Search results for ""Chicago Review Press""

Most driving literature for parents focuses on how to teach a teen to drive, without explaining why teen driving is so dangerous in the first place or giving parents a plan to preempt hazards. Providing fully updated and expanded advice, this second edition of Not So Fast empowers and guides parents, guardians, and other adults who supervise teen drivers. Coauthors Tim Hollister, a father who lost his teenage son in a crash, and Pam Shadel Fischer, a nationally known traffic safety expert who is also a mother of a teen driver, prove that supervision before driving is as important to lowering crash rates as teaching teens how to turn at a busy intersection. This authoritative guide tackles hot-button issues such as texting and distracted driving, parenting attitudes (conscious and unconscious), and teen impairment and fatigue—and includes a combination of topics not found in other teen driving guides, such as how brain development affects driving, evaluating the circumstances of every driving trip, and the limits of driver training programs. Current research and statistics and additions dealing with hands-free devices and drowsy driving make this new edition a valuable resource for anyone concerned about teen drivers. Proceeds from the sale of this book support the Reid Hollister Memorial Fund, which subsidizes infant and toddler education in greater Hartford, Connecticut, and worthy traffic safety causes.

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The Camper Book will captivate all those who dream of waving good-bye to the rat race from the window of their own moveable home, be it a camper, RV, travel trailer, camper van, or tiny camper. Not just for placid retirees anymore, camper culture has sprung up among simplicity-seeking millennials, retro-loving “glampers,” sports and movie stars, aging hippies, contract workers, “road-schoolers,” and others. Award-winning journalist Dave Hoekstra hit the road in his own custom camper van, named Bluebird, to explore the history, culture, subcultures, and future of camper life. Traveling and talking his way through US campsites, RV parks, landmarks, and communities, Hoekstra draws out revealing stories from all walks of life—from Americans who are downsizing material goods while upsizing spiritual pursuits to RV enthusiasts such as Grammy-winning singer-songwriter John Prine and Chicago Cubs manager Joe Maddon. A modern-day Studs Terkel, Hoekstra provides a delightful mix of oral history, in-depth reporting, and practical information, while photographer Jon Sall’s beautiful color photographs illuminate the unique people, places, and rigs that typify camper life.

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In the Margins Book Award Winner Ronald Kitchen was walking to buy cookies for his young son on a summer evening in 1988 when Chicago detectives picked him up for questioning. As the officers’ car headed toward the precinct, the twenty-two-year-old called out the window to his family, “I’ll be back in forty-five minutes.” It took him twenty-one years to make it home. Kitchen was beaten and tortured by notorious police commander Jon Burge and his cronies until finally confessing to a gruesome quintuple homicide he did not commit. Convicted of murder and sentenced to die, he spent the next two decades in prison—including a dozen years on death row—before at last winning his release and exoneration. Written with passion and defiance, My Midnight Years is more than just a memoir—because Ronald Kitchen’s ordeal is not his alone. Kitchen was only one of scores of victims of Jon Burge and his notorious Midnight Crew, a group of rogue police detectives who spent decades terrorizing, brutalizing, and incarcerating men—118 have come forward so far—in Chicago’s African American communities. Overcoming overwhelming difficulties, Kitchen cofounded the Death Row 10 from his maximum security cellblock. Together, these men fought to expose the grave injustices that led to their wrongful convictions. The Death Row 10 appeared on 60 Minutes II, Nightline, Oprah, and Geraldo Rivera and, with the help of lawyers and activists, were instrumental in turning the tide against the death penalty in Illinois. Kitchen was finally exonerated in 2009 and filed a high-profile lawsuit against the Chicago Police Department, Jon Burge, Mayor Richard Daley, and the Cook County state’s attorney. Kitchen’s story is outrageous and heartbreaking. Largely absent from social justice narratives are the testimonies of the victims themselves. The atrocities of the Midnight Crew were brought to light through Kitchen’s actions, and he is a rare survivor who has turned his suffering into a public cause. He is poised to become a powerful spokesperson who will play a major part in the ongoing discussion of institutional racism.

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Gillian Bellaver’s family is one of the wealthiest in the world. Robin Sandza’s father Peter is a government assassin. The two teenagers seem to have nothing in common. Yet they are spiritual twins, possessing a horrifying psychic energy that threatens humanity. While dangerous and fanatical men vie for the secrets of their awesome power, Peter Sandza, using all the ruthless skills of his trade, makes a final desperate effort to save them. Exploring with extraordinary skill the myths and legends deeply rooted in the subconscious mind, this novel builds, scene by shocking scene, to a night of chilling horror that surpasses anything you’ve ever experienced . . . First published in 1976 and made into a successful movie written by the author and directed by Brian De Palma in 1978, The Fury is one of the all-time classics of the horror genre.

