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MCU: The Reign of Marvel Studios
by Joanna Robinson Dave Gonzales Gavin Edwards"A superb chronicle of how Marvel Studios conquered Hollywood…. This definitive account of the Hollywood juggernaut thrills." —Publishers Weekly, starred review The unauthorized, behind-the-scenes story of the stunning rise—and suddenly uncertain reign—of the most transformative cultural phenomenon of our time: the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Marvel Entertainment was a moribund toymaker not even twenty years ago. Today, Marvel Studios is the dominant player both in Hollywood and in global pop culture. How did an upstart studio conquer the world? In MCU, beloved culture writers Joanna Robinson, Dave Gonzales, and Gavin Edwards draw on more than a hundred interviews with actors, producers, directors, and writers to present the definitive chronicle of Marvel Studios and its sole, ongoing production, the Marvel Cinematic Universe. For all its outward success, the studio was forged by near-constant conflict, from the contentious hiring of Robert Downey Jr. for its 2008 debut, Iron Man, all the way up to the disappointment of Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania and shocking departures of multiple Marvel executives in 2023. Throughout, the authors demonstrate that the original genius of Marvel was its resurrection and modification of Hollywood’s old studio system. But will it survive its own spectacular achievements? Dishy and authoritative, MCU is the first book to tell the Marvel Studios story in full—and an essential, effervescent account of American mass culture.
Me and Mr. Jones: My Life with David Bowie and the Spiders from Mars
by Suzi RonsonA luminescent memoir from the stylist who created David's iconic Ziggy Stardust look, painting a dazzling picture of Bowie and the wild world of his entourage during this pivotal moment in pop history. From the stylist behind David Bowie&’s Ziggy Stardust look, an electrifying memoir taking readers behind the curtains during a legendary chapter of pop culture history. Suzi Ronson was working in an English hair salon in the early 1970s when Mrs. Jones came in for her weekly shampoo and set. After being introduced to her son, David, and his wife, Angie, she soon finds herself at the Bowies' bohemian apartment and embroiled in their raucous world. Having crafted his iconic Ziggy Stardust hairstyle, Suzi becomes the only working woman in David's touring party and joins The Spiders from Mars as they perform around the globe. Amid the costume blunders, parties, and groupies she meets her husband-to-be, Mick Ronson, and together they traverse the absurdities of life in rock & roll, falling in with the likes of Iggy Pop, Bob Dylan, and Lou Reed along the way. Dazzling and intimate in equal measure, Me and Mr. Jones provides not only a unique perspective into one of the most beguiling stars in the history of pop music but also of a world on the cusp of cultural transformation.
Mean Girl Feminism: How White Feminists Gaslight, Gatekeep, and Girlboss (Feminist Media Studies)
by Kim Hong NguyenWhite feminists performing to maintain privilege Mean girl feminism encourages girls and women to be sassy, sarcastic, and ironic as feminist performance. Yet it coopts its affect, form, and content from racial oppression and protest while aiming meanness toward people in marginalized groups. Kim Hong Nguyen’s feminist media study examines four types of white mean girl feminism prominent in North American popular culture: the bitch, the mean girl, the power couple, and the global mother. White feminists mime the anger, disempowerment, and resistance felt by people of color and other marginalized groups. Their performance allows them to pursue and claim a special place within established power structures, present as intellectually superior, substitute nonpolitical playacting for a politics of solidarity and community, and position themselves as better, more enlightened masters than patriarchy. But, as Nguyen shows, the racialized meanness found across pop culture opens possibilities for building an intersectional feminist politics that rejects performative civility in favor of turning anger into liberation.
