In this high-interest novel for middle readers, Ethan, aka "The Potato," goes on a school trip to the Amazon, where he must confront his worst fears.

A collection of letters from a cross-section of Japanese citizens to a leading Japanese newspaper, relating their experiences and thoughts of the Pacific War.

Key Selling Points New, enhanced features (dyslexia-friendly font, cream paper, larger trim size) to increase reading accessibility for dyslexic and other striving readers.

After the overwhelmingly successful premiere of Jungle Jitters, Jennifer, the leader of the Action Girls, is eager to make another jungle adventure movie, and she asks her regular scribe, J. Manfred Weichsel, to write it. His pitch? A three-hundred-mile-long giantess named Patty McGloop lies eternally on her back in the Mojave Desert, with a pubic hair region spanning seven miles from below her navel to between her thighs. Just as the Gargantua ray made Patty McGloop very big, it also enlarged the microscopic animals that live on her skin and hair. Wouldn’t it be fun to go exploring inside her pubic hair jungle in order to document all the interesting flora and fauna? The Action girls excitedly make all the preparations needed to shoot such a bizarre motion picture and take a helicopter to Patty McGloop’s navel, the gateway to her colossal realm. But when the girls become captive to a tribe of zealous lice, it’s up to Manfred to go on a daring mission into the bush to rescue them. About the author: Before he became America’s premier writer of subversive fiction, J. Manfred Weichsel cut his teeth in Hollywood, crafting screenplays for the notorious Action Girls, a trio of indie starlets whose on and off-screen antics captivated audiences throughout the 2010s. But while the glitz and glamor of Tinseltown may have seemed like a dream come true, insiders know that life with the Action Girls was anything but ordinary. Weichsel's days were a whirlwind of adrenaline and excess. Rumors of secret romances, bitter rivalries, and drunken nights on set only added fuel to the fiery saga of his Hollywood tenure. In this tell-all memoir, J. Manfred Weichsel dishes out the most salacious details on the making of their most notorious film, Into the Bush. Don't miss out on these behind-the-scenes revelations that will leave you laughing, gasping, and begging for more.

Jerry's imaginative dad likes to build things, but when the jungle gym that started out fun grows out of control, Jerry's fear of heights--and the zoo animals and mobs of people the gym attracts--give Jerry the jitters.

Tweety Bird was colored yellow because censors felt the original pink made the bird look nude. Betty Boop's dress was lengthened so that her garter didn't show. And in recent years, a segment of Mighty Mouse was dropped after protest groups claimed the mouse was actually sniffing cocaine, not flower petals. These changes and many others like them have been demanded by official censors or organized groups before the cartoons could be shown in theaters or on television. How the slightly risque gags in some silent cartoons were replaced by rigid standards in the sound film era is the first misadventure covered in this history of censorship in the animation industry. The perpetuation of racial stereotypes in many early cartoons is examined, as are the studios' efforts to stop producing such animation. This is followed by a look at many of the uncensored cartoons, such as Lenny Bruce's Thank You Mask Man and Ralph Bakshi's Fritz the Cat. The censorship of television cartoons is next covered, from the changes made in theatrical releases shown on television to the different standards that apply to small screen animation. The final chapter discusses the many animators who were blacklisted from the industry in the 1950s for alleged sympathies to the Communist Party.

An authoritative and valuable resource for students and scholars of film animation and African-American history, film buffs, and casual readers. It is the first and only book to detail the history of black images in animated cartoons. Using advertisements, quotes from producers, newspaper reviews, and other sources, Sampson traces stereotypical black images through their transition from the first newspaper comic strips in the late 1890s, to their inclusion in the first silent theatrical cartoons, through the peak of their popularity in 1930s musical cartoons, to their gradual decline in the 1960s. He provides detailed storylines with dialogue, revealing the extensive use of negative caricatures of African Americans. Sampson devotes chapters to cartoon series starring black characters; cartoons burlesquing life on the old slave plantation with "happy" slaves Uncle Tom and Topsy; depictions of the African safari that include the white hunter, his devoted servant, and bloodthirsty black cannibals; and cartoons featuring the music and the widely popular entertainment style of famous 1930s black stars including Cab Calloway, Louis Armstrong, and Fats Waller. That's Enough Folks includes many rare, previously unpublished illustrations and original animation stills and an appendix listing cartoon titles with black characters along with brief descriptions of gags in these cartoons.

Film Composers in America is a landmark in the history of film. Here, renowned film scholar Clifford McCarty has attempted to identify every known composer who wrote background musical scores for films in the United States between 1911 and 1970. With information on roughly 20,000 films, the book is an essential tool for serious students of film and a treasure trove for film fans. It spans all types of American films, from features, shorts, cartoons, and documentaries to nontheatrical works, avant-garde films, and even trailers. Meticulously researched over 45 years, the book documents the work of more than 1,500 composers, from Robert Abramson to Josiah Zuro, including the first to score an American film, Walter C. Simon. It includes not only Hollywood professionals but also many composers of concert music--as well as popular music and other genres--whose cinematic work has never before been fully catalogued. The book also features an index that lets readers quickly find the composer for any American film through 1970. To recover this history, much of which was lost or never recorded, McCarty corresponded with or interviewed hundreds of composers, arrangers, orchestrators, musical directors, and music librarians. He also conducted extensive research in the archives of the seven largest film studios--Columbia, MGM, Paramount, RKO, 20th Century-Fox, Universal, and Warner Bros.--and wherever possible, he based his findings on the most reliable evidence, that of the manuscript scores and cue sheets (as opposed to less accurate screen credits). The result is the definitive guide to the composers and musical scores for the first 60 years of American film.

Paul McPharlin is one of the 20th century's most important contributors to the art of puppetry. Over a period of nine years he created some 20 productions with marionettes, rod puppets, hand puppets and shadow figures. He was also a prolific writer whose technical, theoretical and historical works contributed significantly to a puppetry revival. His book The Puppet Theatre in America is considered the definitive history of American puppetry. Though shy and aloof, McPharlin was also energetic. He had an ability to bring people together and used this knack to found a national puppetry organization, Puppeteers of America. Besides the author's extensive research on McPharlin and puppetry, the book draws on significant contributions from McPharlin's wife, puppeteer and author Marjorie Batchelder McPharlin, who allowed the use of her 18-year correspondence with Paul in the creation of the book. Chapters take the reader through McPharlin's childhood as a loner in Detroit, his maturation and education in New York, and his early, erratic and often unsuccessful attempts at making a living. His puppeteering years, 1929 to 1937, are detailed, as are the later years that saw him first working for the WPA and then being drafted into the army to serve in World War II at age 38. He continued making important contributions to the art of puppetry until a brain tumor took his life at age 45 in 1948. Appendices present two of McPharlin's plays, The Barn at Bethlehem: A Christmas Play and Punch's Circus. Another appendix details puppetry imprints, including yearbooks, plays, handbooks, worksheets and books. A fourth lists Paul McPharlin's Puppeteers, members of the Marionette Fellowship of Detroit.