Fourteen-year-old Jamie is growing too fast! Friends taunt him that his feet are so big the last time he stepped in a puddle, they called it the Mississippi River. As Jamie moves from 8th to 9th grade, Dad expects Jamie to join traditional sports, like football. Instead, Road Whiz, a retired greyhound racing dog, inspires Jamie to run. He starts training to run 5Ks. Like the retired greyhound, Jamie struggles with the question of why should he run? Does he run to win, or does he run because he loves running? With Road Whiz as his mentor, Jamie faces the challenges in his life, from family changes to his own growing body. This middle grade novel will mesmerize boys who struggle with the idea of competition. Jamie's resolution of his doubts, fears and hopes about competing will inspire boys as they experience their own disturbing, if inevitable, growth. Read now to run the race of your life!

In its 114th year, Billboard remains the world's premier weekly music publication and a diverse digital, events, brand, content and data licensing platform. Billboard publishes the most trusted charts and offers unrivaled reporting about the latest music, video, gaming, media, digital and mobile entertainment issues and trends.

New York magazine was born in 1968 after a run as an insert of the New York Herald Tribune and quickly made a place for itself as the trusted resource for readers across the country. With award-winning writing and photography covering everything from politics and food to theater and fashion, the magazine's consistent mission has been to reflect back to its audience the energy and excitement of the city itself, while celebrating New York as both a place and an idea.

This exciting, accessible introduction to the field of Sports Studies is the most comprehensive guide yet to the relationships between sport, culture and society. Taking an international perspective, Sport, Culture and Society provides students with the insight they need to think critically about the nature of sport, and includes: a clear and comprehensive structure unrivalled coverage of the history, culture, media, sociology, politics and anthropology of sport coverage of core topics and emerging areas extensive original research and new case study material. The book offers a full range of features to help guide students and lecturers, including essay topics, seminar questions, key definitions, extracts from primary sources, extensive case studies, and guides to further reading. Sport, Culture and Society represents both an important course resource for students of sport and also sets a new agenda for the social scientific study of sport.

New York magazine was born in 1968 after a run as an insert of the New York Herald Tribune and quickly made a place for itself as the trusted resource for readers across the country. With award-winning writing and photography covering everything from politics and food to theater and fashion, the magazine's consistent mission has been to reflect back to its audience the energy and excitement of the city itself, while celebrating New York as both a place and an idea.

"I come from Des Moines. Somebody had to." And, as soon as Bill Bryson was old enough, he left. Des Moines couldn't hold him, but it did lure him back. After ten years in England he returned to the land of his youth, and drove almost 14,000 miles in search of a mythical small town called Amalgam, the kind of smiling village where the movies from his youth were set. Instead he drove through a series of horrific burgs, which he renamed Smellville, Fartville, Coleslaw, Coma, and Doldrum. At best his search led him to Anywhere, USA, a lookalike strip of gas stations, motels and hamburger outlets populated by obese and slow-witted hicks with a partiality for synthetic fibres. He discovered a continent that was doubly lost: lost to itself because he found it blighted by greed, pollution, mobile homes and television; lost to him because he had become a foreigner in his own country.

“A first-rate fantasy for middle-grade readers,” declares Booklist in a starred review, comparing Gabriel Finley to Harry Potter, Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials series, and The Mysterious Benedict Society. A tangle of ingenious riddles, a malevolent necklace called a torc, and flocks of menacing birds: these are just some of the obstacles that stand between Gabriel and his father, Adam Finley, who has vanished from their Brooklyn brownstone. When Gabriel rescues an orphaned baby raven named Paladin, he discovers a family secret: Finleys can bond with ravens in extraordinary ways. Along with Paladin and three valiant friends, Gabriel sets out to bring his father home. They soon discover that Adam is being held captive by the evil demon Corax—half man, half raven, and Adam’s very own disgraced brother—in a foreboding netherworld of birds called Aviopolis. With help from his army of ghoulish minions, the valravens, Corax is plotting to take over the land above, and now only Gabriel stands in his way. “A vivid, compelling fantasy that sends you off to a world you will not soon forget.” —Norton Juster, author of The Phantom Tollbooth “A great read for fantasy lovers who have worn out their copies of Harry Potter.” —School Library Journal, Starred “Brimful of antic energy and inventive flair, like the best middle-grade fantasies; readers, like baby birds, will devour it and clamor for future installments.” —Kirkus Reviews

An encyclopedia designed especially to meet the needs of elementary, junior high, and senior high school students.