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Billy Wilkerson was the most powerful man in Hollywood during the 1930s, ’40s, and ’50s. He was owner and publisher of the Hollywood Reporter, the film industry newspaper that became known as “Hollywood’s bible,” and he built the CafÉ Trocadero and other legendary nightspots of the Sunset Strip. In thirty years as Tinseltown’s premier behind-the-scenes power broker, Wilkerson introduced Clark Gable and Lana Turner to the world, brought the Mafia to Hollywood, engineered the shakedown of the Hollywood studios by Willie Bioff and his mob-run unions, helped invent Las Vegas, tangled with Bugsy Siegel (and possibly was involved with his murder), touched off the Hollywood blacklist, and conspired to cripple the studio system. Perhaps nobody in Hollywood history has ever ruined so many careers or done so much to reshape the movie industry as Billy Wilkerson, yet there has never been a solid biography of the man. Billy’s son, William R. Wilkerson III, has done tremendous research on his father, interviewing over decades everyone who knew him best, and portrays him beautifully—and damningly—in this book.

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Dancing Barefoot is the full and true story of Patti Smith, widely acknowledged as one of the most significant American artists of the rock ’n’ roll era, a performer whose audience and appeal reach far beyond the parameters of rock. An acclaimed poet, a respected artist, and a figurehead for many liberal political causes, Patti Smith soared from an ugly-duckling childhood in postwar New Jersey to become queen of the New York arts scene in the 1970s. This book traces the brilliant trajectory of her career, including the fifteen reclusive years she spent in Detroit in the 1980s and ’90s, as well as her triumphant return to New York. But it is primarily the story of a performer growing up in New York City in the early and mid-1970s.Dancing Barefoot is a measured, accurate, and enthusiastic account of Smith’s career. Guided by interviews with those who have known her—including Ivan Kral, Tom Verlaine, Richard Lloyd, John Cale, and Jim Carroll—it relies most of all on Patti’s own words. This is Patti’s story, told as she might have seen it, had she been on the outside looking in.

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“My dear Uncle Charles,” twenty-two-year-old Genevieve de Gaulle wrote on May 6, 1943. “Maybe you have already heard about the different events affecting the family.” The general’s brother Pierre had been taken by the Gestapo; his brother Xavier, Genevieve’s father, had escaped to Switzerland. Genevieve asked her uncle where she could be most useful—France? England? A French territory? When no response came immediately, she decided to stay in France to help carry out his call to resist the Nazis.Based on interviews with family members, former associates, prominent historians, and never-before-seen papers written by Genevieve de Gaulle, The General’s Niece is the first English-language biography of Charles de Gaulle’s niece, confidante, and daughter figure, Genevieve, to whom the legendary French general and president dedicated his war memoirs.Journalist Paige Bowers leads readers through the remarkable life of this young woman who risked death to become one of the most devoted foot soldiers of the French resistance. Beginning with small acts of defiance such as tearing down swastikas and pro-Vichy posters, she eventually ferried arms and false letters of transit to fellow resistants and edited and distributed the nation’s largest underground newspaper, until she was arrested and sent to the infamous Ravensbuck concentration camp. The General’s Niece reveals the horrors the young de Gaulle witnessed and endured there that could have broken her spirit but instead inspired her many remaining years of activism on behalf of former prisoners and of France’s neediest citizens.Finally emerging from the shadow of her famous uncle, the life of this little-known de Gaulle adds a fascinating layer to the history of the second world war, including the French resistance, the horrors of and unshakeable bonds formed at Ravensbruck, and the issues facing postwar France and its leaders.

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Being the child of a global superstar is never easy. Being the daughter of the Godfather of Soul—that’s a category unto itself.Like every little girl, Yamma Brown wanted her father’s attention, but fame, drugs, jail, and the complicated women in James Brown’s life set the stage for an uncommon childhood. Cold Sweat is about how Yamma rose to meet every challenge. Though packed with celebrity appearances ranging from Michael Jackson to Al Sharpton, Cold Sweat is not just a celebrity book. It focuses on an everyday issue faced by millions of women—domestic violence—and in this book Yamma faces it in an honest and powerfully moving way. Dealing with a complex and famous father eventually took a backseat to coping with her own abusive and deceitful marriage. Cold Sweat is about how Yamma got caught in the same trap as her mother, doing things in her adult life that, as a child, she’d promised herself she’d never do. But at the same time, Yamma learned valuable lessons about life from her father. The struggles she went through, both as a child and as an adult, make for a gripping read and, in the end, a profound examination of the nature of celebrity, violence, and survival.

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As German troops and bombs descended upon Poland, Krysia struggled to make sense of the wailing sirens, hushed adult conversations, and tearful faces of everyone around her. Within just days, the peaceful childhood she had known would disappear forever.Krysia tells the story of one Polish girl's harrowing experiences during World War II as her beloved father was forced into hiding, a Soviet soldier's family took over her house, and finally as she and her mother and brother were forced at gunpoint from their once happy home and deported to a remote Soviet work farm in Kazakhstan.Through vivid and stirring recollections Mihulka details their deplorable conditions—often near freezing in their barrack buried under mounds of snow, enduring starvation and illness, and witnessing death. But she also recalls moments of hope and tenderness as she, her mother, her brother, and other deportees drew close together, helped one another, and even held small celebrations in captivity. Throughout, the strength, courage, and kindness of Krysia's mother, Zofia, saw them through until they finally found freedom.