Meaning in the Midst of Performance: Contradictions of Participation (Routledge Advances in Theatre & Performance Studies)
by Gareth WhiteBeing an audience participant can be a confusing and contradictory experience. When a performance requires us to do things, we are put in the situation of being both actor and spectator, of being part of the work of art while also being the audience who receives it, and of being both perceiving subject and aesthetic object. This book examines these contradictions – and many others – as they appear by accident and by design in increasingly popular forms of interactive, immersive, and participatory performance in theatre and live art. Borrowing concepts from cognitive philosophy and bringing them into a conversation with critical theory, Gareth White sharply examines meaning as a process that happens to us as we are engaged in the problems and negotiations of a participatory performance. This study will be of great interest to scholars and students of theatre and performance, intermedial arts and games studies, and to practising artists.
Media and Entertainment Industry Management: How to Integrate Business and Management with Creativity and Imagination
by Sunghan RyuThe media and entertainment industry (MEI) differs significantly from traditional industries in many respects. Accordingly, the management of strategy, marketing and other business practices in the MEI necessitates a unique approach. Sunghan Ryu offers students focused and relevant insights into critical topics, illustrated by vivid examples from the MEI. Unlike typical introductory textbooks on business and management, this book does not overemphasize complicated layers of theory. Instead, it presents essential concepts and frameworks in a digestible manner and supplements them with opportunities to apply this knowledge to real-world cases. The textbook demonstrates how knowledge can be constructively implemented in business and management scenarios. It is structured into 12 chapters, divided into five core modules: (1) Overview of the MEI, (2) The Fundamentals of Management, (3) Marketing Management, (4) Digital Business and Management, and (5) New Business Models and Entrepreneurship. Students will gain the ability to explain key concepts and frameworks across core business and management domains and develop analytical skills through diverse real-world cases in the MEI. Based on this knowledge, they will be equipped to identify management-related issues in the MEI and arrive at practical and effective solutions.This book is an essential guide for students who wish to understand business and management in the dynamic world of the MEI.
The Media Economy (Media Management and Economics Series)
by Alan B. AlbarranThis fully updated third edition analyzes the media industries and their activities from macro to micro levels, using concepts and theories to demonstrate the role the media plays in the economy as a whole. This textbook breaks new ground through its analysis of the rapidly changing and evolving media economy from two unique perspectives. First, the book explores how media industries function across global, national, household, and individual levels of society. Second, it assesses how key forces such as technology, globalization, regulation, and consumer aspects are constantly evolving and influencing media industries. This new edition incorporates thoroughly updated theory and research as well as expanded case studies that include examples from international markets such as Asia, Europe, and Latin America. It builds on the contributions of the previous edition by providing new references and current data to define and analyze today’s media markets and offers a more expansive assessment of streaming business models as well as the effects of Covid-19 on the media economy. Written in an accessible style and presenting a holistic global perspective of the role of media in the global economy, the textbook provides crucial insights for students and practitioners of media economics, media management and media industries.
The Mediaverse and Speculative Fiction Television: Understanding Speculative TV Fandoms
by Ashumi ShahSome (web) television texts achieve immense commercial success. Certain commercially successful texts boast dedicated, creative, and exponentially growing fandoms. These fan communities engage in specific fan practices that are significantly influenced by the textualities of the texts and their contexts of production, distribution, and consumption. Increased fan engagement resulting in the acceleration of the text’s popularity leads to the following inquiries: · How is the series influenced by the interactions among and the relationships between the producers, consumers, distributors, and content? · What are the sites of these interactions? · What are the social, cultural, economic, and political factors that impact the series? · How do the text’s contexts of production, distribution, and consumption lead to the text’s popularity in mainstream media? In pursuit of an answer to these questions, the analytical lens of the ‘mediaverse’ is developed. An inductive study, this book explores four television series’ that fall within the scope of speculative fiction to characterise the mediaverse and highlight the interconnectedness among the networked nodes of new media. These wield a significant influence on the production and consumption of media and its presence in our everyday lives, thus outlining the mediaverse as a tool for the analysis of a media texts and practices that shape contemporary media culture.
