Marveltown's adults are outstanding inventors, but when their best engineers create giant but stupid robots that threaten the town, it is the children's outrageous creations that save the day.

In a world where reading is reportedly dead, renowned humorist, illustrator, and New Yorker contributor Bruce McCall offers 50 inventive, outlandish, and wickedly entertaining things to do with all those excess books in 50 Things to Do with a Book. From starting a band, building a stairway to paradise, and saving your town from a flood to improving your marriage, entertaining guests, or killing a mockingbird, the options presented in 50 Things to Do with a Book are brilliant, visionary, ironic, and absurd.

Weekly columns by an elementary school principal during his six years in a small town in Maine.

Volume contains: 209 NY 531 (Town of Pelham v. Shinn)

Six months after its American introduction in 1985, the Yugo was a punch line; within a year, it was a staple of late-night comedy. By 2000, NPR's Car Talk declared it "the worst car of the millennium." And for most Americans that's where the story begins and ends. Hardly. The short, unhappy life of the car, the men who built it, the men who imported it, and the decade that embraced and discarded it is rollicking and astounding, and one of the greatest untold business-cum-morality tales of the 1980s. Mix one rabid entrepreneur, several thousand "good" communists, a willing U.S. State Department, the shortsighted Detroit auto industry, and improvident bankers, shake vigorously, and you've got The Yugo: The Rise and Fall of the Worst Car in History. Brilliantly re-creating the amazing confluence of events that produced the Yugo, Yugoslav expert Jason Vuic uproariously tells the story of the car that became an international joke: The American CEO who happens upon a Yugo right when his company needs to find a new import or go under. A State Department eager to aid Yugoslavia's nonaligned communist government. Zastava Automobiles, which overhauls its factory to produce an American-ready Yugo in six months. And a hole left by Detroit in the cheap subcompact market that creates a race to the bottom that leaves the Yugo . . . at the bottom.

From his hardscrabble post-World War II Ontario childhood and coming of age to Mad Men-era New York City and the creative pinnacle of advertising, to the hallowed halls of Saturday Night Live and The New Yorker, Bruce McCall’s personal and creative journey is stunningly honest, bittersweet, and, above all, inspiring. Beloved for his strikingly original and wickedly perceptive New Yorker covers, as well as his many Shouts and Murmurs, Bruce is a rare double threat as an artist and writer. Self-taught in both disciplines, his artistic world has captured the imagination of a loyal fan base that includes no less than David Letterman (whom he coauthored a book with) and other satire aficionados. Pulling no punches, How Did I Get Here? chronicles the evolution of his artistic genius as well as his journey from gifted childhood scribbler to passionate automobile enthusiast, a hobby that took him to the heights of the Detroit and Manhattan advertising worlds. His long-held passion for drawing and writing, which mostly lay dormant during his Mad Men days, reemerged later in life as he left the realm of advertising for the world of arts and letters, most notably at the National Lampoon, as a writer for Saturday Night Live in its first incarnation, and then of course at The New Yorker, as well as other Conde Nast magazines, such as Vanity Fair. His is an unorthodox life and career path, traversing through worlds that have now become iconic, giving us rich first-hand insight into Bruce's unique creative development and process, and providing a rare window into both the highs and the lows that define an artist's career and life. With wit, candor, and cover illustrations showcasing Bruce's storied career, Bruce McCall’s memoir will charm his many fans and anyone who knows and loves the places and eras he describes so well.

Preschool teachers and early childhood professionals know that storybook reading is important, but they may not know how to maximize its benefits for later reading achievement. This indispensable guide presents research-based techniques for using reading aloud to intentionally and systematically build children's knowledge of print. Simple yet powerful strategies are provided for teaching preschoolers about book and print organization, print meaning, letters, and words, all while sharing engaging, commercially available books. Appendices include a detailed book list and 60 reproducibles that feature activities and prompts keyed to each text.