The Campers Learn About Blimps And Take A Ride. Leveled Phonics Picture Book Reader.

Pearl Harbor has just been bombed, and thirteen-year old Blue Awesome Easterly yearns to grow up fast, join the Army Air Corps, and become a hero. But one-eyed Aunt Spook warns him: "Beware the light!" She knows, because "the swamp people told me while I was in a trance," that Blue Awesome is fated to see events from the past-revealed in flashes of light only he can see. "This light never dies," cautions Aunt Spook. "And it never forgets what it sees." Blue Awesome's parents operate their funeral parlor/telephone business out of their home, Welcome Hall, in deep south Home Free, a small village not far from Swamp Ha-Ha, an area as "rural as raw peanuts." Blue Awesome's mother, Ethyl, more or less runs the businesses by herself because his father, Poordaddy, teaches in his private, tuition-free Classic Academy for Young Men. The Easterlys are getting by fine until the commander of the new Army base asks them to secretly embalm a murdered African American officer. When word gets out, local vigilantes turn their world upside down. But that's just the half of it. Take a pinch of Gabriel García Márquez, a dollop of Riddley Walker, a touch of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, a smidgen of William Kotzwinkle-blend thoroughly, bake at high heat (swamp temperature would be best) and you have this entirely new confection, Blue Awesome Ascending. Prepare for a feast.

This "best of" compilation includes beloved selections from the author's "Out of My Mind" column, as well as classic stories and essays like "The Gospel Blimp," "Heaven" and" I Saw Gooley Fly." A great source of encouragement.

Kidnappers, vampire gangs and other larger than life villains. Victorian melodrama. 10 yrs+

From their heyday in the 1950s and 1960s, B movies declined in popularity through the 1970s. As the big Hollywood studios began to make genre films with sky-high budgets, independent producers of low-budget movies could not compete in theaters. The sale of American International Pictures in 1979 and New World Pictures in 1983 marked the end of an era. The emergence of home video in the 1980s marked the beginning of a new phase, as dozens of B movies were produced each year for the small screen, many becoming cult classics of science fiction, horror and fantasy. Through numerous interviews with producers, directors, photographers and actors, this book sheds light on an overlooked corner of film history with behind-the-scenes stories of 28 low-budget favorites from the 1980s.