Mel Brooks: A Little Golden Book Biography (Little Golden Book)
by Christy MihalyHelp your little one dream big with a Little Golden Book biography about comedian, actor, and filmmaker Mel Brooks. Little Golden Book biographies are the perfect introduction to nonfiction for young readers—as well as fans of all ages!This Little Golden Book about Mel Brooks--legendary EGOT funnyman and director of classics such as Young Frankenstein and The Producers--is an inspiring read-aloud for young children and their parents and grandparents who are fans.Look for more Little Golden Book biographies: • Betty White • Carol Burnett • Lucille Ball • Harry Belafonte • Julie Andrews • Dwayne Johnson
Memes, Myth and Meaning in 21st Century Chinese Visual Culture (Contemporary East Asian Visual Cultures, Societies and Politics)
by Justine PoplinThis book explores the impact of global change in China in what is considered in the West as ‘the Asian century’ and what this in turn means for visual culture. Unravelling a deep understanding of historical shifts in visual culture that represent socio-political mirrors of culture, it expands the Western perception of Chinese visual culture and the intertwined complexities of cultural signification. This book provides a key resource for Galleries and Academic Institutions, offering insights into understanding the systems underpinning ideas, skills and influences of the new visual culture in the Asian century.
Messy Connections: Creating Atmospheres of Addiction Recovery Through Performance Practice (ISSN)
by Cathy SloanThis book examines performance practices that involve people in recovery from addiction, theorising such practices as recovery-engaged.Focusing on examples of practice from a growing movement of UK-based recovery arts practitioners and performers, it highlights a unique approach to performance that infuses an understanding of lived experiences of addiction and recovery with creative practice. It offers a philosophy of being in recovery that understands lived experience, and performance practice, as a dynamic system of interrelations with the human and nonhuman elements that make up the societal settings in which recovery communities struggle to exist. It thereby frames the process of recovery, and recovery-engaged performance, as an affective ecology – a system of messy connections. Building upon ideas from posthumanist research on addiction, cultural theory on identity and new materialist interpretations of performance practice, it considers how such contemporary theory might offer additional ways of thinking and doing arts practice with people affected by addiction. The discussion highlights the distinct aesthetics, ethics and politics of this area of performance practice.This study will be of great interest to students and scholars in Applied Theatre and Critical Arts and Mental Health studies.
Meta Television: A History of US Popular Television's Self-Awareness (Routledge Advances in Popular Culture Studies)
by Erin GianniniThe idea of metatextuality is frequently framed as a recent television development and often paired with the idea that it represents genre exhaustion. US television, however, with its early “live” performances and set-bound sitcoms, always suggested an element of self-awareness that easily shaded into metatextuality even in its earliest days. Meta Television thus traces the general history of US television’s metatextuality throughout television’s history, arguing that TV’s self-awareness is nothing new—and certainly not evidence of a period of aesthetic exhaustion—but instead is woven into both its past and present practice, elucidated through case studies featuring series from the 1970s to the present day—many of which have not been critically analyzed before—and the various ways they deploy metatext to both construct and deconstruct their narratives. Further, Meta Television asserts that this re- and de-construction of narrative and production isn’t just a reward to the savvy and/or knowledgeable viewer (or consumer), but seeks to make broader points about the media we consume—and how we consume it.This book explores the ways in which the current metatextual turn, in both the usual genres in which it appears (horror and sci-fi/fantasy) and its movement into drama and sitcom, represents the next turn in television’s inherent self-awareness. It traces this element throughout television’s history, growing from the more modest reflexivity of programs’ awareness of themselves, as created objects in a particular medium, to the more significant breaking of the fictive illusion and therefore the perceived distance between the audience and the series. Erin Giannini shows how the increased currency of metatextual television in the contemporary era can be tied to a viewership well-versed in its stories and production as well as able and willing to “talk back” via social media. If television reflects culture to a certain extent, this increased reflexivity mirrors that “responsive” audience as a consequence of the lack of distance that metafiction embraces.As Robert Stam traced the use—and implications—of reflexivity in film and literature, this book does the same for television, further problematizing John Ellis’s glance theory in terms of both production and spectatorship.
