Brunvand's debunks the legends with insight, humor and tenacity. He does his best to track down origins of the legends, and speculates on what messages they are really trying to convey. There are stories in here that I heard growing up and always thought that were real. Stories that, it turns out, were merely localized versions of national tales. It's also an intriguing look into America's sub-conscious .
Urban legends are usually cautionary tales featuring acts too stupid or too foolish to be real.
The man with the hook-hand, who hunts teenagers on Lover's Lane, isn't just a boogyman meant to scare kids gathered around campfires. The story also tells kids that they shouldn't be out at Lovers' Lane in the first place. The same goes for the stories of junk food contaminates. Yes, they have a gross out factor, but they are also subtly telling us that eating out is dangerous, and that we should cooking our meals at home. And then there's the mutant kentucky fried chicken, which chides us for eating out and tries to warn us about the alleged dangerous of genetically engineered food.