-fun" or maybe they'd have gotten the calculation for that tower of juggling balls right...
posted by St. Oops at 1:28 PM on April 12, 2021

THE KOOSH BALL BOOK yesss! Man, I'm remembering all the ones I had. There was one about practical jokes that came with the makings for a homemade whoopie cushion—a thick balloon and a popsicle stick.
posted by Maaik at 1:34 PM on April 12, 2021

I would like the record to show that I was, in fact, an actual adolescent when I acquired their juggling book. I'd already learned to juggle but the balls made practicing indoors much less frustrating. I still have them, so I guess my adolescence wasn't so much delayed as prolonged. (In related news, I've just learned it's again possible to order replacement axle sleeves for my Tom Kuhn yo-yos, both the No Jive and the Silver Bullet).
posted by fedward at 1:55 PM on April 12, 2021

Someone gave me Braids and Bows for a birthday. I never got any good at French-braiding my own hair, but within a few short weeks, my Skipper doll looked fabulous.
posted by armeowda at 1:59 PM on April 12, 2021 [4 favorites]

I too wound up with the the Holy Trinity of Klutz Books: Juggling, Harmonica, and Hackysack.

Still impressing the ladies with the depth of range of my talent.
posted by notyou at 2:00 PM on April 12, 2021 [3 favorites]

In the second sentence, Cassidy elevates the Klutz attitude to an ethic: "If you own the Explorabook for more than a few hours, and do not bend or smear any of its pages, nor tear open the agar packets, nor attempt to lose the attached magnet, then you are probably not using it correctly."

This is an awesome ethic.
posted by Halloween Jack at 2:02 PM on April 12, 2021 [2 favorites]

We loved Klutz books in our house growing up - I have particularly fond memories of my mom letting me try out practically every style from Braids and Bows on her long hair as we sat up in her bedroom and chatted about this and that.
posted by Synesthesia at 2:27 PM on April 12, 2021 [1 favorite]

I had so many Klutz books, starting with the juggling book. Yoyo, boomerang, Aerobie, harmonica, knots, magic.

I know I bought the knot book and juggling books within the last decade. In fact my wife was using the knot book very recently.

The concept of buying a book that also came with a thing was such a novelty. I'm sure there were juggling books before that one but you'd have to go find some balls and who has time for that? I can still remember going to the bookstore, probably Waldenbooks or B. Dalton in the mall, and seeing that white book with the three beanbags in the mesh bag. I was too young to buy it as I had no money, but at some point I got it for my birthday. I learned to juggle which eventually got me into riding a unicycle. Ever since I've loved learning pointless, somewhat-uncommon skills like that.

I actually pulled my unicycle out of the garage recently and pumped up the tire. I've long since forgotten how to ride but I thought the pandemic would be a great time to re-learn. Funny thing when you're 51 years old... you tend to worry a but more about breaking bones. I don't think I have it in me to learn again. We'll see.
posted by bondcliff at 2:29 PM on April 12, 2021 [6 favorites]

My favorite Klutz book as a young person was the one that came with a Foxtail, a ball with a long nylon tail attached (that I'm delighted to discover is still being made). Between that and Aerobie and Orbi and those velcro toss-and-catch deals, there were a lot of ways to play catch in those days.
posted by box at 2:30 PM on April 12, 2021 [4 favorites]

Loved my explorabook. Feel a little disappointed I never got earth search. Still know how to juggle from the klutz book. Also loved the foxtails. Nostalgia!
posted by bfranklin at 3:01 PM on April 12, 2021 [1 favorite]

My brother had the original juggling book, probably around the time it was first published. The genius was it came with those cube bean bags! Perfect. My bro got decent at juggling them and could consistently keep them going for a long time. I never had an interest in it, though.
posted by SoberHighland at 3:01 PM on April 12, 2021

Yessss boomerang! Forgot about that one! Also Aerobie! In fact I think I saw that Aerobie out in the garage not too long ago.

I think humans are almost universally enchanted with kits and the genius of Klutz was exploiting our love of kits while inverting the formula. Kits usually are presented as primarily Supplies with a minor element of Instruction Book(let), and these were primarily an Instruction Book that included Supplies.
posted by HotToddy at 3:09 PM on April 12, 2021 [2 favorites]

So what's the modern equivalent to like the Explorabook? The Klutz website seems to mostly feature art kits and licensed products.
posted by Pope Guilty at 3:49 PM on April 12, 2021

Surprised to not see any love for the Klutz big book of board games, which took on the ambitious task of finding a collection of board games from around the world that could be played with just some dice and a bunch of black and white stones, and most importantly, actually looked all around the world for classics instead of just looking all around Europe. Plus the boards were just exquisitely illustrated. Absolutely a classic that I adored as a kid.
posted by DoctorFedora at 3:52 PM on April 12, 2021 [8 favorites]

I loved these.

The Magic book has a trick where you announce that you can read minds, spin an increasingly-outrageous story about why you have this superpower, during which you suddenly pick up a very clear thought from your mark, which is that they think you're completely full of shit. But all kid-friendly-like.

