An inspiring portrait of the extraordinary high-school football team whose quest for perfection sustains its hometown in the heartland The football team in Smith Center, Kansas, has won sixty-seven games in a row, the nation's longest high-school winning streak. They have done so by embracing a philosophy of life taught by their legendary coach, Roger Barta: "Respect each other, then learn to love each other and together we are champions." But as they embarked on a quest for a fifth consecutive title in the fall of 2008, they faced a potentially destabilizing transition: the greatest senior class in school history had graduated, and Barta was contemplating retirement after three decades on the sidelines. In Smith Center--population: 1,931--this changing of the guard was seismic. Hours removed from the nearest city, the town revolves around "our boys" in a way that goes to the heart of what America's heartland is today. Joe Drape, a Kansas City native and an award-winning sportswriter for The New York Times, moved his family to Smith Center to discover what makes the team and the town an inspiration even to those who live hundreds of miles away. His stories of the coaches, players, and parents reveal a community fighting to hold on to a way of life that is rich in value, even as its economic fortunes decline. Drape's moving portrait of Coach Barta and the impressive young men of Smith Center is sure to take its place among the more memorable American sports stories of recent years.

"Maggie is earthy and real, full of love and knowledge, especially on raising sons." - Steve Biddulph "Maggie's perspective on raising boys is spot on. She writes with humor and depth, providing insight and strategies for many of the most important issues facing moms. There is a lovely ease to her writing and a powerful honesty. I hope every mother of a son (and everyone else!) will read this book. The future of the world, to a great extent, depends on how we raise our boys." - Michael Gurian, New York Times Bestselling Author of The Wonder of Boys and Saving Our Sons If we can see the world through boys' eyes a little better, we will make different choices in the way we mother them… and we will find them less confusing, and love them more deeply. Mothers of sons are worried about raising their boys in a world where negative images of masculinity are front and centre of our media, almost every day. Not only that, but statistically our boys are still struggling in many ways. Even though we live in a time where we recognise that nothing in gender is fixed, it remains a fact that the influence of a mother on her son is massive. A mother of four sons herself, Maggie Dent draws on her personal experience - and over four decades work as a teacher, counsellor and now author and speaker - to help build understanding, empathy and compassion for our boys. Maggie shares her five key secrets that every mum needs to know and uses the voices of men she has worked with and surveyed to reveal what really matters in a boy's relationship with his mother and other mother figures. Maggie is one of Australia's most popular parenting authors and educators, and her seminars about boys have sold out all across Australia and in the UK. She is finally sharing her insights, her reflections, and (as always) her humour around mothering boys to help you be the mum your son needs you to be.

Robert Traver captures the genuine flavor of backwoods life in this story recounting the escapades of Danny and his four croonies.

Female-to-male crossdressing became all the rage in the variety shows of nineteenth century America, and began as the domain of mature actresses who desired to extend their careers. These women engaged in the kinds of raucous comedy acts usually reserved for men. Over time, as younger women entered the specialty, the comedy became less pointed, and came to center on the celebration of male leisure and fashion. Gillian M. Rodger uses the development of male impersonation from 1820 to 1920 to illuminate the history of the variety show. Exploding notions of high- and lowbrow entertainment, Rodger looks at how both performers and forms consistently expanded upward toward respectable ”and richer ”audiences. At the same time, she illuminates a lost theatrical world where women made fun of middle class restrictions even as they bumped up against rules imposed in part by audiences. Onstage, the actresses' changing performance styles reflected gender construction in the working class and shifts in class affiliation by parts of the audiences. Rodger observes how restrictive standards of femininity increasingly bound male impersonators as new gender constructions allowed women greater access to public space while tolerating less independent behavior from them.

Our Boys brings to life the human experiences of the paratroopers who fought in the Falklands, and examines the long aftermath of that conflict. It is a first in many ways - a social and cultural history of a regiment with an elite and aggressive reputation; a study of close-quarters combat on the Falkland Islands; and an exploration of the many legacies of this short and symbolic war. Told through the experiences of people who lived through it, Our Boys shows how the Falklands conflict began to change Britain's relationship with its soldiers. It is also the story of one particular soldier- the author's uncle, who was killed during the conflict, and whose fate has haunted both the author and his fellow paratroopers ever since.

"A ... debut about two young brothers and their physically and psychologically abusive father"--

"The true story of a group of boy resistance fighters in Denmark after the Nazi invasion"--