From Publishers Weekly
In Utah, first cousins can marry, but only after they're 65 years old. Training a bear to wrestle is a felony in Alabama. In Delaware it's illegal to sell perfume as a drink. Seventeen-year-olds Jeff Koon and Andy Powell collect these and other wacky laws in You May Not Tie an Alligator to a Fire Hydrant: 101 Real Dumb Laws. Some of the laws show compassion (in Florida's Jupiter Colony Inlet, you can't launch missiles at birds), while others are just plain bizarre (in Oklahoma, hamburgers purchased on Sunday can only be eaten in the restaurant).Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.


Book Description
You May Not Tie an Alligator to a Fire Hydrant is a collection of the 101 dumbest real federal, city, and state laws in America, compiled by Jeff Koon and Andy Powell, a couple of high school seniors with a Web site visited by hundreds of thousands of browsers every month. These laws will astonish, possibly outrage, and certainly amuse citizens everywhere. Here you will learn that forgetting to close a gate is against the law in Nevada; that flying a kite is illegal in Schaumburg, Illinois; and that shaking carpets in the street in Cambridge, Massachusetts, is strictly forbidden. You probably haven't tried cutting off your arm to make people feel sorry for you -- but if you live in Alabama, it is against the law. Many Texans will be surprised to learn that their hoes must be no less than four feet long. Perhaps more disturbingly, Indianans will be forced to recognize that being sexually aroused in public could get them arrested. With so many potential legal pitfalls around us all, it is comforting, finally, to learn in these pages that, in Alaska, the people who make laws have sagely concluded that emergencies are "held to a minimum and are rarely found to exist." This hilarious compilation features forty-six original illustrations by award-winning artist Ward Schumaker that brilliantly capture the absurdity of so many of our laws with a light and elegant touch. WARNING These laws, all verified by the authors and presented along with a reference to the corresponding federal, state, or city statute, may cause readers to lose any desire to pursue a career in law.


About the Author
Jeff Koon will graduate from high school in 2002. His favorite subject is history. Appearing on the Montel Williams Show with Andy in summer 2001 crowned his dot.com career. He lives in Georgia.

FROM OUR EDITORS

When two high school students decided to collect weird laws in their spare time, the result was pure fun. Add in illustrations by Ward Schumaker, whose work has appeared in The New Yorker, and you've got a hilarious book. This is a perfect gift for the lawyer in your life and great fodder for cocktail party conversations.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

You May Not Tie An Alligator to A Fire Hydrant is a collection of the 101 dumbest real city and state laws in America, compiled by Jeff Koon and Andy Powell, a couple of high school juniors with a web site visited by hundreds of thousands of browsers every month. These laws will astonish, possibly outrage, and certainly amuse citizens everywhere.

Here you will learn that forgetting to close a gate is against the law in Nevada; that flying a kite is illegal in Schaumburg, Illinois; and that shaking carpets in the street in Cambridge, Massachusetts, is strictly forbidden. You probably haven't tried cutting off your arm to make people feel sorry for you -- but if you live in Alabama, it is against the law. Many Texans will be surprised to learn that their hoes must be no less than four feet long. Perhaps more disturbingly, Indianans will be forced to recognize that being sexually aroused in public could get them arrested. With so many potential legal pitfalls around us all, it is comforting, finally, to learn in these pages that, in Alaska, the people who make laws have sagely concluded that emergencies are "held to a minimum and are rarely found to exist."

This hilarious compilation features forty-six original illustrations by award-winning artist Ward Schumaker that brilliantly capture the absurdity of so many of our laws with a light and elegant touch.

WARNING

These laws, all verified by the authors and presented along with a reference to the corresponding federal, state, or city statute, may cause readers to lose any desire to pursue a career in law.

Jeff Koon will be a high school senior in 2002. His favorite subject is history. Appearing on the Montel Williams Show with Andy in summer 2001 crowned his dot.com career.

Andy Powell will graduate from high school in 2002. So far his grades in mathematics have been pretty good. After starting his first web site with Jeff in grade school, their site listing stupid laws made Yahoo!'s site-of-the-year list in 1998.

Ward Schumaker is an award-winning artist and illustrator whose work has appeared in over a hundred magazines worldwide, including The New Yorker, Le Monde, Bloomberg Finance, Esquire Japan, Macworld, and Fast Company.

PRAISE FOR THE LAW

"It won't do to have truth and justice on his side; he must have law."

--Charles Dickens, Bleak House

"The Assembly, at this epoch, was unusually well-informed, and, having passed many other wise and wholesome enactments, it crowned all with the Cat-Act. In its original form, this law offered a premium for cat-heads (fourpence a-piece), but the Senate succeeded in amending the main clause, so as to substitute the word 'tails' for 'heads.' This amendment was so obviously proper, that the House concurred in it nem. con."

--Edgar Allan Poe, "The Business Man"

"The departmental interpreters of the laws in Washington . . . can always be depended on to take any reasonably good law and interpret the common sense all out of it."

--Mark Twain, unmailed letter to H. C. Christiancy

"The Law is the true embodiment

Of everything that's excellent.

It has no kind of fault or flaw,

And I, my Lords, embody the Law."

--W. S. Gilbert, Iolanthe

"No brilliance is needed in the law. Nothing but common sense, and relatively clean finger nails."

--John Mortimer, A Voyage Round My Father

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly