"A Tall Tale About The Dog With The Polka Dotted Tail" is a cute and lovable story about an outcast dog, with a most unusual tail, who learns that he is perfect just the way he is.

Designed with budding readers in mind, each of these tales starring familiar nursery rhyme characters is set in three columns with color-coded type as a script for two voices to read separately and together. By the creators of You Read to Me,

The perfect addition to every family’s home library and just right for sharing aloud, American Tall Tales introduces readers to America’s first folk heroes in nine wildly exaggerated and downright funny stories. Here are Paul Bunyan, that king-sized lumberjack who could fell “ten white pines with a single swing”; John Henry, with his mighty hammer; Mose, old New York’s biggest, bravest fireman; Sally Ann Thunder Ann Whirlwind, who could “outgrin, outsnort, outrun, outlift, outsneeze, outsleep, outlie any varmint”; and other uniquely American characters, together in one superb collection. In the tradition of the original nineteenth-century storytellers, Mary Pope Osborne compiles, edits, and adds her own two cents’ worth—and also supplies fascinating historical headnotes. Michael McCurdy’s robust colored wood engravings recall an earlier time, perfectly capturing all the vitality of the men and women who carved a new country out of the North American wilderness.

Tall Tales of a Short Clown is the story of Barry Lubin, whose alter ego, Grandma, became one of the most successful clowns in American history, and was named "The World's Funniest Grandma" in Germany. Barry has entertained well over a hundred million people in circus rings, stadiums, arenas, on stage, in festivals, in films, and on television as the funny little carpetbagger with a mischievous view of the world. Barry is undoubtedly the only person to have achieved the combination of performing a running headstand onto a whoopee cushion on stage at Carnegie Hall, eating well over 10,000 bagels, and managing to piss off Ringo Starr, Meryl Streep, Gene Kelly, and Bruce Springstein as well as being inducted into the International Clown Hall of Fame. Tall Tales of a Short Clown follows Barry's journey from Emerson College dropout to Clown College graduate, from his early failures on the Greatest Show on Earth to his induction into the Ring of Fame, the highest honor in clowning and in circus. He reveals his struggles with drug abuse and alcoholism and his journey into sobriety, his bout with thyroid cancer and his triumphant return to the ring, and his love affair with audiences on six continents over five decades, to earn his place as one of the most beloved clowns in history.

In basketball, just as in American culture, the 1970s were imperfect. But it was a vitally important time in the development of the nation and of the National Basketball Association. During this decade Americans suffered through the war in Vietnam and Nixon’s Watergate cover-up (not to mention disco music and leisure suits) while the NBA weathered the arrival of free agency and charges that its players were “too black.” Despite this turmoil, or perhaps because of it, the NBA evolved into a cultural phenomenon. Tall Tales and Short Shorts: Dr. J, Pistol Pete, and the Birth of the Modern NBA traces the evolution of the NBA from the retirement of Bill Russell in 1969 to the arrival of Larry Bird and Magic Johnson ten years later. Sandwiched between the youthful league of the sixties and its mature successor in the eighties, this book reveals the awkward teenage years of the NBA in the seventies. It examines the many controversies that plagued the league during this time, including illicit drug use, on-court violence, and escalating player salaries. Yet even as attendance dwindled and networks relegated playoff games to tape-delayed, late-night broadcasts, fans still pulled on floppy gray socks like “Pistol Pete” Maravich, emulated Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s sweeping skyhook, and grew out mushrooming afros à la “Dr. J” Julius Erving. The first book-length treatment of pro basketball in the 1970s, Tall Tales and Short Shorts brings to life the players, teams, and the league as a whole as they dealt with expansion, a merger with the ABA, and transitioning into a new era. Sport historians and basketball fans will enjoy this entertaining and enlightening survey of an often-overlooked time in the development of the NBA.

If you think Joan Rivers said funny, outrageous, and ridiculous things ONSTAGE, wait ’til you read the funny, outrageous, and ridiculous things she said OFFSTAGE…things that will make you laugh out loud…and keep Melissa in therapy for the foreseeable future. The only thing my mother loved more than making people laugh was lying…or as she’d say, “embellishing.” Her motto was: “Why let the truth ruin a good story?” This book contains some of those stories. ***************** “When Joan told a story, the truth disappeared faster than I did.” — Jimmy Hoffa “If you thought Dante’s Inferno was hot, read Lies My Mother Told Me; it’s a five-alarmer.” — Dante’s second wife, Allie “Twelve of my twenty-six personalities loved this book.” — Sybil “The words on the page absolutely crackle and spark; I burned my fingers reading it!” — Annie Sullivan “The Bible may be the good book, but Lies My Mother Told Me is way funnier.” — Matthew 2:14 The Jets. 7 “Lies My Mother Told Me is the feel-good book of 2022.” — Torquemada “All’s not well that ends well. I’ve had massages with happier endings.” — Wm. Shakespeare “Melissa, I don’t care what your mother said in this book, I LOVE your bangs.” — Mamie Eisenhower “Lies My Mother Told Me is so funny even those ‘woke’ m***********s will laugh.” — Lenny Bruce

Eight exciting classic American Tall Tales! This collection includes the famed stories of Paul Bunyan, Pecos Bill, Stormalong, Mike Fink, Davy Crockett, Johnny Appleseed, John Henry, and Joe Magarac, with evocative illustrations by Richard M. Powers.