Restoration artist Rosa Ragan spent 20 years, from 1983 to 2003, restoring the Dentzel menagerie carousel in Glen Echo, MD. The full story of her work is now captured in Restoring the Glen Echo Park Carousel by Deborah Lange, with over 500 beautiful full-color photographs showing the methods Rosa used on the animals, chariots, drum panels, ceiling panels, rounding boards, and band organ. Her methods are carefully explained, with detailed descriptions of how she finds original colors, removes park paint, makes repairs, cleans the animals, traces designs, protects the original paint, applies leaf, paints the animals, applies pin striping and designs, and applies a finish coat. The inpainting methods she uses on the drum panels and ceiling panels are also fully described, as are the bronze powder methods she uses on the Wurlitzer band organ.Also included is a chapter on repair techniques, which describes filling voids, tightening seams, and shaping and attaching new pieces, and a chapter on painting techniques, which covers surface preparation, leafing, glazing, bronzing, blending, creating dapples, pin striping, varnishing, and other topics. A complete materials list and photographic catalog of all finished animals and chariots makes this book an excellent aid for anyone considering a restoration. This book, however, is more than a restorer's guide. It is written for the general public to explain how a much-loved but abused ride was restored to become once again the magnificent functional art it was when it arrived at the park in 1921.

Two sisters find that the horses of a broken carousel have come alive in the rain.

A cryptic letter on her grandmother's grave and a puzzling inscription on a carousel horse lead artist Maya Brice to ninety-year-old Hank Hauser. While stripping chipped layers of paint from the old horses and peeling, fragmented memories from their mysterious carver, Maya untangles the intertwined secrets of love, heartbreak and misunderstandings among three generations of strong willed women.

In this rhyming story, children describe the sights and sounds of riding on the merry-go-round.

From Ferris wheels to roller coasters to tunnels of love, everyone has a favorite amusement park memory. For nearly 130 years, many of those memories have been made at Maryland's amusement parks. Today, only five exist, but throughout history, nearly three dozen have been part of Maryland's landscape. Images of America: Maryland's Amusement Parks offers a glimpse of those parks and how they helped millions quench their thirst for recreation. Maryland's first recorded amusement park, Cabin John Park in Montgomery County, opened in 1876, serving as a training ground for such industry luminaries as Scenic Railway and roller coaster pioneer L.A. Thompson and carousel carver Gustav Dentzel. More than a century later, Maryland's oldest park, Trimper's Rides and Amusements in Ocean City, is a virtual museum of amusement park history with operating rides dating to 1902. Some favorite parks, including Glen Echo, Gwynn Oak, Pen Mar, Tolchester Beach, and The Enchanted Forest, did not last as long, but their memories live on through more than 200 images in this volume.