BAH HUMBUG: STUDENT SUSPENDED OVER CHRISTMAS CHEER! Kennedy Middle School student Megan Walker was suspended yesterday, the first day of school for the new academic year. Her offense? You might think it was vandalism, tardiness, or lack of respect but you'd be wrong. The sixth grader's crime was, of all things, showing a little early holiday spirit. In flagrant violation of the student dress code, Megan was caught wearing a snowman shirt bearing the "offensive" slogan, "Have a Holly, Jolly Christmas." Why, the nerve of this plucky little twelve-year-old! Turns out local school policy precludes such religious sentiment, and Megan's stunt earned her the rest of the week off from school. (Sounds to me like Christmas came a little early for one Kennedy student.) Megan was warned not to wear the shirt when she returns to school next week, but from what school officials told me yesterday they were "far from reassured that she'd comply." Hmm, sounds like a challenge to me! Stay tuned for the Santa Standoff as we bring it to you live from the halls of Kennedy Middle School

"Containing the public messages, speeches, and statements of the President", 1956-1992.

"Includes U.S. president's Christmas addresses."

My 21 Years in the White House, first published in 1960, is the fascinating account by Alonzo Fields of his service as head butler under 4 presidents: Hoover, Roosevelt, Truman, and Eisenhower. Fields (1900-1994) began his employment at the White House in 1931, and kept a journal of his meetings with the presidents and their families; he would also meet important people like Winston Churchill, Princess Elizabeth of England, Thomas Edison, John D. Rockefeller, presidential cabinet members, senators, representatives, and Supreme Court Justices. He would also witness presidential decision-making at critical times in American history -- the attack on Pearl Harbor, the death of Franklin Roosevelt, the desegregation of the military, and the outbreak of hostilities in Korea. As Fields often told his staff, “...remember that we are helping to make history. We have a small part ... but they can't do much here without us. They've got to eat, you know.” Included are sample menus prepared for visiting heads-of-state and foreign dignitaries.

A New York Times Notable Book One of the Best Books of the Year: The Washington Post, San Francisco Chronicle, The Daily Beast, The Miami Herald, St. Louis Post-Dispatch Adding to a fiction chronicle that has already spanned American history from the Lincoln assassination to the Watergate scandal, Thomas Mallon now brings to life the tumultuous administration of the most consequential and enigmatic president in modern times. Finale captures the crusading ideologies, blunders, and glamour of the still-hotly-debated Reagan years, taking readers to the political gridiron of Washington, the wealthiest enclaves of Southern California, and the volcanic landscape of Iceland, where the president engages in two almost apocalyptic days of negotiation with Mikhail Gorbachev. Along with Soviet dissidents, illegal-arms traders, and antinuclear activists, the novel’s memorable characters include Margaret Thatcher, Jimmy Carter, Pamela Harriman, John W. Hinckley, Jr. (Reagan’s would-be assassin), and even Bette Davis, with whom the president had long ago appeared onscreen. Several figures—including a humbled, crafty Richard Nixon; the young, brilliantly acerbic Christopher Hitchens; and an anxious, astrology-dependent Nancy Reagan (on the verge of a terrible realization)—become the eyes through which readers see the last convulsions of the Cold War, the beginning of the AIDS epidemic, and a political revolution. At the center of it all—but forever out of reach—is Ronald Reagan himself, whose genial remoteness confounds his subordinates, his children, and the citizens who elected him. Finale is the book that Thomas Mallon’s work has been building toward for years. It is the most entertaining and panoramic novel about American politics since Advise and Consent, more than a half century ago.