Mike Donlin: A Rough and Rowdy Life from New York Baseball Idol to Stage and Screen
by Steve Steinberg Lyle SpatzMike Donlin was a brash, colorful, and complicated personality. He was the most popular athlete in New York and was a star on the powerful New York Giants teams of 1905 and 1908. Though haunted by tragedy, including the deaths of both of his parents as a boy, Donlin was a charming, engaging, and kind-hearted man who also had successful careers on the stage and in film. One of the early &“bad boys&” among professional athletes, Donlin&’s temper and combativeness—compounded by alcoholism—led to battles with umpires and fans, numerous suspensions from the game, and even jail time. In 1906, when Donlin married vaudeville actress Mabel Hite, his life changed for the better, and their love story captivated the nation. Donlin left baseball after his sensational comeback for the dramatic 1908 season and joined Mabel on the stage, likely losing a Hall of Fame career. Then in 1912, at the age of twenty-nine, Mabel died of intestinal cancer. After making a final comeback as a player in 1914, Donlin starred in baseball&’s first feature film. He became a drinking buddy of actors John Barrymore and Buster Keaton and married actress Rita Ross. The couple moved to Hollywood, where Donlin became a beloved figure and appeared in roughly one hundred movies, mostly in minor roles. Despite his Hollywood career, Donlin stayed connected to the game he loved and was seeking a coaching job with the Giants when he died of a heart attack in 1933. At the dawn of the celebrity era of sports, Donlin was one of the nation&’s first athletes to capture the public&’s attention. This biography by Steve Steinberg and Lyle Spatz shows why.
Minecraft: Beginner's Guide (Minecraft)
by Mojang AB The Official Minecraft TeamDive into Minecraft headfirst with this all-new beginner&’s guide that will teach you everything you need to know for starting your Minecraft journey, whether that be in Survival mode or Creative. Are you new to Minecraft or still not quite getting the hang of it? Then this book is for you! Join characters such as Miss Hap, Sir Vival and Bill Ding on an adventure through the Overworld, to discover how you can ace your early game.Learn everything from what happens when you die and how to avoid it to how to feed yourself and where to find the cutest mobs. So what are you waiting for? Pick up the book and start your epic adventure!Full of fun and humor, this guide is perfect for kids of all ages.
Mobile Hollywood: Labor and the Geography of Production
by Kevin SansonA free ebook version of this title is available through Luminos, University of California Press's Open Access publishing program. Visit www.luminosoa.org to learn more. Contemporary film and television production is extraordinarily mobile. Filming large-scale studio productions in Atlanta, Budapest, London, Prague, or Australia's Gold Coast makes Hollywood jobs available to people and places far removed from Southern California—but it also requires individuals to uproot their lives as they travel around the world in pursuit of work. Drawing on interviews with a global contingent of film and television workers, Kevin Sanson weaves an analysis of the sheer scale and complexity of mobile production into a compelling account of the impact that mobility has had on job functions, working conditions, and personal lives. Mobile Hollywood captures how an expanded geography of production not only intensifies the often invisible pressures that production workers now face but also stretches the parameters of screen-media labor far beyond craftwork and creativity.
The Modern Feminine in the Medusa Satire of Fanny Fern (Palgrave Studies in Nineteenth-Century Writing and Culture)
by James E. CaronThe Modern Feminine in the Medusa Satire of Fanny Fern argues that Sara Parton and her literary alter ego, Fanny Fern, occupy a star-power position within the antebellum literary marketplace dominated by women authors of sentimental fiction, writers Nathaniel Hawthorne (in)famously called “the damn mob of scribbling women.” The Fanny Fern persona represents a nineteenth-century woman voicing the modern feminine within a laughter-provoking bourgeois carnival, a forerunner of Hélène Cixous’s laughing Medusa figure and her theory about écriture féminine. By advancing an innovative theory about an Anglo-American aesthetic, comic belles lettres, Caron explains the comic nuances of Parton’s persona, capable of both an amiable and a caustic satire. The book traces Parton’s burgeoning celebrity, analyzes her satires on cultural expectations of gendered behavior, and provides a close look at her variegated comic style. The book then makes two first-order conclusions: Parton not only offers a unique profile for antebellum women comic writers, but her Fanny Fern persona also anchors a potential genealogy of women comic writers and activists, down to the present day, who could fit Kate Clinton’s concept of fumerism, a feminist style of humor that fumes, that embraces the comic power of a Medusa satire.