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Micro-stories of modern monsters and other horrors.This collection of twenty-six dark but often humorous short stories features a pantheon of disturbed and disturbing characters, human and otherwise. Many of the stories are modern takes on classic monsters crafted with twisted plots and Twilight Zone-esque endings. For example, ""Wolfman and Janice"" is about a werewolf who is doing the best he can under very trying circumstances, especially when confronted with eating his elderly neighbor's cat. There's an adolescent vampire-wannabe who is suffering badly: in love for the first time. ""Frankenstein and His Mother"" is a terrifying story of a grown man who wears a Frankenstein mask and lives with his mother watching TV and eating corn chips all day while being afraid of work. ""Dracula's Daughter"" turns a pretentious hippie into an honest ghost. And Bigfoot—lonely, sexually frustrated—tells all. Other stories feature characters who seem perfectly normal until they're alone. Phil, for instance, is never so happy as when he's with his inflatable girlfriend Vanessa—until she tells him the devastating truth about himself. Elderly Ellen is running out of patience with her dead husband George, who's turned prankish. ""Bob and Todd"" tells the story of a hitchhiking ride gone bad that will have readers squirming in their seats. More than just standard monster stories, the tales in But You Scared Me the Most reveal much more about about human nature and will appeal to a wide range of fans of smart, funny short fiction.

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Shortly after the success of the Montgomery bus boycott, the Ku Klux Klan—determined to keep segregation as the way of life in Alabama—staged a resurgence. The strong-armed leadership of governor George C. Wallace, who defied the new civil rights laws and became the poster child for segregationists, empowered the Klan’s most violent members. An intimidating series of gruesome acts of violence threatened to roll back the advances of the nascent civil rights movement. As Wallace’s power grew, however, blacks began fighting back in the courthouses and schoolhouses, as did young Southern lawyers including Charles “Chuck” Morgan, who became the ACLU’s Southern director; Morris Dees, who cofounded the Southern Poverty Law Center; and Bill Baxley, Alabama attorney general, who successfully prosecuted the bomber of Birmingham’s Sixteenth Street Baptist Church and legally halted some of Wallace’s agencies designed to slow down integration. All along, journalist Wayne Greenhaw was interviewing Klan members, detectives, victims, civil rights leaders, and politicians of all stripes. In Fighting the Devil in Dixie, he tells this dramatic story in full for the first time—from the Klan’s kidnappings, bombings, and murders of the 1950s to Wallace’s run for a fourth term as governor in the early 1980s, in which he asked for forgiveness and won with the black vote. Fighting the Devil in Dixie is an essential document for understanding twentieth-century racial strife in the South and the struggle to end it.

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Born Betsy Bowen into grinding poverty, the woman who reinvented herself as Eliza Jumel was raised in a brothel, indentured as a servant, and confined to a workhouse when her mother was in jail. Seizing opportunities and readjusting facts to achieve the security and status she so desperately craved, she obtained a fortune from her first husband, a French merchant, and nearly lost it to her second, the notorious vice president Aaron Burr. Divorcing Burr promptly amid lurid charges of adultery, she lived on triumphantly to the age of ninety, astutely managing her property and public persona.By the end of her life, “Madame Jumel” was one of New York’s richest women, with servants of her own, an art collection, an elegant mansion, a summer home in Saratoga Springs, and several hundred acres of land. After her death, a titanic battle over her estate went all the way to the United States Supreme Court . . . twice.As the feud over her fortune riveted the nation, family members told of a woman who earned the gratitude of Napoleon I and shone at the courts of Louis XVIII and Charles X. Their opponents painted a different picture, of a prostitute who bore George Washington’s illegitimate son, a wife who defrauded her husband and perhaps even plotted his death. Now Eliza Jumel’s real story—so unique that it surpasses any invention—has finally been told.

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Fleetwood Mac was a triumph from the beginning—their first album was the UK’s bestselling album of 1968. After some low points—when founder Peter Green left, some fans felt that the band continuing was sacrilege—Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks joined, and their 1977 album, Rumours, became one of history’s immortals, a true classic that remained on the charts for years and in the public's affection forever.In the press, the ethereal Californian Stevie Nicks, the tormented rocker Lindsey Buckingham, the dignified English rose Christine McVie, the blunt-speaking John McVie, and the loquacious Mick Fleetwood have all regularly been astoundingly candid. This collection of interviews across the entirety of Fleetwood Mac’s career features articles from such celebrated publications as Crawdaddy, New Musical Express, Circus, Creem, Mojo, Goldmine, Classic Rock, Blender, and Elle, as well as interviews that have never previously appeared in print. Here is the only place you can learn the Fleetwood Mac story from the band members’ own mouths.

