“Awjeezma!” was the universal dissent, whined—repeatedly if necessary—at an unreasonable mother who wanted the vacuuming done now-not-next-year or a pile of encrusted dishes washed or the sputtering heater refueled. “Awjeezma! Do I gotta?” “If I have to tell you one more time—” “Awjeezma! Awright! Jeez!” Through the telling of his own madcap childhood, David Benjamin pays homage to the exuberance of countless untamed boys who grew up in Middle America in the 1950s. Whether he’s stalking frogs through the bogs of Tomah, Wisconsin, playing four-kid baseball with his bothersome little brother and two favorite cousins, or sneaking into the theater to watch Saturday afternoon Westerns, Benjamin is the kind of little kid who eagerly would have fallen in with the redoubtable Tom Sawyer. His tales—including one about a truly sorry incident with Snappy, the snapping turtle, and another about a run-in with a particularly fiendish squirrel—are by turns hysterically funny, caustic, aggrieved, and movingly sincere. Traversing the nooks and crannies of kidhood, from ballfields to swimming holes, The Life and Times of the Last Kid Picked captures a moment in twentieth-century American life, as Benjamin magically recalls the myriad scrapes, intrepid adventures, and wanderlust that once made childhood such an exhilarating enterprise.

David Benjamin's eponymous character in The Life and Times of the Last Kid Picked grew up in the era - between child labor and Little League - when parental disregard set kids free to devise and play their own games, make their own rules, argue their own disputed calls and roam free from dawn to darkness with absolutely no adult supervision. It was a time, between the end of World War II and the wholesale intrusion of parents into child's play, that Benjamin calls "free-lance childhood." It allowed a timid, bookish and intensely observant kid to explore the outdoors, range for miles on his bicycle, go fishing, go hunting, play baseball, football, soccer, go to the movies with a fellow rascal named Chucky Dutcher and get kicked out of high-school basketball games. This was an interval in American culture that has been overlooked by historians and sociologists alike. It comes to life in vivid and often hilarious microcosm, chronicled by a gifted and often lyrical writer.

Memoirs, autobiographies, and diaries represent the most personal and most intimate of genres, as well as one of the most abundant and popular. Gain new understanding and better serve your readers with this detailed genre guide to nearly 700 titles that also includes notes on more than 2,800 read-alike and other related titles. The popularity of this body of literature has grown in recent years, and it has also diversified in terms of the types of stories being told—and persons telling them. In the past, readers' advisors have depended on access by names or Dewey classifications and subjects to help readers find autobiographies they will enjoy. This guide offers an alternative, organizing the literature according to popular genres, subgenres, and themes that reflect common reading interests. Describing titles that range from travel and adventure classics and celebrity autobiographies to foodie memoirs and environmental reads, Life Stories: A Guide to Reading Interests in Memoirs, Autobiographies, and Diaries presents a unique overview of the genre that specifically addresses the needs of readers' advisors and others who work with readers in finding books.

Navigating what at she calls the " extravagantly rich world of nonfiction," renowned readers' advisor (RA) Wyatt builds readers' advisory bridges from fiction to compelling and increasingly popular nonfiction to encompass the library's entire collection. She focuses on eight popular categories: history, true crime, true adventure, science, memoir, food/cooking, travel, and sports. Within each, she explains the scope, popularity, style, major authors and works, and the subject's position in readers' advisory interviews. Wyatt addresses who is reading nonfiction and why, while providing RAs with the tools and language to incorporate nonfiction into discussions that point readers to what to read next. In easy-to-follow steps, Wyatt Explains the hows and whys of offering fiction and nonfiction suggestions together Illustrates ways to get up to speed fast in nonfiction Shows how to lead readers to a variety of books using her "read-around" and "reading map" strategies Provides tools to build nonfiction subject guides for the collection This hands-on guide includes nonfiction bibliography, key authors, benchmark books with annotations, and core collections. It is destined to become the nonfiction 'bible' for readers' advisory and collection development, helping librarians, library workers, and patrons select great reading from the entire library collection!

What started out as typical "boys will be boys" teasing and horseplay turned into a living nightmare for Kevin Kearns who learned that his once safe neighborhood turned into a war zone of bullies. Small for his age, and not as physically adept at playing sports as all the other boys in the neighborhood, Kevin was soon the kid who was always picked last for the ball games. Up at bat, he endured merciless teasing, dropping the ball in the outfield earned him the lasting derision of his teammates. "We'd be better off without him!" While some of the incidents seem shocking, bullying goes on everywhere. There is no such thing as "boys will be boys" if it excuses bullying behavior. After losing his father at a young age, Kevin felt adrift and alone...a perfect target for intensified bullying. His mother felt helpless. His teachers felt sorry for him. His uncle decided that he needed to learn to defend himself and enrolled Kevin in a martial arts program. The martial arts training certainly taught Kevin how to defend himself, but more importantly, it taught him what it meant to be successful at something. It developed his self-esteem and helped him to overcome the environment of bullying at school and at home. Kevin's early introduction into martial arts turned into a lifelong passion of personal and physical development. Today, Kevin is known as Coach Kearns to many people, among them UFC fighters who turn to Kevin to learn how to improve their skills. If you are being bullied, or know someone who is, Kevin's story serves as proof that there is a way out and that life after being bullied can be fulfilling and enduring.

Tracing public and critical responses to TV from its pioneering days, this book gathers and gives context to the reactions of those who saw television's early broadcasts—from the privileged few who witnessed experimental and limited-schedule programming in the 1920s and 1930s, to those who bought TV sets and hoisted antennae in the post-World War II television boom, to still more who invested in color receivers and cable subscriptions in the 1960s. While the first two major sections of this study show the views of television's first broad public, the third section shows how social and media critics, literary and visual artists, and others have expressed their charmed or chagrinned responses to television in its earliest decades. Media-jaded Americans, especially younger ones, would be surprised to know how eagerly their forebears anticipated the arrival of television. Tracing public and critical responses to TV from its pioneering days, this book gathers and gives context to the reactions of those who saw television's early broadcasts-from the privileged few who witnessed experimental and limited-schedule programming in the 1920s and 1930s, to those who bought TV sets and hoisted antennae in the post-World War II television boom, to still more who invested in color receivers and cable subscriptions in the 1960s. Viewers' comments recall the excitement of owning the first TV receiver in the neighborhood, show the vexing challenges of reception, and record the pleasure that all young and many older watchers found in early network and local programs from the beginning to the fast-changing 1960s. While the first two major sections of this study show the views of television's first broad public, the third section shows how social and media critics, literary and visual artists, and others have expressed their charmed or chagrinned responses to television in its earliest decades.

Many years ago Bob Dylan wrote: "The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind," but we've learned that really important answers don't come that easily. Asking questions is a sign of a healthy, growing faith, a faith that drives us deeper into God's Word. That's the reason God's first question in the Old Testament is "Where are you?" while the first question the wise men ask in the New Testament is "Where is He?" It's been observed that God answers just enough questions to get us through the day, while leaving us with enough unanswered questions so we can look forward to learning more tomorrow. This book is designed to deal with some of our most difficult questions or troubling issues . . . from a biblical perspective. At times it may appear that some questions have no answer, or maybe have more than one, or perhaps have answers that contradict each other. That's one reason we're not only to confront knotty questions, but willingly accept God's unraveling answers.