This is a fascinating adventure story about a little girl named Kim; her brother, Steve; and Teddy Blue Bear, their shaggy dog. A wild chase after a runaway soccer ball leads them to the discovery of the mythical Blue Kingdom located at the South Pole. It turns out that the Blue King is the cousin of Saint Nicholas, who, as we all know, resides at the North Pole. The Blue King and Santa Claus communicate via C-mail (sea mail) with secret messages. The heroine, Kim, answers a mysterious riddle that results in the establishment of a humanitarian mission to promote friendship, understanding, and niceness among all children (and grown-ups) throughout the world. Ambassadors of FUN will be dispatched throughout the globe to promote FUN and to identify all nice children who have contributed to the betterment of mankind. These nice children (and worthy adults) will receive a special blue gift that will be delivered by Santa during the holiday season. Wonderfully illustrated by artist Lynn Morgan, the book captures the adventure of this fanciful tale that takes the reader/listener on a journey to the mythical Blue Kingdom.

Welcome to Blue Haven, the world's most lucrative condo corporation--so exclusive only five lucky residents live in this lush, tropical paradise, housed in a top-secret location. Among them is twenty-five-year-old lottery winner Aloe Malone. Life for Aloe is damn good. Until she discovers a journal. Aloe quickly suspects there's more to Blue Haven than meets the eye. And someone wants to keep her quiet.

Long before the photo op, political rulers were manipulating visual imagery to cultivate their authority and spread their ideology. Born just decades after Gutenberg, the Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I (1459-1519) was, Larry Silver argues, the first ruler to exploit the propaganda power of printed images and text. Marketing Maximilian explores how Maximilian used illustrations and other visual arts to shape his image, achieve what Max Weber calls "the routinization of charisma," strengthen the power of the Hapsburg dynasty, and help establish the Austro-Hungarian Empire. A fascinating study of the self-fashioning of an early modern ruler who was as much image-maker as emperor, Marketing Maximilian shows why Maximilian remains one of the most remarkable, innovative, and self-aggrandizing royal art patrons in European history. Silver describes how Maximilian--lacking a real capital or court center, the ability to tax, and an easily manageable territory--undertook a vast and expensive visual-media campaign to forward his extravagant claims to imperial rank, noble blood, perfect virtues, and military success. To press these claims, Maximilian patronized and often personally supervised and collaborated with the best printers, craftsmen, and artists of his time (among them no less than Albrecht Dürer) to plan and produce illustrated books, medals, heralds, armor, and an ambitious tomb monument.