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With his wire-rimmed glasses, homespun cloths, and walking stick, Mohandas Gandhi is an international symbol of nonviolence, freedom, simplicity, and peace. Tracing Gandhi's evolution from a shy boy in India to a courageous, world-traveling spiritual and political leader who worked tirelessly to help India achieve independence from England, Gandhi for Kids will inspire young readers to make connections between his ideas and contemporary issues such as bullying and conflict resolution, healthful eating from local sources, civil rights and diversity, the "reduce, reuse, recycle" movement, and more. Kids learn about Gandhi's important impact on the lives and work of Martin Luther King Jr., Aung San Suu Kyi, Malala Yousafzai, and other modern heroes, yet come to understand that he was also a complex man who struggled with personal conflicts, disappointments, and idiosyncracies. Packed with historic images, informative sidebars, a time line, glossary, resource section, and 21 creative activities that illuminate Gandhi's life, ideas, and environment, Gandhi for Kids is an indispensable resource for a new generation of change makers. Kids can: make a traditional Indian lamp called a diya; practice anti-consumerism or vegetarianism for a day; create a henna hand design; learn some basic yoga poses; and much more.

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2016 Notable Social Studies Trade Books for Young People List Have you ever wondered what it was like to live during the Great Depression? Perhaps you think of the stock market crash of 1929, unemployed workers standing in breadlines, and dust storms swirling on the Great Plains. But the 1930s were also a time when neighbors helped neighbors, librarians delivered books on horseback, and an army of young men rebuilt the nation’s forests, roads, and parks. TheGreat Depression for Kids provides a balanced and realistic picture of an era rife with suffering but also deep-rooted with hope and generosity. Beginning with a full chapter on the 1920s, the book provides important background knowledge to help set the stage for an in-depth look at the decline of the economy and attempts at recovery over the next decade. Twenty-one hands-on activities invite young history buffs to understand and experience this important era in American history. Kids can recreate Depression glassware; simulate a windstorm; learn how to research, buy, and sell stocks; design a paper block quilt; play “round ball”; and much more.

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2016 VOYA Non-Fiction Honor List In an age of “slacktivism” and fleeting social media fame, She Takes a Stand offers a realistic look at the game-changing decisions, high stakes, and bold actions of women and girls around the world working to improve their personal situations and the lives of others. This inspiring collection of short biographies features the stories of extraordinary figures past and present who have dedicated their lives to fighting for human rights, civil rights, workers’ rights, reproductive rights, and world peace. Budding activists will be inspired by antilynching crusader and writer Ida B. Wells, birth control educator and activist Margaret Sanger, girls-education activist Malala Yousafzai, Gulabi Gang founder Sampat Pal Devi, who fights violence against Indian women, Dana Edell, who works against the sexualization of women and girls in the media, and many others. Including related sidebars, a bibliography, source notes, and a list of activist organizations readers can explore in person or online, She Takes a Stand is an essential resource for classroom reports or for any young person passionate about making a difference.

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As a young, black, MIT-educated social scientist, Marsha Coleman-Adebayo landed her dream job at the EPA, working with Al Gore’s special commission to assist postapartheid South Africa. But when she tried to get the government to investigate allegations that a multinational corporation was responsible for the deaths of hundreds of South Africans mining vanadium—a vital strategic mineral—the agency stonewalled. Coleman-Adebayo blew the whistle.How could she know that the liberal agency would use every racist and sexist trick in their playbook in retaliation? The EPA endangered her family and sacrificed more lives in the vanadium mines of South Africa—but her fight against this injustice also brought about an upwelling of support from others in the federal bureaucracy who were fed up with its crushing repression.Upon prevailing in court, Coleman-Adebayo organized a grassroots struggle to bring protection to all federal employees facing discrimination and retribution from the government. The No FEAR Coalition that she organized waged a two-year-long battle with Congress over the need to protect whistleblowers—culminating in the passage of the first civil rights and whistleblower law of the 21st century. This book is her harrowing and inspiring story.

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Heading West traces the vivid saga of Native American and pioneer men, women, and children from the colonial beginnings of the westward expansion to the last of the homesteaders in late 20th century Alaska. In many respects, life in the backwoods and on the prairie was similar to modern life—children attended school and had daily chores, parents worked hard to provide for their families, and communities gathered for church and social events. But unlike today, pioneers lived against a backdrop of isolation, harsh weather, disease, and even plagues of locust. And for Native Americans, the westward expansion of settlers posed the most direct threat to their centuriesold cultures. But pioneer life was not all hardship. Settlers were able to build lives and communities, and experience a freedom brought on by new possibilities. Author Pat McCarthy has woven dozens of firsthand accounts from journals and autobiographies of the era to form a rich and detailed story. Readers will find more than 20 activities to help them better understand their pioneering ancestors. Children will churn butter, dip candles, track animals, play Blind Man’s Bluff, create a homestead diorama, and more. And before they finish, readers won’t have just headed west, but back in time as well.

