New Books, Films, Databases, and other Resources: January 2012

This book presents work by a group of the world's most esteemed young contemporary artists and designers in a medium they've previously not explored-retro 3D.

"Encountering Eva Hesse presents new writing on the work of Eva Hesse (1936-70) by international artists, curators, and art historians who examine the varied framings of exhibition, studio, and writing for their encounters with these still challenging works of art

Comprehensive collection catalog of the paintings collection of the Louvre. Each entry includes artist's name, painting name, date, size, material, location in the museum, and the Louvre inventory number. The DVD-ROM includes all paintings in the book and is browsable by artist, collection, or location. The advanced search feature allows searching by title, date, material, location, and more.

Come inside this book and meet the Pobble with his chilly feet, the Owl and the Pussycat, a Sieve to sail away and back, a hive of silvery bees. Come inside this book and find poetry to feed your mind.

Naamah is the wife of Noah, and her name means great singer. For 40 days and 40 nights, as the Ark tosses on the storm-wracked seas, Naamah sings to the animals.

"As a curious little chipmunk leaves his nest to greet the twilight, he gazes at the glittering sky above him. He can't help but also notice the sparkling dewdrops on a spider's web, the lights of the fireflies, and the shimmers of moonlight on the water. 'How I wonder what you are!' marvels the tiny creature, launching a dreamlike quest to reach for the stars.

Examines the history and lore of soccer from A for a game played "all over the world" to Z for "Zinedine Zidane," a French star named the world's best.

Two thieves, caught stealing from an Egyptian market, are brought before the Cat Pharaoh, who agrees to pardon them if they bring back a treasure that was stolen from her, without taking anything else and without getting the precious Jewel Fish wet.

Introduces children to a variety of media and styles in American art of the 17th and 18th centuries, pairing art reproductions with thought-provoking questions.

Suhaila's wish to know her deceased grandmother is granted when a golden ladder appears at her window and Grandma Annie invites her on a journey to the moon, where they welcome people who are facing tragedy. Includes facts about the painting and woman who inspired the story.

"Caldecott Medalist Allen Say presents a stunning graphic novel chronicling his journey as an artist during WWII, when he apprenticed under Noro Shinpei, Japan's premier cartoonist. Drawing from memory is Allen Say's own story of his path to becoming the renowned artist he is today. Shunned by his father, who didn't understand his son's artistic leanings, Allen was embraced by Noro Shinpei, Japan's leading cartoonist and the man he came to love as his "spiritual father." As WWII raged, Allen was further inspired to consider questions of his own heritage and the motivations of those around him. He worked hard in rigorous drawing classes, studied, trained--and ultimately came to understand who he really is. Part memoir, part graphic novel, part narrative history, DRAWING FROM MEMORY presents a complex look at the real-life relationship between a mentor and his student. With watercolor paintings, original cartoons, vintage photographs, and maps, Allen Say has created a book that will inspire the artist in all of us

Determined to make Halloween a frightening night of the pumpkinheads, the pumpkins transform themselves into a variety of scary monsters and then head for town hoping to terrify everyone they meet.

Tells the history of vegetable gardening at the White House, concluding with a list of favorite White House recipes.

A young boy and his father become closer friends during a camping trip in the mountains.

The white ballets (ballets blancs), particularly Swan lake, are amongst the most popular ballets in the world. This title features three magical loves stories which are brought alive with stunning artwork.

A Hawaiian grandmother tells her granddaughter a favorite story about how much she loves her. Includes a glossary with definitions and explanations of Hawaiian words and customs.

A very simple look at weight and how we measure it.

A young boy in ancient times embarks on an adventurous sea voyage to Alexandria, Egypt, home of the famous Pharos Lighthouse.

After an injury, Black Diamond, a racehorse, is sent to a country prison where he forms a strong bond with the inmate assigned to care for him. Includes facts on programs that pair animals with prisoners who learn how to take care of them.

Bumble-ardy the pig has missed eight birthdays in a row. So for his ninth birthday he has a party without telling his aunt. What will happen when she comes home?

This tour through our solar system describes how it would feel to be on the surface of each of the nine planets, as well as the sun, an asteroid, and a comet.

Dressed in their costumes, Ollie and his siblings go out on Halloween night and have a scary but fun adventure.

A father and child enjoy a range of activities together before bedtime.

In this wordless graphic novel, a man leaves his homeland and sets off for a new country, where he must build a new life for himself and his family.

When a little boy tries to get clean the way different animals do, he only gets dirtier.

Crawl into the amazing world of beetles! Each page of this fact-filled book invites you to explore beetles close-up like you've never seen them before

Follow in the footsteps of young people as they walk through American history.