Monsters on the Couch: The Real Psychological Disorders Behind Your Favorite Horror Movies
by Brian A. SharplessHorror movies can reveal much more than we realize about psychological disorders—and clinical psychology has a lot to teach us about horror. Our fears—mortality, failure, loneliness—can be just as motivating as our wishes or desires. Horror movie characters uniquely reveal all of these to a wide audience. If explored in an honest and serious manner, our fears have the potential to teach us a great deal about ourselves, our culture, and certainly other people. From psychologist, researcher, and horror film enthusiast Brian A. Sharpless comes Monsters on the Couch, an exploration into the real-life psychological disorders behind famous horror movies. Accounts of clinical syndromes every bit as dramatic as those on the silver screen are juxtaposed with fascinating forays into the science and folklore behind our favorite movie monsters. Horror fans may be obsessed with vampires, werewolves, zombies, and the human replacements from Invasion of the Body Snatchers, but even many medical professions may not know about the corresponding conditions of Renfield's syndrome, clinical lycanthropy, Cotard's syndrome, and the misidentification delusions. Some of these disorders are surprisingly common in the general population. For instance, a number of people experience isolated sleep paralysis, a disorder implicated in ghost and alien abduction beliefs.As these tales unfold, readers not only learn state-of-the-art psychological science but also gain a better understanding of history, folklore, and how Hollywood often—but not always—gets it wrong when tackling these complex topics.
The Moth Presents: True Stories of Holding On and Letting Go (The Moth Presents)
by The Moth Mike BirbigliaAn inspiring and entertaining collection of unforgettable true stories about finding unexpected beauty in life&’s transitions—from Lin-Manuel Miranda, Elizabeth Gilbert, Quiara Alegría Hudes, and many more. &“The Moth taught me how to be vulnerable, how to take my time, and how to listen to someone else&’s story and share in their moments of triumph, laughter, or, yes, sometimes embarrassment with an open heart.&”—Mike Birbiglia, from the Foreword An international rescue mission for Paddington Bear. A family matriarch running numbers in Detroit. An epic Lucha Libre showdown in Mexico City. A beach vacation spent looking for the Kennedys. Storytellers from around the world share times they found real beauty in the moments when their lives changed forever—for better or for worse. Carefully selected by the creative minds at The Moth and adapted to the page to preserve the raw energy of stories told live, on stage, and without notes, A Point of Beauty features voices familiar and new. This collection offers a shared message: If we look closely enough, we can find power in strengthening frayed bonds but also in having the courage to walk away from things that no longer feed our spirit. Through these storytellers&’ passion and their hope, they teach us all about what&’s worth holding on to: our relationships with those we love the most, our understanding of ourselves, and—of course—gathering together to tell and listen to our stories.
Motion Picture and Video Lighting
by Blain BrownThis fully revised and updated fourth edition of Motion Picture and Video Lighting explores the technical, aesthetic, and practical aspects of lighting for film and video. It covers not only how to light, but also why. The process of lighting is emphasized, as well as practical techniques and visual storytelling with light. Written by experienced filmmaker, film school teacher, and author Blain Brown, this book emphasizes how the image, the mood, and the visual impact of a film are, to a great extent, determined by the skill and sensitivity of the director of photography in using lighting. It provides an indispensable, highly illustrated, and comprehensive guide to making every scene look its best. This new edition has been expanded to provide further guidance at the introductory level for students, those just starting their careers, and people already working in the business who want to move up. Topics include: Lighting Sources LEDs The Lighting Process Lighting Basics Controlling Light Lighting Scenes A Lighting Playbook Storytelling With Light Electricity and Distribution Gripology Set Operations Technical Issues A robust accompanying companion website also includes video tutorials and other resources for students and professionals alike, including lighting demonstrations, basic methods of lighting, using diffusion, color control, and other topics.
