How children and children’s literature helped build America’s empire America’s empire was not made by adults alone. During the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, young people became essential to its creation. Through children’s literature, authors instilled the idea of America’s power and the importance of its global prominence. As kids eagerly read dime novels, series fiction, pulp magazines, and comic books that dramatized the virtues of empire, they helped entrench a growing belief in America’s indispensability to the international order. Empires more generally require stories to justify their existence. Children’s literature seeded among young people a conviction that their country’s command of a continent (and later the world) was essential to global stability. This genre allowed ardent imperialists to obscure their aggressive agendas with a veneer of harmlessness or fun. The supposedly nonthreatening nature of the child and children’s literature thereby helped to disguise dominion’s unsavory nature. The modern era has been called both the “American Century” and the “Century of the Child.” Brian Rouleau illustrates how those conceptualizations came together by depicting children in their influential role as the junior partners of US imperial enterprise.

Now the kids of today can walk in the boots of wranglers of the Wild West. This new activity-packed addition to the American Kids in History Series transports readers to a cattle ranch near Cheyenne, deep in the Wyoming territory of the 1870s.

The bestselling Journey to the West comic book by artist Chang Boon Kiat is now back in a brand new fully coloured edition. Journey to the West is one of the greatest classics in Chinese literature. It tells the epic tale of the monk Xuanzang who journeys to the West in search of the Buddhist sutras with his disciples, Sun Wukong, Sandy and Pigsy. Along the way, Xuanzang's life was threatened by the diabolical White Bone Spirit, the menacing Red Child and his fearsome parents and, a host of evil spirits who sought to devour Xuanzang's flesh to attain immortality. Bear witness to the formidable Sun Wukong's (Monkey God) prowess as he takes them on, using his Fiery Eyes, Golden Cudgel, Somersault Cloud, and quick wits! Be prepared for a galloping read that will leave you breathless!

These widely acclaimed essays from the author of Infinite Jest -- on television, tennis, cruise ships, and more -- established David Foster Wallace as one of the preeminent essayists of his generation. In this exuberantly praised book -- a collection of seven pieces on subjects ranging from television to tennis, from the Illinois State Fair to the films of David Lynch, from postmodern literary theory to the supposed fun of traveling aboard a Caribbean luxury cruiseliner -- David Foster Wallace brings to nonfiction the same curiosity, hilarity, and exhilarating verbal facility that has delighted readers of his fiction, including the bestselling Infinite Jest.

Arizona Way Out West & Witty: Library Edition's target audience is grade-school children; yet, it is as appealing to adults as it is to kids! Highlights of Arizona's history are punctuated with true but gross, humorous, interesting and witty stories and facts about the Grand Canyon State. In addition to all the important stuff about Arizona, readers learn: What Geronimo and yawning have in common, What a glass eye has to do with Phoenix being Arizona's state capital, How many teachers it would take standing head-to-toe to go from the bottom to the top of the Grand Canyon and much, much more! But it takes more than amusing writing and fascinating facts to keep children's attention, so AZWOWW's award-winning creative team added recipes, crafts, games and science to the mix. Arizona Way Out West & Witty: Librarian Edition's activities do not tempt children to write or mark in the book -- there are no coloring pages or fill-in-the-blanks. This library edition, which was designated an official Arizona Centennial Legacy Project by the Arizona Historical Advisory Commission includes a complete curriculum kit. Winner of ONEBOOKAZ for Kids 2012.