“An expansive and witty examination of the usefulness of criticism” from the realm of professional tastemakers to the vast landscape of social media (Times Literary Supplement, UK). Far from an elite practice reserved for the highly educated, criticism is all around us. We turn to the Yelp reviewers to help us pick restaurants, to Rotten Tomatoes to guide our movie choices, and to voices on social media for critiques on everything from political candidates to beach resorts. Yet even amid this sea of opinions, professional critics still hold considerable power in guiding how we make aesthetic judgements. In Two Thumbs Up, philosopher Stephanie Ross examines how critics influence our decisions, and why that’s a good thing. Starting from David Hume’s conception of ideal critics, Ross refines his position and makes the case that review-based journalistic or consumer reporting criticism proves the best model for helping us find and appreciate quality. Ross demonstrates how aesthetic and philosophical concerns permeate our lives, choices, and culture. Ultimately, whether we’re searching for the right wine or the best concert, Ross encourages us all to find and follow critics whose taste we share.

Illus. in full color. A madcap band of dancing, prancing monkeys explain hands, fingers, and thumbs to beginning readers.

Whether you’re new to storytelling or you’ve been telling stories for years, this book will help you tell God’s story more creatively and effectively than you ever imagined you could! Enjoy this library of favorite Bible stories and storytelling techniques developed by award-winning author and professional storyteller Steven James. Each book includes creative storytelling techniques especially suited to help teachers tell God’s story and involve children in the Bible story.

Titles: America's Aviation Hero * Believe * Believer * Breakaway * Corpse Bride (Main Title) * Double Trouble * Everything Burns * Hogwarts' Hymn * Into the West * Magic Works * March of the Penguins (The Harshest Place on Earth) * The Notebook (Main Title) * Remember * Star Wars (Main Title) * A Window to the Past * Wonka's Welcome Song.

Once upon a time, if you wanted to know if a movie was worth seeing, you didn’t check out Rotten Tomatoes or IMDB. You asked whether Siskel & Ebert had given it “two thumbs up.” On a cold Saturday afternoon in 1975, two men (who had known each other for eight years before they’d ever exchanged a word) met for lunch in a Chicago pub. Gene Siskel was the film critic for the Chicago Tribune. Roger Ebert had recently won the Pulitzer Prize—the first ever awarded to a film critic—for his work at the Chicago Sun-Times. To say they despised each other was an understatement. When they reluctantly agreed to collaborate on a new movie review show with PBS, there was at least as much sparring off-camera as on. No decision—from which films to cover to who would read the lead review to how to pronounce foreign titles—was made without conflict, but their often-antagonistic partnership (which later transformed into genuine friendship) made for great television. In the years that followed, their signature “Two thumbs up!” would become the most trusted critical brand in Hollywood. In Opposable Thumbs, award-winning editor and film critic Matt Singer eavesdrops on their iconic balcony set, detailing their rise from making a few hundred dollars a week on local Chicago PBS to securing multimillion-dollar contracts for a syndicated series (a move that convinced a young local host named Oprah Winfrey to do the same). Their partnership was cut short when Gene Siskel passed away in February of 1999 after a battle with brain cancer that he’d kept secret from everyone outside his immediate family—including Roger Ebert, who never got to say goodbye to his longtime partner. But their influence on in the way we talk about (and think about) movies continues to this day.

A hundred years in the future, humans have finally cracked the secrets of time travel. By manipulating the energy in the Higgs Quantum Electromagnetic Field with their minds, individuals can travel freely throughout both space and timebut not without a price. Time travelers are disappearing in the past, never to be heard from againand no one knows why. Others are returning from the past and claiming to be from another future, another universe. They are declared insane and locked away in mental asylums. Determined to uncover the truth, two officers from the time travel police force risk everything to get the answers they need. They break all the rules and find themselves in a different future. There, they discover a horrible truth. To make matters worse, three super villains from a distant future have fled to our time in a desperate bid to hide from their own government. A history professor has dabbled with the Higgs Field to help an ancestor in the past, and his efforts have gone horribly wrong. The two time officers must now set things right before it is too late, but they face impossible odds as each action complicates the next, and the past may not be what it once was. With so many agendas and so many histories at stake, can the officers unravel the mysteries and stop the criminals before time itself is compromised?