Multilingual Dramaturgies: Towards New European Theatre (New Dramaturgies)
by Kasia LechMultilingual Dramaturgies provides a study of dramaturgical practices in contemporary multilingual theatre in Europe. Featuring interviews with international theatremakers, the book gives an insight into diverse approaches towards multilingual theatre and its dramaturgy that reflect cultural, political, and economic landscapes of contemporary Europe, its inhabitants, and its theatres. First-hand accounts are contextualized to reveal a complex set of negotiations involved in the creative and political tasks of staging multilingualism and engaging the audience, as well as in practical issues like funding and developing working models. Using interviews with practitioners from a diverse range of theatrical backgrounds and career levels, and with various models of financial support, Multilingual Dramaturgies also offers an insight into different attitudes towards multilingualism in European theatres. The book illuminates not only the potential for multilingual dramaturgies, but also the practical and creative difficulties involved in making them. By bringing the voices of artists together and providing a critical commentary, the book reveals multilingual dramaturgies as webbed practices of differences that also offer new ways of understanding and performing identity in a European context. Multilingual Dramaturgies sheds light on an exciting theatre practice, argues for its central role in Europe and highlights potential directions for its further development.
Multilingual Fiction Series: Genres, Geographies and Performances (Routledge Research in Cultural and Media Studies)
by Nahuel RibkeThis book explores the emergence and development of multilingual fiction series, a relatively new phenomenon propelled by the globalization of media industries and the consolidation of streaming platforms as central vectors in the production and consumption of audiovisual entertainment content. Through a detailed analysis of thriller, sitcom, and drama series, the book proposes an original qualitative and quantitative research methodology for the study of on-screen multilingual encounters, examining the relationship between multilingual speech and genre conventions. The book covers fiction series beyond English-speaking countries: alongside American productions, the analysis covers TV shows from Europe, Latin America, and the Middle East region. This interdisciplinary and original volume will interest scholars and students in film studies and media studies working on global media, as well as communication studies, television studies, sociolinguistics, media and cultural industries, and translation studies.
A Murder in Hollywood: The Untold Story of Tinseltown's Most Shocking Crime
by Casey Sherman"A wild ride beneath the glitz and glamour of 1950s Hollywood, proving once again that Casey Sherman is a master of the genre."—Ben Mezrich, New York Times bestselling author of Dumb Money, Bringing Down the House, and The Accidental BillionairesThe dark story behind the bright lights of TinseltownFrom the outside, Hollywood starlet Lana Turner seemed to have it all—a thriving film career, a beautiful daughter, and the kind of fame and fortune that most people could only dream of. But when the famous femme fatale began dating mobster Johnny Stompanato, thug for the infamous west coast mob boss Mickey Cohen, her personal life became violent and unpredictable. Lana's teenage daughter, Cheryl, watched her beloved mother's life deteriorate as Stompanato's intense jealousy took over. Eventually, the physical and emotional abuse became too much to bear, and Lana attempted to break it off with Johnny—with disastrous consequences. The details of what happened that fateful night remain foggy, but it ended in a series of frantic phone calls and Stompanato dead on Lana's bedroom floor, with Cheryl claiming to have plunged a knife into his abdomen in an attempt to protect her mother. The subsequent murder trial made for the biggest headlines of the year, its drama eclipsing every Hollywood movie.New York Times bestselling author Casey Sherman pulls back Tinseltown's velvet curtain to reveal the dark underbelly of celebrity, rife with toxic masculinity and casual violence against women, and tells the story of Lana Turner and her daughter, who finally stood up to the abuse that plagued their family for years. A Murder in Hollywood transports us back to the golden age of film and illuminates one of the 20th century's most notorious true crime tales.