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“Richard Opio has neither the look of a cold-blooded killer nor the heart of one. Yet as his mother and father lay on the ground with their hands tied, Richard used the blunt end of an ax to crush their skulls. He was ordered to do this by a unit commander of the Lord’s Resistance Army, a rebel group that has terrorized northern Uganda for twenty years. The memory racks Richard’s slender body as he wipes away tears.” For more than twenty years, beginning in the mid-1980s, the Lord’s Resistance Army has ravaged northern Uganda. Tens of thousands have been slaughtered, and thousands more mutilated and traumatized. At least 1.5 million people have been driven from a pastoral existence into the squalor of refugee camps. The leader of the rebel army is the rarely seen Joseph Kony, a former witchdoctor and self-professed spirit medium who continues to evade justice and wield power from somewhere near the Congo~Sudan border. Kony claims he not only can predict the future but also can control the minds of his fighters. And control them he does: the Lord’s Resistance Army consists of children who are abducted from their homes under cover of night. As initiation, the boys are forced to commit atrocities—murdering their parents, friends, and relatives—and the kidnapped girls are forced into lives of sexual slavery and labor. In First Kill Your Family, veteran journalist Peter Eichstaedt goes into the war-torn villages and refugee camps, talking to former child soldiers, child “brides,” and other victims. He examines the cultlike convictions of the army; how a pervasive belief in witchcraft, the spirit world, and the supernatural gave rise to this and other deadly movements; and what the global community can do to bring peace and justice to the region. This insightful analysis delves into the war’s foundations and argues that, much like Rwanda’s genocide, international intervention is needed to stop Africa’s virulent cycle of violence.

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Earthquakes, volcanoes, and tsunamis don’t happen every day, so how can budding scientists study how they work? Through experiments, models, and demonstrations. This in-depth resource will teach readers how to build a seismograph to record a simulated earthquake, compare pressure waves and shear waves—the two types of ground shocks—using a Slinky, and replicate a tsunami’s destructive effect on a “coastline” built in a bathtub. Authors Matthys Levy and Mario Salvadori even discuss issues of modern architecture and civil engineering: how science can be used to protect buildings and property in earthquake-prone areas. Earthquakes, Volcanoes, and Tsunamis answers a wide array of questions about these phenomena. Can animals “predict” earthquakes? How have various cultures explained the movement of the earth throughout history? What is the Richter scale, and what does it tell us about the strength of a quake? And most important, readers will learn how to earthquake-proof their homes, and how to protect themselves should they experience a tremor.

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Unless you live in a haunted house, the eyes on your paintings probably don’t follow you around. However, with a couple of motion sensors, two motors, a few transistors, resistors, diodes, and wires you can convert a Van Gogh print into a macabre masterpiece with a mind of its own. Haywired proves that science can inspire odd contraptions. Create a Mona Lisa that smiles even wider when you approach it. Learn how to build and record a talking alarm, or craft your own talking greeting card. Construct a no-battery electric car toy that uses a super capacitor, or a flashlight that can be charged in minutes, then shine for 24 hours. Written for budding electronics hobbyists, author Mike Rigsby offers helpful hints on soldering, wire wrapping, and multimeter use. Each project is described in step-by-step detail with photographs and circuit diagrams. Includes Web sites listing suppliers and part numbers.

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Melding memorable music and inspiring history, Freedom Song presents a fresh perspective on the civil rights movement by showing how songs of hope, faith, and freedom strengthened the movement and served as its voice. In this eye-opening account, you’ll discover how churches and other groups--from the SNCC Freedom Singers to the Chicago Children’s Choir--transformed music both religious and secular into electrifying anthems that furthered the struggle for civil rights. From rallies to marches to mass meetings, music was ever-present in the movement. People sang songs to give themselves courage and determination, to spread their message to others, to console each other as they sat in jail. The music they shared took many different forms, including traditional spirituals once sung by slaves, jazz and blues music, and gospel, folk, and pop songs. Freedom Song explores in detail the galvanizing roles of numerous songs, including “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” “The Battle of Jericho,” “Wade in the Water,” and “We Shall Overcome.” As Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King Jr., and many others took a stand against prejudice and segregation, a Chicago minister named Chris Moore started a children’s choir that embraced the spirit of the civil rights movement and brought young people of different races together, young people who lent their voices to support African Americans struggling for racial equality. More than 50 years later, the Chicago Children’s Choir continues its commitment to freedom and justice. An accompanying CD, Songs on the Road to Freedom, features the CCC performing the songs discussed throughout the book.

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Each month, more than half a million readers turn to the 25 mommyblogs featured in this collection for advice and a sense of camaraderie, and this anthology brings together their best and brightest essays, ranging in style from snort-Diet-Coke-out-the-nose funny to poignant and bittersweet. Written to be read during the mind-bogglingly short breaks parents get during their busy days, these pieces will help moms find solace in a wide range of viewpoints and issues not often discussed in mainstream magazines and other parenting books. From dealing with rage to negotiating sleeping arrangements to the frustration and joy of parenting a special needs child, this is the perfect read for the hip but harried mother that says "you are still you."

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Crossing the ocean on a slave ship, working the land under threat of violence, eluding racists in nighttime chases through moonless fields and woodlands, stumbling across a murder victim hanging from a tree—these are images associated with the African American experience of nature. Over the decades, many African Americans have come to accept that natural areas are dangerous. Unfamiliar with the culture's rich environmental heritage, people overlook the knowledge and skills required at every turn in black history: thriving in natural settings in ancestral African lands, using and discovering farming techniques to survive during slavery and Reconstruction, and navigating escape routes to freedom, all of which required remarkable outdoor talents and a level of expertise far beyond what's needed to hike or camp in a national forest or park. In Rooted in the Earth, environmental historian Dianne D. Glave overturns the stereotype that a meaningful attachment to nature and the outdoors is contrary to the black experience. In tracing the history of African Americans' relationship with the environment, emphasizing the unique preservation-conservation aspect of black environmentalism, and using her storytelling skills to re-create black naturalists of the past, Glave reclaims the African American heritage of the land. This book is a groundbreaking, important first step toward getting back into nature, not only for personal growth but for the future of the planet.

