Join Steve and Blue when they take Periwinkle, the big city kitten, to the country festival to show him what's so great about spring. You can help Blue and Periwinkle hunt for eggs, make leaf prints, plant seeds, and visit all the booths at the fair!

In this compelling memoir that spans a musicians incredible ride through fifty-four years of life, Donald Darcy provides a glimpse into his journey through a world of music, drugs, and alcoholism, ultimately illustrating that recovery is possible for anyone with a desire to change. A professional singer and songwriter, Donald details his life during the post-war modulation of the late 1950s, the turbulent 1960s, the drug-soaked 1970s and 1980s, and finally, the introspective 1990s that he has nicknamed The Age of Recovery. As he shares the process of how he became addicted to alcohol and drugs, Donald chronicles his once-in-a-lifetime experiences that transported him from Carnegie Hall to Monterey Pop and beyond while educating others about the telltale symptoms of addiction. As he explains how he embraced a spiritual awakening and his subsequent recovery, Donald also shares his opinions about drug addiction, treatment, and genetic dispositions that may cause addiction. Blues to Blood illuminates the path of addiction by providing a self-disclosing, real-life story that offers an in-depth understanding for alcoholics, drug addicts, parents, or friends about the plight of addiction, the destruction it leaves in its path, and the inner-peace that recovery brings.

If you've never even been to Southeast Asia, can you be a Vietnam veteran? In a novel that captures the life and times of a generation, Mark Busby takes us on a journey through an era of hippies, the shootings at Kent State University, integration, and Woodstock. Fort Benning Blues tells the story of Vietnam from this side of the ocean. Drafted in 1969, Jeff Adams faces a war he doesn't understand. While trying to delay the inevitable tour of duty in Vietnam, Adams attends Officer Candidate School in Fort Benning, Georgia, desperately hoping Nixon will achieve “peace with honor” before he graduates. The Army's job is to weed out the “duds,” “turkeys,” and “dummies” in an effort to keep not only the officers but also the men under their command alive in the rice paddies of Vietnam. It doesn't take long for the stress to create casualties. Lieutenant Rancek, Adams' training officer at OCS, is ready to cut candidates from the program for any perceived weakness. He does this, not for the Army, but because he wants only the best “. . . leading the platoon on my right” when he goes to Vietnam. Hugh Budwell, one of Adams' roommates, brings the laid-back spirit of California with him to Fort Benning. Tired of practicing estate law, he joins the Army to relieve the boredom he feels pervades his life. About Officer Candidate School, Budwell states, “If I wanted to go through it without any trouble, I'd be wondering about myself.” Candidate Patrick “Sheriff” Garrett, a black southerner, spends a night with Adams in the low-crawl pit after they both raise Rancek's ire. Expecting racism when he joined the Army, Garrett copes better than most with the rigors of Officer Candidate School. Busby uses song lyrics, newspaper headlines, and the jargon of the era to bring the sixties and seventies alive again. Henry Kissinger is described as “Peter Sellers as Dr. Strangelove” and Lieutenant William “Rusty” Calley as “Howdy Doody in uniform.” Of My Lai, Busby says, “At Fort Benning everybody took those actions as a matter of course.” As America continues to try to comprehend the effects of one of the most transforming eras in our history, Fort Benning Blues adds another perspective to the meaning of being a Vietnam veteran.

It's Healthy Snack Day in Miss Marigold's class! Blue and her friends each need to choose a healthy snack to share. What snack will Blue bring? Read and find out!

Much has been made of the 2016 electoral flip of traditionally Democratic states like Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Ohio to tip Donald Trump into the presidency. Countless think pieces have explored this newfound exotic constituency of blue voters who swung red. But what about those who remain true blue? Red State Blues speaks to the lived experience of progressives, activists, and ordinary Democrats pushing back against simplistic narratives of the Midwest as "Trump Country." They've been there all along, and as the essays in this collection demonstrate, they're not leaving anytime soon. With contributions by journalist and scholar Sarah Kendzior, Kenyon College president Sean Decatur, Pittsburgh city councilman Dan Gilman, and more.

"McKinney-Whetstone uses her gift for language to weave a love story that spans more than twenty years and three lives. . . . Blues Dancing is a novel well worth curling up with a long winter’s night." —Essence From acclaimed writer Diane McKinney-Whetstone, a richly spun tale of love and passion, betrayal, redemption, and faith, set in contemporary Philadelphia. My aunt says if you smell butter on a foggy night you're getting ready to fall in love. For the last twenty years, the beautiful Verdi Mae has led a comfortable life with Rowe, the conservative professor who rescued her from addiction when she was an undergrad. But her world is about to shift when the smell of butter lingers in the air and Johnson—the boy from the back streets of Philadelphia who pulled her into the fire of passion and all the shadows cast from it—returns to town. In "this story of self-discovery that moves seamlessly between the early 1970s and early 1990s" (Publishers Weekly, starred review), McKinney-Whetstone takes readers into a world of erotic love, drugs, and political activism, and beautifully illustrates the struggle to reconcile passion with accountability and the redemptive powers of love's rediscovery. This P.S. edition features an extra 16 pages of insights into the book, including author interviews, recommended reading, and more.

OPERATION: Daddy Boot Camp SUBJECT: Three-year-old Blue, the daughter whom— until three days ago—U.S. Marine Curt Blackwell didn't know existed. MISSION: Fatherhood. Bedtime stories. Plaiting hair. Holding hands. COMPLICATIONS: Preschool teacher Jessie Moore. They had a past, but Curt avoided those waters. Unlike Blue's fear of monsters under the bed, a woman's emotions truly spelled danger. And he was growing defenseless against this woman's warmth and beauty.… MISSION SUCCESS: Uncertain. Curt would survive— but not necessarily with his heart intact!