The Book of Festus is a shattered fable. In these poems, every object has a voice; every thing is awake. Festus wakes inside a myth - on a wharf in Halifax, Nova Scotia - and recalls nothing but a bicycle. As he looks for it, he thinks the city's thoughts. Upon a sidewalk over a buried river, he remembers what the city remembers. He steps past a skateboard park to a Mi'kmaq lagoon. He follows 17th century pioneer cattle to a fast food restaurant. A girl he once knew steps out of the fragments. Festus is an anagogic man, loser-hero of the first city, Ur, Halifax. This collection is a city's lucid dream of itself.

A collection of sayings by Festus Haggen, a character on the TV series Gunsmoke, with links to Biblical proverbs and Bible references.

Festus and his cat, Mercury, change their plans for a camping trip when the chickens insist on going along.

Unable to continue with Christmas preparations because of his injured foot, old man Festus and his cat Mercury face a bleak Christmas until the neighbors come to the rescue.

Mercury the cat tries to cheer up his grouchy old master Festus through elaborate plans to get him to go fishing.

This timely book exposes the complexities and realities facing urbanness and urban schools that are inadequately funded and denigrated, along with students who continue to be misidentified, misassessed, miscategorized, misplaced, and misinstructed by illprepared and unprepared educators and service providers. The text very successfully demonstrates the comprehensive nature and connectedness of problems and prospects in urban education. This book will be an added resource to researchers, scholars, educators, and service providers. It should be an excellent required text for graduate and undergraduate courses in all branches of education. Addition-ally, the book will be of interest to education administrators at all levels, public school teachers, policy makers, and change agents. The thirteen chapters discuss and explore the following primary topics:• Urban education and the quest for democracy, equity, and excellence• Educating urban learners with and without special needs• Personnel preparation and urban schools• Teaching and learning in urban schools• Educational leadership in urban schools• Insights into educational psychology and what urban practitioners must know• Managing violence in urban schools• Financing urban schools• Reducing the power of “whiteness” in urban schools• Promises and challenges of building and the future perspectives of urban education.