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Based in part on the recent interviews with more than 125 people—among them Tommy Ramone, Chris Stein (Blondie), Lenny Kaye (Patti Smith Group), Hilly Kristal (CBGBs owner), and John Zorn—this book focuses on punk’s beginnings in New York City to show that punk was the most Jewish of rock movements, in both makeup and attitude. As it originated in Manhattan’s Lower East Side in the early 1970s, punk rock was the apotheosis of a Jewish cultural tradition that found its ultimate expression in the generation born after the Holocaust. Beginning with Lenny Bruce, “the patron saint of punk,” and following pre-punk progenitors such as Lou Reed, Jonathan Richman, Suicide, and the Dictators, this fascinating mixture of biography, cultural studies, and musical analysis delves into the lives of these and other Jewish punks—including Richard Hell and Joey Ramone—to create a fascinating historical overview of the scene. Reflecting the irony, romanticism, and, above all, the humor of the Jewish experience, this tale of changing Jewish identity in America reveals the conscious and unconscious forces that drove New York Jewish rockers to reinvent themselves—and popular music.

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A Selection of the Scientific American Book ClubProfiling 50 of the world’s most popular playthings—including their history, trivia, and the technology involved—this guide uncovers the hidden science of toys. Discover how an Etch A Sketch writes on its gray screen, why a boomerang returns after it is thrown, and how an RC car responds to a remote control device. Leaving no detail unrevealed, the guide includes original patent-application blueprints and photos of the “guts” of several devices. Inventors and museum curators also offer their observations of favorite gizmos while dispelling (or confirming) several toy legends. Complete with explanations of do-it-yourself experiments and tips on reverse engineering old toys to observe their interior mechanics, this entertaining and informative reference even provides pointers on how budding toy makers can build their own toys using only recycled materials and a little ingenuity.

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Rightly called the saddest story in rock 'n' roll history, this Creedence biography—newly updated with stories from band members, producers, business associates, close friends, and families—recounts the tragic and triumphant tale of one of America’s most beloved bands. Hailed as the great American rock band from 1968 to 1971, Creedence Clearwater Revival captured the imaginations of a generation with classic hits like “Proud Mary,” “Down on the Corner,” “Green River,” “Born on the Bayou,” and “Who’ll Stop the Rain.” Mounting tensions among bandmates over vibrant guitarist and lead vocalist John Fogerty’s creative control led to the band's demise. Tracing the lives of four musicians who redefined an American roots-rock sound with unequaled passion and power, this music biography exposes the bitter end and abandoned talent of a band left crippled by debt and dissension.

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After college, Anne Thomas Soffee journeyed to Los Angeles to start a career as a rock journalist and small-time heavy metal flack. This hilarious peek into the early years of the hair-band era reveals the hierarchy of fishnets, bustiers, and chicks with the Holy Grail—a backstage pass. A taste for other people's prescriptions and too much beer edges her freelance journalism work right off her schedule. She struggles with not being thin enough, pretty enough, or cool enough when, in the midst of the L.A. riots, Soffee is offered a coveted slot in Virginia Commonwealth University's MFA writing program. Determined to pull herself out of current habits, Soffee starts turning her life around, making a stop at rehab before she heads off to graduate school. Her quarter-life crisis is packed with offbeat characters that prove that fact is often funnier than fiction.

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This zany travel guide presents a more peculiar state than the Iowa Tourism Office might like out-of-towners to imagine. Leaving out the traditional scenic trips to the Mississippi River bluffs and the Amana Colonies, this guide will take the adventurous traveler to the future birthplace of Captain James T. Kirk, the home of the "Lonely Goat Herder" marionettes from The Sound of Music, and the world's largest Cheeto. To enhance the experience of this unusual side of Iowa, the guide includes facts about numerous events in Iowa's history, such as Ozzy Osbourne's infamous bat-biting incident and Jesse James's first moving-train robbery. Iowa is depicted as the birthplace of the Roto-Rooter, the Delicious apple, the electronic computer, the reinforced concrete bridge, and the Eskimo pie. The accompanying photographs and maps will direct travelers to other fun vacation spots and attractions, including the butter sculptures at the Iowa State Fair, the annual National Skillet Throw, the Hobo Convention and Museum, the Ice Cream Capital of the World, and the National Balloon Museum.