The Magic book also ends with a trick where you vanish a playing card and it reappears inside of an orange. (Before the show you pull the little green blossom off the end of the orange, roll the card up tight, and force it in the space between the segments without disturbing the rest of the peel. Then you sleight-of-hand an identical card away during your show.) Fifteen years after I read the Klutz book, I went to a professional magic show in Hawaii which included EXACTLY THIS TRICK. Well, with the additional detail that instead of a playing card that vanished it was a $100 bill borrowed from the audience, and the way the $100 bill was vanished was to light it on fire and have an audience member frantically copy down the serial number before the flame consumed it.
posted by fantabulous timewaster at 4:01 PM on April 12, 2021 [6 favorites]

These were so irresistible. I still have a koosh ball from one but I'm at a loss as to what activities the book would have included. Does anyone know?

Better yet, do any of them not involve whanging the koosh ball at your sibling??

I adored my braids and bows book, and can still french braid my own hair. (Well, if it was ever longer than 3" I could.) I got quite good at a Gibson tuck, too! My overwhelming memory, though, was a photo of a softly butch woman fixing a car engine, her hair up in a figure-8 ponytail, and anyway once again I marvel at how long it took me to figure out I was queer, because hoo boy did I fixate on that one.
posted by kalimac at 4:35 PM on April 12, 2021 [3 favorites]

I was just going down a brief memory hole about these books the other day. I LIVED for Kids Shenanigans. That book taught me how to sneak around in a public place by walking purposefully like I belong there, and honestly I've been wandering into places I'm not supposed to be for 25 years based on that advice.
posted by Tesseractive at 4:56 PM on April 12, 2021 [6 favorites]

I really could have used a "Patience and Practice Discipline for the Complete Klutz". I learned to juggle the simplest way for about 30 seconds, play a crude tune on a harmonica, etc. Just enough of each thing to be more than completely unfamiliar, but ultimately losing interest when it took actual work to get better.

And I knew it, and I would still pick that kind of book for long car rides, reading them raptly cover-to-cover, imagining how fun it would be to impress my friends by doing it. Not intending to actually do it. Guess I was doing it wrong, but I got a lot of entertainment mileage (literally!) out of them nonetheless.

I could solve a Rubik's Cube though from some similar type of book, entirely by rote procedure and not by any reasoning. Must have learned it at a particularly impressionable point of brain development too, because I can still do it even after it's been years since I've seen one.
posted by ctmf at 5:38 PM on April 12, 2021 [2 favorites]

The boomerang book! With one of my all-time favorite Far Side cartoons in the front! I didn't have the best of luck with boomerang that came with the book, but I ordered the omega-shaped one and that was fantastic, with a graceful, hovering finish. I tried my hand at making some of the designs that were in the back, too. Some worked pretty well, but the "traditional hook-shape" ones I made came back on a slashing dive that was pretty scary.
I did learn to juggle in the most rudimentary way with the juggling book, and the boomerang book was great, but I was not successful with the harmonica book. I'll have to look for the book of board games.
posted by coppertop at 5:40 PM on April 12, 2021

I learned to crochet and knit as an adult with the Klutz kits. Best thing I ever did! The instructions were clear and concise, the drawings and photos very good, and the fact that they came with everything you needed meant that I could get started right away. Such fun! It’s unfortunate that they don’t seem to make those particular kits anymore.
posted by MelanieL at 6:14 PM on April 12, 2021

My older brother and I had the Explorabook and Earthsearch (well, he had them and I inherited them a few years later as little sisters do) and we both LOVED them. They made such an impression that years later, on a family trip to SF we were SUPER EXCITED about going to the Exploratorium even though by that time we had well aged out of the primary demographic. I recall that I preferred Earthsearch purely because it had a front cover made of metal. Mom never let us do the bacteria growing experiment using the Agar packets :(
posted by btfreek at 7:16 PM on April 12, 2021 [1 favorite]

Just pulled out and started juggling some '80s vintage klutz bean bags. Not entirely sure how I knew where they were stashed, but it sure brings back memories of teaching myself from the book over 35 years ago.
posted by jburka at 7:40 PM on April 12, 2021 [2 favorites]

I had a few of these books: I had the watercolour one, and a book of 15 board games that could be played with two sets of coloured counters that I still remember because it was my first exposure to board games with interesting rules. I want to make an online implementation of what they called Fandango, but what Google tells me is actually called Fanorona (although the fact it's apparently been solved might be an issue.)
posted by Merus at 5:06 AM on April 13, 2021

I'm very late to this thread, but just wanted to add that I was a children's bookseller in the 90's and oof, Klutz books were extremely difficult to display. I mean, we loved them, but what a pain!

Also there was one that came with a stop watch (Stop the Watch!) and my favorite activity in it was something like, Time how quickly you can get one of your parents to say, "Stop bothering me!"
posted by tangosnail at 11:50 AM on April 26, 2021 [3 favorites]