Everybody loves Christmas ... and mysteries. And now the two of them have been combined. We hope you'll enjoy this fun little project revisiting the Christmas Cookies CD. - Joe Bonsall, The Oak Ridge Boys Christmas is magical and includes many traditions like decorating the tree, giving gifts, baking cookies ... and murder and mayhem?!?! Join in the fun this season and create a new holiday tradition with mysteries from more than a baker's dozen of award winning authors-all inspired by the songs of The Oak Ridge Boys' Christmas Cookies CD. Hark the Herald Angels Sing-Patricia Bradley Ollie Bramlett-Joseph S. Bonsall From Love to Love-Lisa Preston Away in a Manger -Beth Pugh Aunt Elvira's Jewels (aka Hay Baby)-D. L. Havlin Little Annie's Christmas Wish-Christine Clemetson I'll be Home for Christmas-Don Bruns Blessed Be the Day of Our Savior's Birth-Kathy Harris Jingle Bells Murder All the Way-Kelly Irvin Ordinary Days-Delores Topliff Uncle Luther Made the Stuffing-Vanessa M. Knight Back to Tennessee-Danielle M Haas The Warmest Night of the Year-Kaye D. Schmitz O, Come All Ye Faithful- M.M. Chouinard O Come All Ye Faithful (Reprise)-Mindy Steele

USA Today best-selling author Best friends James Lessor and Skip Moore are hardly on the fast track. While James works as a line cook at Cap'n Crab, Skip spends his days selling - or rather, attempting to sell - security systems to people who (a) have no money, and (b) have nothing they care to protect. James and Skip aren't upwardly mobile, but they're about to get literally mobile when James spends a surprise inheritance on a white box truck. An investment in the future, he surmises, as these two are starting a business - solely devoted to hauling other people's stuff. But the fledgling business takes a shocking turn when James and Skip unload the contents of their first moving job and find some unexpected cargo - a bloody human finger. James and Skip must scramble to stay one step ahead of the perpetrators of the gruesome crime in this witty, gritty mystery about big dreams, big ideas - and big trouble. Instead of chasing the American dream, James and Skip will be running for their lives.

A supplemental textbook for middle and high school students, Hoosiers and the American Story provides intimate views of individuals and places in Indiana set within themes from American history. During the frontier days when Americans battled with and exiled native peoples from the East, Indiana was on the leading edge of America’s westward expansion. As waves of immigrants swept across the Appalachians and eastern waterways, Indiana became established as both a crossroads and as a vital part of Middle America. Indiana’s stories illuminate the history of American agriculture, wars, industrialization, ethnic conflicts, technological improvements, political battles, transportation networks, economic shifts, social welfare initiatives, and more. In so doing, they elucidate large national issues so that students can relate personally to the ideas and events that comprise American history. At the same time, the stories shed light on what it means to be a Hoosier, today and in the past.

This collection of essays grew out of the "Reading Stephen King Conference" held at the University of Maine in 1996. Stephen King's books have become a lightning rod for the tensions around issues of including "mass market" popular literature in middle and high school English classes and of who chooses what students read. King's fiction is among the most popular of "pop" literature, and among the most controversial. These essays spotlight the ways in which King's work intersects with the themes of the literary canon and its construction and maintenance, censorship in public schools, and the need for adolescent readers to be able to choose books in school reading programs. The essays and their authors are: (1) "Reading Stephen King: An Ethnography of an Event" (Brenda Miller Power); (2) "I Want to Be Typhoid Stevie" (Stephen King); (3) "King and Controversy in Classrooms: A Conversation between Teachers and Students" (Kelly Chandler and others); (4) "Of Cornflakes, Hot Dogs, Cabbages, and King" (Jeffrey D. Wilhelm); (5) "The 'Wanna Read' Workshop: Reading for Love" (Kimberly Hill Campbell); (6) "When 'IT' Comes to the Classroom" (Ruth Shagoury Hubbard); (7) "If Students Own Their Learning, What Do Teachers Do?" (Curt Dudley-Marling); (8) "Disrupting Stephen King: Engaging in Alternative Reading Practices" (James Albright and Roberta F. Hammett); (9) "Because Stories Matter: Authorial Reading and the Threat of Censorship" (Michael W. Smith); (10) "Canon Construction Ahead" (Kelly Chandler); (11) "King in the Classroom" (Michael R. Collings); (12) "King's Works and the At-Risk Student: The Broad-Based Appeal of a Canon Basher" (John Skretta); (13) "Reading the Cool Stuff: Students Respond to 'Pet Sematary'" (Mark A Fabrizi); (14) "When Reading Horror Subliterature Isn't So Horrible" (Janice V. Kristo and Rosemary A. Bamford); (15) "One Book Can Hurt You...But a Thousand Never Will" (Janet S. Allen); (16) "In the Case of King: What May Follow" (Anne E. Pooler and Constance M. Perry); and (17) "Be Prepared: Developing a Censorship Policy for the Electronic Age" (Abigail C. Garthwait). Appended are a joint manifesto by National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) and International Reading Association (IRA) concerning intellectual freedom; an excerpt from a teacher's guide to selected horror short stories of Stephen King; and the conference program. Contains a 152-item reference list of literary works.(NKA)

The Terrific Second Book in the New Horseshoer Mystery Series, Featuring the Incorrigible Female Horse Shoer Rainy Dale A dead blow hammer leaves little to no mark on the surface it strikes. It’s not a shoer’s tool, but horseshoer Rainy Dale knows them and knows there are more questions than answers about how her new client became a widow. The old woman says there was hardly a bruise on her dead husband. Why was he driving his tractor so dangerously near the killer bull? How long did it take him to die after the machine rolled and pinned him? The whole town seems aware of the dead man’s wandering eye. Did the widow know? It all happened just before Rainy came to town, about the time that her fiancé, Guy, volunteered with his buddy to help search for a young woman who went missing from Cowdry, Oregon. Rainy is supposed to be making wedding plans and friends, but she can’t help being drawn into the town’s old intrigues. Once again, Rainy will have to dig deep and use all the tools in her box to both defend herself and the people she's just learning to love.

Investigative Services Branch (ISB) ranger Ainsley Beaumont arrives in her hometown of Natchez, Mississippi, to investigate the murder of a three-month-pregnant teenager. While she wishes the visit was under better circumstances, she never imagined that she would become the killer's next target--nor that she'd have to work alongside an old flame. After he almost killed a child, former FBI sniper Lincoln Steele couldn't bring himself to fire a gun, which had deadly and unforeseen consequences for his best friend. Crushed beneath a load of guilt, Linc is working at Melrose Estate as an interpretive ranger. But as danger closes in on Ainsley during her murder investigation, Linc will have to find the courage to protect her. The only question is, will it be too little, too late? Award-winning author Patricia Bradley continues her Natchez Trace Park Rangers series with a story about how good must prevail when evil just won't quit.

It's been eighteen years since TV crime reporter Andi Hollister's sister was murdered. The confessed killer is behind bars, and the execution date is looming. But when a letter surfaces stating that the condemned killer didn't actually do it, Detective Will Kincaide of the Memphis Cold Case Unit will stop at nothing to help Andi get to the bottom of it. After all, this case is personal: the person who confessed to the crime is Will's cousin. They have less than a week to find the real killer before the wrong person is executed. But much can be accomplished in that week--including uncovering police corruption, running for your life, and falling in love. With the perfect mixture of intrigue and nail-biting suspense, award-winning author Patricia Bradley invites her readers to crack the case--if they can--alongside the best Memphis has to offer.