The Chuck Norris Boxset
“Should I spend money for a print copy of X?” is a question that I ponder often, especially with so much content available on the internet free of charge.
I decided to test that question by accepting review copies of books connected with two famous web staples. The Itteh Bitteh Book of Kittehs is from the popular I Can Haz Cheeseburger website which started as cat photos will silly captions and evolved into its own slang language.
The second was a three-volume set collecting the best of the Chuck Norris lists, The Good, the Bad and the Deadly: The Chuck Norris Fact Trilogy. I remember Chuck Norris as the guy who starred in all those cheesy movies I watched at the drive-in as a teenager. My best friend and I saw all of them but our favorite was Lone Wolf McQuade, in which Chuck and his pick-up truck are buried and both come back to life as the truck motors out of the grave. I suspect it’s this movie that lead to the Walker, Texas Ranger television show, which likely ultimately led to the list of how Chuck Norris is awesome.
I knew that my twins, age eleven, would enjoy the LOL cats but I wasn’t sure how much given they can look them up online with ease. I also didn’t know if my teenagers would be interested in Chuck Norris or even if they knew who he was.
But as it is, it turns out the print material is an excellent distractions for children.
My youngest son grabbed the kitty book from me right away and started sniggering. He’s kept it with him ever since, re-reading and looking over his favorite photos, and sharing it with his friend. My oldest son, fifteen, took the Chuck Norris box set, spent an afternoon chortling, and wanted to take it to school to show his friends. He’s lent them out, I don’t know if he’ll get them back as they’re all being passed around now.
Here’s where I should caution other parent that many of the reasons Chuck Norris is listed as awesome have to do with his gender equipment. The off-color portions of the set definitely aren’t suitable for younger children. I’m not certain the set is actually that suitable in for high school, so if your school is much more strict about reading material than our local school, you might want to pull the books out of your teen’s backpack before they get into trouble.
I am, however, amused that teens can still find Chuck Norris awesome or, at least, the internet version of him.
The kitty book is reasonably priced, at $12, and might make a nice stocking stuffer. The Norris set is $36 retail but I’ve seen it discounted at both Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
