From Library Journal
Forty years after its birth on the streets and in the empty swimming pools of California, skateboarding has become a legitimate sport. Legend Tony Hawk has graced a "Got Milk?" ad, and skate parks are popping up in landlocked middle America. Although Brooke, a "skategeezer" and member of Toronto's Metro Longboarders, wrote this for skateboarding's retired, active, and future practitioners, any sports fan will enjoy this colorful crash course. After a brief prehistory, readers ride four "waves"Aa nod to surfingAfrom 1959 to the present. Within each, Brooke features skateboarding's inventors, investors, stars, companies, media, and technological advances in a magazine-like layout. Best of all are the smart-ass anecdotes (e.g., Bob Schmidt's "The Day They Invented Skateboarding") by skateboarders, which originally appeared on Brooke's Skategeezer home page. A four-part appendix lists skate pros, movies, competitions, and parks. A high-speed treat, even for the gravitationally challenged. Highly recommended, duuude.AHeather McCormack, "Library Journal" Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.


Book Description
The first book ever published to document the history of one of the worlds most cutting edge sports-skateboarding. The book features hundreds of photos of skaters, memorabilia and includes interviews with Tony Alva and Tony Hawk. Forward by Rodney Mullen.


From the Author
I have been skateboarding since 1975 and run a website called the Skategeezer Homepage. It was this site that led to the publication of this book.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

The Concrete Wave is the first detailed history of one of the most daring and intense sports to appear in the latter half of this century. Complete with hundreds of color images (board graphics, action shots of champion skaters) the book covers 40 years of skateboarding history.

The story includes: how Larry Stevenson single-handedly bridged the gap between surfing and a skate toy to create the sport of skateboarding profiles of skateboard superstars like Tony Alva, freestyle pioneer Rodney Mullen and Tony Hawk how surfer Frank Nasworthy came up with the idea of using urethane wheels to replace clay and started the second skateboard revolution how hundreds of thousands of ball bearings spilling in a warehouse spawned the birth of the precision skateboard wheel what gave Wes Humpston the inspiration to design the first graphics on the bottom of skateboards how George Powell used his knowledge of science to create one of the largest skateboard companies - Powell Peralta how Steve Rocco took a $6,000 credit card advance and $20,000 from a loan shark and created a multi-million dollar company called World Industries that changed the face of skateboarding forever.

Additional attractions: the ongoing development of skateboard graphics in full color dozens of photos from Simi Valley's Museum of Skateboarding an overview of skateboarding films and a list of the top ten skateboard videos of all time rare early covers of SkateBoarder Magazine along with covers from Thrasher,Transworld Skateboarding and the notorious Big Brother magazine the rise, fall and comeback of skateboard parks, the development of the skateboard shoe industry (now reaching a billion dollars a year). About the Author:

Michael Brooke saw his first skateboard in 1972. Ever since then, he has been passionate about the sport and its history. He runs an internet site dedicated to skateboarding appropriately titled The Skategeezer Homepage and now works in the communications industry in Toronto.

FROM THE CRITICS

Library Journal