Music and Sound in the Films of Dennis Hopper (Filmmakers and Their Soundtracks)
by Stephen Lee NaishAcross his directorial films, American filmmaker Dennis Hopper used music and sound to propel the narrative, signpost the era in which the films were made, and delineate the characters’ place within American culture. This book explores five of Hopper’s films to show how this deep engagement with music to build character and setting continued throughout his career, as Hopper used folk, punk, hip-hop, and jazz to shape the worlds of his films in ways that influenced other filmmakers and foreshadowed the advent of the music video format.The author traces Hopper’s distinctive approach to the use of music through films from 1969 to 1990, including his innovative use of popular rock, pop, and folk in Easy Rider, his blending of diegetic performances of folk and Peruvian indigenous music in The Last Movie, his use of punk rock in Out of the Blue, incorporation of hip-hop and rap in Colors, and commissioning of a jazz/blues soundtrack by Miles Davis and John Lee Hooker for The Hot Spot. Uncovering the film soundtrack as a vital piece of the narrative, this concise and accessible book offers insights for academic readers in music and film studies, as well as all those interested in Hopper’s work.
My Fair Brady
by Brian D. KennedyMy Fair Lady meets the classic teen film She's All That in this charming and swoony new rom-com from Brian D. Kennedy, author of A Little Bit Country. Perfect for fans of What If It's Us and She Gets the Girl. Wade Westmore is used to being in the spotlight. So when he’s passed over for the lead in the spring musical, it comes as a major blow—especially when the role goes to his ex-boyfriend, Reese, who dumped him for being too self-involved.Shy sophomore Elijah Brady is used to being overlooked. Forget not knowing his name—most of his classmates don’t even know he exists. So when he joins the stage crew for the musical, he seems destined to blend into the scenery.When the two have a disastrous backstage run-in, Elijah proposes an arrangement that could solve both boys’ problems: If Wade teaches Elijah how to be popular, Wade can prove that he cares about more than just himself. Seeing a chance to win Reese back, Wade dives headfirst into helping Elijah become the new and improved “Brady.”Soon their plan puts Brady center stage—and he’s a surprising smash hit. So why is Wade suddenly less worried about winning over his ex and more worried about losing Elijah?
My Life Off-Key (Orca Anchor)
by Gail Anderson-DargatzKey Selling Points A teen learns that she has a biological father who isn’t the dad she grew up with and that her mom has kept this secret Jen's whole life. This story explores family dynamics as well as themes of identity and belonging. The author has written a number of short novels for striving readers, including these hi-lo books in the Orca Currents line: Iggy’s World and Bigfoot Crossing , both JLG Gold Standard Selections, and The Ride Home , which was shortlisted for a BC and Yukon Book Prize. Although her own story is different, the author drew from personal experience, as she too grew up with one dad, only to discover as a teen that she also had a biological father who wasn't the dad she grew up with. She and her birth dad both loved to sing. Enhanced features (dyslexia-friendly font, cream paper, larger trim size) to increase reading accessibility for dyslexic and other striving readers.
My My!: ABBA Through the Ages
by Giles Smith&‘A lovely book – as bright, shiny and uplifting as an Abba hit&’ Daily Mail&‘[A] witty and affectionate account . . . It&’s not a stretch to say that, at its core, My My! is a book about time, death and the possibility of immortality&’ Sunday TimesMy My! The story of ABBA told through a selection of their greatest hits. This year is the fiftieth anniversary of Waterloo (the song, not the battle) – a seminal moment in pop history which saw Swedish sensation ABBA burst on to the international music scene. How is it that half a century later this seventies Eurovision act is bigger than ever – reaching listeners of all ages and spinning off into musicals, museums and holograms? Giles Smith, writer and music fan, sets out to find out why.My My! is a celebration of ABBA through the ages. It&’s one fan&’s way of saying: thank you for the music.