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Children are fascinated with sailing ships, lighthouses, whaling, shipwrecks, and mutinies, and these 50-plus activities will provide them with a boatful of fun. This activity guide shows kids what life was like for the greenhands, old salts, and captains on the high seas during the great age of sail in the 19th century: aboard square-riggers, clippers, whalers, schooners, and packet ships. Life aboard ship was an exciting subculture of American life with its own language, food, music, art, and social structure. Children will learn that many captains brought their wives and children aboard ship, and that kids who learned how to walk at sea often found it difficult to walk on dry land. The book begins with the China Tea trade in the late 18th century and ends with the last whaler leaving New Bedford in 1924. Kids will create scrimshaw using black ink and a bar of white soap; make a model lighthouse using a bike reflector, an oatmeal box, and a plastic soda bottle; and paint china with traditional designs using a blue paint pen and a basic white plate. Included are additional simple activities requiring common household objects that are sure to please busy parents and teachers alike.

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Expert instructions and clear step-by-step color photographs introduce the basic yoga postures and build on them in a month-by-month course, enabling students to gradually create their own daily exercise programs. Ideal for beginners who are looking to yoga to ease the rush and stress of modern life while building physical strength and flexibility, this course is also a great refresher for more advanced students who want to improve their postures and technique. The meditative side of yoga, which helps to build a calm, positive attitude, is integrated into the lessons.

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Between 1760 and 1902, more than 200 book-length autobiographies of ex-slaves were published; together they form the basis for all subsequent African American literature. I Was Born a Slave collects the 20 most significant “slave narratives.” They describe whippings, torture, starvation, resistance, and hairbreadth escapes; slave auctions, kidnappings, and murders; sexual abuse, religious confusion, the struggle of learning to read and write; and the triumphs and difficulties of life as free men and women. Many of the narratives—such as those of Frederick Douglass and Harriet Jacobs—have achieved reputations as masterpieces; but some of the lesser-known narratives are equally brilliant. This unprecedented anthology presents them unabridged, providing each one with helpful introductions and annotations, to form the most comprehensive volume ever assembled on the lives and writings of the slaves.Volume One (1770-1849) includes the narratives of James Albert Ukawsaw Gronniosaw, Olaudah Equiano (Gustavus Vassa), William Grimes, Nat Turner, Charles Ball, Moses Roper, Frederick Douglass, Lewis & Milton Clarke, William Wells Brown, and Josiah Henson.

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An exploration of the mysterious world of the unconscious for dreamers age 12 to 16.

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More than half a century ago, New York City suffered from a drought that lasted through 1949 and into 1950. By February, the desperate city had to try something different. Mayor William O’Dwyer hired a municipal rainmaker. Dr. Wallace E. Howell was an inspired choice. The handsome, thirty-five-year-old Harvard-educated meteorologist was the ideal scientist—soft spoken, modest, and articulate. No fast-talking prairie huckster, he took credit for nothing he couldn’t prove with sound empirical data. Howell’s meticulous nature often baffled jaded New Yorkers. Over the next year, his leadership of a small ground and air armada, and his unprecedented scientific campaign to replenish the city’s upstate reservoirs in the Catskills, captured the imagination of the world. New York’s cloud seeding and rainmaking efforts would remain the stuff of legend—and controversy—for decades.Howell’s Storm is the first in-depth look at New York City’s only official rainmaker—an unintentional celebrity, dedicated scientist, and climate entrepreneur, whose activities stirred controversy among government officials, meteorologists, theologians, farmers, and resort owners alike.

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From 1910 to 1919, New Orleans suffered at the hands of a serial killer. The story has been the subject of short stories, novels, and the television series American Horror Story. But the full story of gruesome murders, accused innocents, public panic, the New Orleans Mafia, and a mysterious killer has never been written—until now. The Axeman broke into the homes of Italian grocers in the dead of night, leaving his victims in a pool of blood. Iorlando Jordano and his son Frank were wrongly accused of one of those murders; corrupt officials convicted them with coerced testimony. Miriam C. Davis here expertly tells the story of the search for the Axeman and of the exoneration of the Jordanos. She proves that the person suspected of being the Axeman was not the killer—and that the Axeman continued killing after leaving New Orleans in 1919.

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Finalist for the 2020 AAAS / Subaru SB&F Excellence in Science Book exemplify outstanding and engaging science writing and illustration for young readers Nikola Tesla was a physicist, electrical engineer, and world-renowned inventor whose accomplishments faded into oblivion after his death in 1943. Some considered this eccentric visionary to be a “mad” scientist, but many of his ideas and inventions that were deemed impossible during his lifetime have since become reality. He is now acknowledged to have invented the radio ahead of Marconi. Tesla was undeniably eccentric and compulsive. Among other things, Tesla developed generators, fluorescent tubes, neon lights, and a small remote-controlled boat. He also helped design the world’s first hydroelectric plant at Niagara Falls. Nikola Tesla for Kids is the story of Nikola Tesla’s life and ideas, complete with a time line, 21 hands-on activities, and additional resources to better understand his many accomplishments.Kids will: Construct an electric circuit Explore Tesla's birthplace online Investigate the nature of electromagnetic waves Mix up batch of fluorescent slime "Visit" the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition Build a soda bottle submarine And more!

