Perfect Party Games is essential reading for anyone who has a party to plan. Whether you need some ideas to keep everyone entertained at a family get-together or you're organising a big do for your child's whole primary school class, you're bound to find inspiration in this collection of over 200 fun-filled games. With easy-to-follow instructions for everything from 'Alphabet tales' to 'Yes or no', and an indispensable guessing games section offering film, book and TV programme titles, Perfect Party Games will help provide hours of fun for everyone. The Perfect series is a range of practical guides that give clear and straightforward advice on everything from getting your first job to choosing your baby's name. Written by experienced authors offering tried-and-tested tips, each book contains all you need to get it right first time.

Contains over 500 articles Ranging over foodways and folksongs, quiltmaking and computer lore, Pecos Bill, Butch Cassidy, and Elvis sightings, more than 500 articles spotlight folk literature, music, and crafts; sports and holidays; tall tales and legendary figures; genres and forms; scholarly approaches and theories; regions and ethnic groups; performers and collectors; writers and scholars; religious beliefs and practices. The alphabetically arranged entries vary from concise definitions to detailed surveys, each accompanied by a brief, up-to-date bibliography. Special features *More than 2000 contributors *Over 500 articles spotlight folk literature, music, crafts, and more *Alphabetically arranged *Entries accompanied by up-to-date bibliographies *Edited by America's best-known folklore authority

Folklorist, writer, editor, regionalist, cultural activist—Benjamin Albert Botkin (1901–1975) was an American intellectual who made a mark on the twentieth century, even though most people may be unaware of it. This book, the first to reevaluate the legacy of Botkin in the history of American culture, celebrates his centenary through a collection of writings that assess his influence on scholarship and the American scene. Through his work with the Federal Writers' Project during the New Deal, the Writers' Unit of the Library of Congress Project, and the Archive of American Folksong, Botkin did more to collect and disseminate the nation's folk-cultural heritage than any other individual in the twentieth century. This volume focuses on Botkin's eclectic but interrelated concerns, work, and vision and offers a detailed sense of his life, milieu, influences, and long-term contributions. Just as Botkin boldly cut across the boundaries between high and low, popular and folk, this book brings together reflections that range from the historical to the philosophical to the disarmingly personal. One group of articles looks at his career and includes the first extended analysis of Botkin's poetry; another probes the fruitful relationships Botkin had with leading musicologists, composers, poets, and intellectuals of his day. This is also the first book to bring together a collection of Botkin's best-known writings, giving readers an opportunity to appreciate his wide-ranging mind and clear, often memorable prose. For Botkin, the blurring of art and science, literature and folklore was not just a philosophy but a way of life. This book reflects that life and invites fans and those new to Botkin to appraise his lasting contributions.

The Play-Party in Oklahoma.--B. Botkin. Folk-Lore Relating to Texas Birds.--J. Strecker. Tall Tales for the Tenderfeet.--A. Penn. Fishback Yarns from the Sulphurs.--J. Deaver. Paul Bunyan:Oil Man.--J. Brooks. Pipeline Days and Paul Bunyan.--A. Garland. Le Loup Blanc of Bolivar's Peninsula.--P. Tucker. Pioneer Folk Tales.--M. Atkinson and J. Dobie. The Corn Thief-A Folk Anecdote.--J.raddock. The Texas Pecan; The Man in the Moon.--G. Bludworth. Follow the Drinking Gourd.--H. Parks. Some Negro Folk-Songs of Texas.--M. Bales. Six Negro Folk-Songs.--N. Smith. Confidences from Old Nacogdoches.--M. Emmons. The Ghosts of Lake Jackson.--B. Dobie. How Mr. Polecat Got His Scent.--K.O'Connor. De Pot-Song.--P. Throop. Notes on Some Recent Treatments of Negro Folk-Lore.--R. Law. Some Characteristics of Cowboy Songs.--N. Gaines. More Ballads and Songs of the Frontier Folk.--J. Dobie.

A collection of folk songs and games with a descriptive introduction.

Much has been written about the songs gathered in North America in the first half of the 20th century. However, there is scant information on those individuals responsible for gathering these songs. The Ballad Collectors of North America: How Gathering Folksongs Transformed Academic Thought and American Identity fills this gap, documenting the efforts of those who transcribed and recorded North American folk songs. Both biographical and topical, this book chronicles not only the most influential of these "song catchers" but also examines the main schools of thought on the collection process, the leading proponents of those schools, and the projects that they shaped. Contributors also consider the role of technology--especially the phonograph--in the collection efforts. Chapters organized by region cover such areas as Appalachia, the West, and Canada, while others devoted to specialized topics from the cowboy tune and occupational song to the commercialization of folk music through song collections and anthologies. Ballad Collectors investigates the larger role of the ballad in the development of American identity, from the national appreciation of cowboy songs in popular culture to the use of Appalachian song forms in radio broadcasts to the role of dustbowl ballads in the urban folk revival of the 1950s and 1960s. Finally, this collection assesses the changing role of songs and song texts in the academic fields of folklore, anthropology, musicology, and ethnomusicology. Scholars and students of American cultural and social history, as well as fans of North American folk and popular music, will find The Ballad Collectors of North America a fascinating story of how the American folk tradition gained greater visibility, fueling the revolutions that would follow in the writing and performance of American music.