When I became pregnant, I read everything in the baby section. It felt like I was wearing rose-colored glasses. I wanted an honest, raw sense of what I was in for, and I never got that. Thank goodness my mother, friends, and sisters werenat afraid to tell it like it was. Yes, labor hurts. Yes, life was going to change dramaticallya]forever. Having my son was the most incredible act in the world. I love him more than life itself. I wanted to share my story so soon-to-be moms out there would know theyare not alone. Just because youare not aglowinga doesnat mean youare abnormal. Just because pregnancy wasnat all that you thought it would be doesnat mean as a mom you wonat prosper. This is my story about becoming a mom. It is probably a lot like yours.

Charlie O'Shields is the creator of Doodlewash®, founder of World Watercolor Month in July, and host of the Sketching Stuff podcast. Every single day, for over three years, he created a watercolor illustration and wrote a short essay about whatever came to mind that day and posted it on his blog. These are some of the collected favorites along with some brand new musings. With over 180 illustrations, this book is part personal memoir and sometimes just a randomly fun romp through the sillier bits of this crazy world we all inhabit. Written to take on the impossible task of inspiring creativity, unleashing your inner child, and instilling hope, it will, at the very least, make you smile and touch your heart.

"Baby Blues is one of the truest and funniest accounts of raising a baby ever to grace the comics page." --Lynn Johnston, creator ofFor Better of For Worse When little Zoe MacPherson was born, she was the darling of the comics page. The daily antics of her parents, Wanda and Darryl, struggling to learn the nuances of being a mom and dad struck millions as all-too-real and all-too-hilarious! As Zoe has grown into a toddler--and welcomed baby brother Hamish into the family--the MacPherson clan has become an even bigger part of our daily lives. Even people who aren't parents cherishBaby Bluesfor its amusing artwork and spirited stories. The MacPhersons have entertained us with their calm approach to chaos for years. These two educated people attempt to apply logic and the wisdom of parenting manuals to the raising of their family, and then discover exhaustion bends all the rules. The strip captures real-life emotions, from the battle to get Zoe strapped into a car seat to trying to convince her that she's too old for her crib. Artist Rick Kirkman and writer Jerry Scott have recreated the family-strip genre with their warm and witty takes on child-rearing. InThe Super-Absorbent, Biodegradable, Family-Size Baby Blues, the duo relives the stories behind their favorite strips, allowing their many fans a glimpse into their own frazzled worlds. In addition, they've selected from among material since the strip began. ThisBaby Bluestreasury is a must-have forBaby Bluesfans everywhere, many of whom love the MacPhersons as if they were favorite members of their own dear families.

When Tiffany challenges Pinkalicious to a laugh-off, the pressure is on to create the most pinkerrifically funny joke of all time. Even if Pinkalicious doesn't win the contest, she's going to have a lot of fun trying!

Blues Book of the Year —Living Blues Association of Recorded Sound Collections Awards for Excellence Best Historical Research in Recorded Blues, Gospel, Soul, or R&B–Certificate of Merit (2018) 2023 Blues Hall of Fame Inductee - Classic of Blues Literature category With this volume, Lynn Abbott and Doug Seroff complete their groundbreaking trilogy on the development of African American popular music. Fortified by decades of research, the authors bring to life the performers, entrepreneurs, critics, venues, and institutions that were most crucial to the emergence of the blues in black southern vaudeville theaters; the shadowy prehistory and early development of the blues is illuminated, detailed, and given substance. At the end of the nineteenth century, vaudeville began to replace minstrelsy as America’s favorite form of stage entertainment. Segregation necessitated the creation of discrete African American vaudeville theaters. When these venues first gained popularity, ragtime coon songs were the standard fare. Insular black southern theaters provided a safe haven, where coon songs underwent rehabilitation and blues songs suitable for the professional stage were formulated. The process was energized by dynamic interaction between the performers and their racially-exclusive audience. The first blues star of black vaudeville was Butler “String Beans” May, a blackface comedian from Montgomery, Alabama. Before his bizarre, senseless death in 1917, String Beans was recognized as the “blues master piano player of the world.” His musical legacy, elusive and previously unacknowledged, is preserved in the repertoire of country blues singer-guitarists and pianists of the race recording era. While male blues singers remained tethered to the role of blackface comedian, female “coon shouters” acquired a more dignified aura in the emergent persona of the “blues queen.” Ma Rainey, Bessie Smith, and most of their contemporaries came through this portal; while others, such as forgotten blues heroine Ora Criswell and her protégé Trixie Smith, ingeniously reconfigured the blackface mask for their own subversive purposes. In 1921 black vaudeville activity was effectively nationalized by the Theater Owners Booking Association (T.O.B.A.). In collaboration with the emergent race record industry, T.O.B.A. theaters featured touring companies headed by blues queens with records to sell. By this time the blues had moved beyond the confines of entertainment for an exclusively black audience. Small-time black vaudeville became something it had never been before—a gateway to big-time white vaudeville circuits, burlesque wheels, and fancy metropolitan cabarets. While the 1920s was the most glamorous and remunerative period of vaudeville blues, the prior decade was arguably even more creative, having witnessed the emergence, popularization, and early development of the original blues on the African American vaudeville stage.