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This book promises an introduction to 15 women climate champions, but it delivers far more...the women's stories offer hope and inspiration. Booklist Starred ReviewThese 15 contemporary climate champions are on the frontlines of science to create a sustainable future on Earth. They are climate scientists, journalists, professors, academics, researchers, and policy makers from around the world who draft policies with real-world impact, run science labs to find new answers to old problems, and lead organizations at the forefront of change. These women reveal how racial and social injustices lie at the root of the climate crisis. Their stories are accessible and energetic, with spotlights on the triumphs and struggles of women who are working to protect the planet. As young readers learn how these champions are rising up around the world, they will learn how to be part of the solution.

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George Harrison on George Harrison is an authoritative, chronologically arranged anthology of Harrison’s most revealing and illuminating interviews, personal correspondence, and writings, spanning the years 1962 to 2001. Though known as the “Quiet Beatle,” Harrison was arguably the most thoughtful and certainly the most outspoken of the famous four. This compendium of his words and ideas proves that point repeatedly, revealing his passion for music, his focus on spirituality, and his responsibility as a celebrity, as well as a sense of deep commitment and humor.

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The horrific 1988 murder of four-year-old Barbara Jean Horn shocked the citizens of Philadelphia. Plucked from her own front yard, Barbara Jean was found dead less than two and a half hours later in a cardboard TV box dragged to a nearby street curb. After months of investigation with no strong leads, the case went cold. Four years later it was reopened, and Walter Ogrod, a young man with autism spectrum disorder who had lived across the street from the family at the time of the murder, was brought in as a suspect.Ogrod bears no resemblance to the composite police sketch based on eyewitness accounts of the man carrying the box, and there is no physical evidence linking him to the crime. His conviction was based solely on a confession he signed after thirty-six hours without sleep. “They said I could go home if I signed it,” Ogrod told his brother from the jailhouse. The case was so weak that the jury voted unanimously to acquit him, but at the last second—in a dramatic courtroom declaration—one juror changed his mind. As he waited for a retrial, Ogrod’s fate was sealed when a notorious jailhouse snitch was planted in his cell block and supplied the prosecution with a second supposed confession. As a result, Walter Ogrod sits on death row for the murder today.Informed by police records, court transcripts, interviews, letters, journals, and more, award-winning journalist Thomas Lowenstein leads readers through the facts of the infamous Horn murder case in compelling, compassionate, and riveting fashion. He reveals explosive new evidence that points to a condemned man’s innocence and exposes a larger underlying pattern of prosecutorial misconduct in Philadelphia.

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Jack Ruby changed history with one bold, violent action: killing accused presidential assassin Lee Harvey Oswald on live TV two days after the November 22, 1963, murder of President John F. Kennedy. But who was Jack Ruby, and how did he come to be in that spot on that day? As we approach the sixtieth anniversaries of the murders of Kennedy and Oswald, Jack Ruby’s motives are as maddeningly ambiguous today as they were the day that he pulled the trigger. The fascinating yet frustrating thing about Ruby is that there is evidence to paint him as at least two different people. Much of his life story points to him as bumbling, vain, violent, and neurotic; a product of the grinding poverty of Chicago’s Jewish ghetto; a man barely able to make a living or sustain a relationship with anyone besides his dogs. By the same token, evidence exists of Jack Ruby as cagey and competent, perhaps not a mastermind, but a useful pawn of the Mob and of both the police and the FBI; someone capable of running numerous legal, illegal, and semi-legal enterprises, including smuggling arms and vehicles to both sides in the Cuban revolution; someone capable of acting as middleman in bribery schemes to have imprisoned Mob figures set free.Cultural historian Danny Fingeroth's research includes a new, in-depth interview with Rabbi Hillel Silverman, the legendary Dallas clergyman who visited Ruby regularly in prison and who was witness to Ruby’s descent into madness. Fingeroth also conducted interviews with Ruby family members and associates. The book’s findings will catapult you into a trip through a house of historical mirrors. At its end, perhaps Jack Ruby’s assault on history will begin to make sense. And perhaps we will understand how Oswald’s assassin led us to the world we live in today.

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“As a young Afghan woman who dreamed of becoming an air force pilot, Niloofar Rahmani confronted far more than technical challenges; she faced the opprobrium of an entire society.” —Pamela Constable, author of Playing with Fire and former Kabul and Islamabad bureau chief for the Washington Post The true story of Niloofar Rahmani and her determination to become Afghanistan’s first female air force pilot—as seen on Anderson Cooper and ABC News In 2010, for the first time since the Soviets, Afghanistan allowed women to join the armed forces, and Niloofar entered Afghanistan’s military academy. Niloofar had to break through social barriers to demonstrate confidence, leadership, and decisiveness—essential qualities for a pilot. Niloofar performed the first solo flight of her class—ahead of all her male classmates—and in 2013 became Afghanistan’s first female fixed-wing air force pilot. The US State Department honored Niloofar with the International Women of Courage Award and brought her to the United States to meet Michelle Obama and fly with the US Navy’s Blue Angels. But when she returned to Kabul, the danger to her and her family had increased significantly. Rahmani and her family are portraits of the resiliency of refugees and the accomplishments they can reach when afforded with opportunities

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