The humor and heart of Modern Family meets wacky contests in book two of this series, which asks: What could be more fun than a fun house? A local theme park called Funland is hosting a huge contest to turn one family’s home into the ultimate fun house. Who wouldn’t want a slide from the bedroom to the backyard, a bumper-car kitchen, or a ball pit for a living room? The Talaska family is eager to compete! And the stakes are high. Their house is falling apart, and they might have to move away from Piedmont Place forever. Cal knows that his family can win, but it won’t be easy. First he and his sister, Imo, need to win a competition at school. Then the whole family has to live at Funland and find a hidden object. Can they really search every corner of the park in just five days? There’s only one way to find out. Let the contest begin!

The Talaska family enters a contest to win a home makeover.

Activity book meets adventure in this series that is Choose Your Own Adventure meets I Survived meets doodle book! Doodle, decide, and demolish your way out of history's greatest events--the perfect book for fun and educational summer reading! Reader, beware! Once you open this book, there is no turning back. You will have three chances to survive the Titanic's fateful voyage. Decide which path to take first. Passenger: Exploring the ship is fun! Just don't get caught on the wrong deck when there's an iceberg ahead! Crew Member: You work for a family in first class. Can you persuade them to save you along with their beloved dog? Stowaway: You snuck onto this ship. Can you draw your way onto a lifeboat? In the Escape This Book! series, YOU are the star of history! Doodle your way through adventures as you decide the best path for survival. Don't be afraid to rip or fold a page. . . . Your escape may depend on it!

The Landons are in the Caribbean, in Virgin Islands National Park, to figure out what is destroying the coral reefs and causing the hawksbill sea turtle to disappear. Jack and Ashley find themselves hopelessly entangled in the mysterious life of Forrest Winthrop IV, the adopted son of a U.S. diplomat. Why is he so anxious to save an island woman named Cimmaron? What secret do they share? Follow the action to Jumbie Bay and see what the full moon reveals.

Stanley Baxter delighted over 20 million viewers at a time with his television specials. His pantos became legendary. His divas and dames were so good they were beyond description. Baxter was a most brilliant cowboy Coward, a smouldering Dietrich. He found immense laughs as Formby and Liberace. And his sex-starved Tarzan swung in a way Hollywood could never have imagined. But who is the real Stanley Baxter? The comedy actor's talents are matched only by his past reluctance to colour in the detail of his own character. Now, the man behind the mischievous grin, the twinkling eyes and the once-Brylcreemed coiffure is revealed. In a tale of triumphs and tragedies, of giant laughs and great falls from grace, we discover that while the enigmatic entertainer could play host to hundreds of different voices, the role he found most difficult to play was that of Stanley Baxter.

This book will provide a thematic overview of one of European history’s most devastating famines, the Great Finnish Famine of the 1860s. In 1868, the nadir of several years of worsening economic conditions, 137,000 people (approximately 8% of the Finnish population) perished as the result of hunger and disease. The attitudes and policies enacted by Finland’s devolved administration tended to follow European norms, and therefore were often similar to the “colonial” practices seen in other famines at the time. What is distinctive about this catastrophe in a mid-nineteenth-century context, is that despite Finland being a part of the Russian Empire, it was largely responsible for its own governance, and indeed was developing its economic, political and cultural autonomy at the time of the famine. Finland’s Great Famine 1856-68 examines key themes such as the use of emergency foods, domestic and overseas charity, vagrancy and crime, emergency relief works, and emigration.

Since 1983, Aki Kaurismäki has made classically styled films filled with cinephilic references to film history, influencing Jim Jarmusch, Quentin Tarantino and Wes Anderson. Yet the director is often depicted as the loneliest, most nostalgic of Finns (except when promoting his films, making political statements and running his many businesses). Drawing on revisionist approaches to film authorship, this text links Kaurismäki's work to issues in film aesthetics and history, nostalgia, late modernity, commerce, film festivals, and national cinema.