This book is your child's passport to the ultimate children's party. Every detail of the book, and the party itself, has been designed with a child's favorite things in mind. You'll find ""sandboxes everywhere, and fields to play ball in, and places to hide in, and places to crawl in, and places to lie in, and places to fall in, and one that I'm sure you will feel very tall in."" The party in Kalamazoo reveals itself through easy, playful rhymes and bright, whimsical illustrations that delight children and parents alike. You'll meet ""puppies and ponies and marionettes. That's the kind of excitement that no one forgets!"" Best of all, you and your child can attend the party in Kalamazoo again and again - on rainy days, at bedtime, and whenever else you like - for as long as this book remains a cherished part of your child's collection.

It was 1946, I was 18, a college graduate, and about to become a spy. I was going to 'hit the road'. But what was it like this road when I had hardly been out of Kalamazoo? writes Margean Gladysz in her letters to her parents written from 1946 to 1949. Unearthed from an attic trunk in 2003, these letters detail her employment with The Great Lakes Greyhound Bus Company as a company rat. As a collection, they form the contents of A Spy on the Bus. Eventually, Margean travels all over the country, meets many many people, lives out of a suitcase, makes tons of money and grows in self-reliance and self-confidence. She shows us a life before Interstates, before TV, before everyone had a car. We see 1940s America through the window of a bus, a room at the Y and letters sent home to the farm in Kalamazoo. This is a doozy of a story.

A complete guide to the art and craft of creative nonfiction--from one of its pioneer practitioners The challenge of creative nonfiction is to write the truth in a style that is as accurate and informative as reportage, yet as personal, provocative, and dramatic as fiction. In this one-of-a-kind guide, award-winning author, essayist, teacher, and editor Lee Gutkind gives you concise, pointed advice on every aspect of writing and selling your work, including: * Guidelines for choosing provocative--and salable--topics * Smart research techniques--including advice on conducting penetrating interviews and using electronic research tools * Tips for focusing and structuring a piece for maximum effectiveness * Advice on working successfully with editors and literary agents

Describes all the fun that will occur at a party that is to take place in Kalamazoo in ten years.

“Reminiscent of Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye.” —The New York Times “One of the best books I have ever read…will live in the hearts of readers for the rest of their lives.” —Colby Sharp, founder of Nerdy Book Club “An emotional, painful, yet still hopeful adolescent journey…one that needed telling.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review) “I really loved this.” —Sharon M. Draper, author of the New York Times bestseller Out of My Mind This deeply sensitive and “compelling” (BCCB) debut novel tells the story of a thirteen-year-old who must overcome internalized racism and a verbally abusive family to finally learn to love herself. There are ninety-six reasons why thirteen-year-old Genesis dislikes herself. She knows the exact number because she keeps a list: -Because her family is always being put out of their house. -Because her dad has a gambling problem. And maybe a drinking problem too. -Because Genesis knows this is all her fault. -Because she wasn’t born looking like Mama. -Because she is too black. Genesis is determined to fix her family, and she’s willing to try anything to do so…even if it means harming herself in the process. But when Genesis starts to find a thing or two she actually likes about herself, she discovers that changing her own attitude is the first step in helping change others.

Since the publication of his classic Outside Over There in 1981, Maurice Sendak’s book illustrations have focused on interpreting the texts of such authors as James Marshall, Tony Kushner, Wilhelm Grimm, Ruth Krauss, Herman Melville, and Mother Goose. And beginning in 1980, with his sets and costumes for The Magic Flute, Sendak launched a busy second career as the designer of stage productions of opera and ballet. Now comes Bumble-Ardy, the first book he has written as well as illustrated in thirty years. Bumble-Ardy has evolved from an animated segment for Sesame Street to a glorious picture book about a mischievous pig who reaches the age of nine without ever having a birthday party. But all that changes when Bumble-Ardy throws a party for himself and invites all his friends, leading to a wild masquerade that quickly gets out of hand. In this highly anticipated picture book, Sendak once again explores the exuberance of young children and the unshakable love between parent (in this case, an aunt) and child.

It's early springtime in the forest. The snow is melting, and the sweet maple trees are budding. Join a young girl as she discovers the magic of transforming sap to syrup.

In early 1840, abolitionists founded the Liberty Party as a political outlet for their antislavery beliefs. A mere eight years later, bolstered by the increasing slavery debate and growing sectional conflict, the party had grown to challenge the two mainstream political factions in many areas. In The Liberty Party, 1840–1848, Reinhard O. Johnson provides the first comprehensive history of this short-lived but important third party, detailing how it helped to bring the antislavery movement to the forefront of American politics and became the central institutional vehicle in the fight against slavery. As the major instrument of antislavery sentiment, the Liberty organization was more than a political party and included not only eligible voters but also disfranchised African Americans and women. Most party members held evangelical beliefs, and as Johnson relates, an intense religiosity permeated most of the group’s activities. He discusses the party’s founding and its national growth through the presidential election of 1844; its struggles to define itself amid serious internal disagreements over philosophy, strategy, and tactics in the ensuing years; and the reasons behind its decline and merger into the Free Soil coalition in 1848. Informative appendices include statewide results for all presidential and gubernatorial elections between 1840 and 1848, the Liberty Party’s 1844 platform, and short biographies of every Liberty member mentioned in the main text. Epic in scope and encyclopedic in detail, The Liberty Party, 1840–1848 is an invaluable reference for anyone interested in nineteenth-century American politics.