Offers advice and guidelines on how to expand a child's world through books and reading, introducing three thousand teacher-recommended book titles, craft ideas, projects, recipes, and reading club tips.

When concert halls lose their popularity, opera singer Carlotta Carusa packs up her things and takes her talent out west in this hilarious and exciting picture book from Candace Fleming. What’s an opera singer to do when the appeal of performing in concert halls wears thin? Go west, of course! And sure as shootin’, that’s what Carlotta Carusa does. Out on the prairie, Carlotta finds all the adventure she’s been craving: snarling wolves, disastrous droughts, and that no-good skunk villain Skullneck Sam. But fear not, there’s nothing more satisfying than watching a feisty heroine, armed with a good melody and a heap of confidence, tame the untamable. Westward Ho, Carlotta! is an outrageously silly Wild West adventure sure to make any kid as happy as a tick on a hound dog!

Evelyn Brent's life and career were going quite well in 1928. She was happily living with writer Dorothy Herzog following her divorce from producer Bernard Fineman, and the tiny brunette had wowed fans and critics in the silent films The Underworld and The Last Command. She'd also been a sensation in Paramount's first dialogue film, Interference. But by the end of that year Brent was headed for a quick, downward spiral ending in bankruptcy and occasional work as an extra. What happened is a complicated story laced with bad luck, poor decisions, and treachery detailed in this first and only full-length biography.