Author Edith Nesbit has rewritten ten of Shakespeare's plays in narrative form, retaining much of the original language, and thus the flavor of the dramas. For each play the compiler selected images from great illustrators including Arthur Rackham, Louis Rhead, Charles Robinson, W. Heath Robinson, Hugh Thomson and Max Bihn.

Escaping from Taliban-controlled Afghanistan in the summer of 2001, eleven-year-old Fadi and his family immigrate to the San Francisco Bay Area, where Fadi schemes to return to the Pakistani refugee camp where his little sister was accidentally left behind.

A cherry tree growing from the top of the wicked landlord's head is the beginning of his misfortunes and a better life for the poor villagers.

The amazing tricks two American soldiers do on a borrowed bicycle are a fitting finale for the school sports day festivities in a small village in occupied Japan.

Edward of Caernarfon is best known for his disastrous military defeat in 1314 at Bannockburn. This work examines Edward II's eventful life and the more salient periods of his reign, situating the monarch in the context of the "empire" he inherited and the aftermath of his unregretted death.

The only firsthand account of the failed German military plot to kill Hitler--told by one of the key conspirators--gives eloquent voice to the courageous spirit of the men whose honor could not be dimmed by the diabolical propaganda of the Third Reich.

Bored and lonely after his family moves from Berlin to a place called "Out-With" in 1942, Bruno, the son of a Nazi officer, befriends a boy in striped pajamas who lives behind a wire fence.

Including pieces on globalization and the war on terrorism, this book corresponds to five historical phases in the history of human rights and explores for each the arguments, debates, and issues of inclusiveness central to those eras. It features a collection of essays, speeches, and documents from historical and contemporary sources.

See what stories in American history may not be true.

In this revelatory book, Timothy Snyder offers a groundbreaking investigation of Europe's killing fields and a sustained explanation of the motives and methods of both Hitler and Stalin. He anchors the history of Hitler's Holocaust and Stalin's Terror in their time and place and provides a fresh account of the relationship between the two regimes.

Written by a veteran reporter, this is an up close portrait of the fierce struggle between moderates and extremists taking place within the Islamic world today. Why don't Muslims challenge the violent extremists among them? Well, they do. Here she cites the clerics, comedians, and rappers who challenge al Qaeda violence; the women who are launching liberation movements; and the former jihadists who openly reject violence. These Muslims all want to build a better Islam, on their own, not Western, terms.

A gripping, authoritative narrative history of the siege of Leningrad from 1941-1944, interwoven with indelible personal accounts of daily siege life drawn from diarists and memoirists on both sides.

In Democracy in America, de Tocqueville observed that there is hardly a political question in the United States which does not sooner or later turn into a judicial one. Two hundred years of American history have certainly born out the truth of this remark. Whether a controversy is political, economic, or social, whether it focuses on child labor, prayer in public schools, war powers, busing, abortion, business

There is a rapidly growing body of literature addressing women and Jewish tradition, much of which seeks to supplement Jewish texts such as the Talmud and midrash where female voices are generally absent. Biblical Women in the Midrash: A Sourcebook also seeks to influence the tradition by both providing an opening for women to study the Bible and rabbinic midrash, and by adding women's voices to the body of Jewish

"This ground-breaking commentary gathers the work of many outstanding women scholars, who introduce each book of the Bible with an extended discussion of general critical issues of the book and a narrative summary of its content. They follow with a commentary on those sections of the book that have particular relevance to women and enable readers to understand the significance of the presence or absence of women. Specifically, they focus on portions of scripture that deal with female characters, symbols, life situations such as marriage and family, the legal status of women, and religious principles that affect relationships of women and men. Topical articles on biblical women's lives, noncanonical literature, and feminist interpretation are also included

"With increasing frequency, U.S. leaders look to achieve their foreign policy goals by marrying diplomacy to military muscle. Since the end of the Cold War, "coercive diplomacy"--The effort to change the behavior of a larger state or group through the threat or limited use of military force - has been used in no fewer than eight cases." "But what, exactly, has the concept of coercive diplomacy meant in recent practice? What are coercive diplomacy's objectives? How does it operate? And how well does it work?" "To answer these questions, Robert Art and Patrick Cronin have enlisted a distinguished cast of scholars and practitioners to investigate the record of the past twelve years. Each author focuses on one of coercive diplomacy's recent targets, a remarkably diverse group ranging from North Korea to Serbia to the Taliban, from warlords to terrorists to regional superpowers." "As Robert Art makes clear in a groundbreaking conclusion, those results have been mixed at best. Art dissects the uneven performance of coercive diplomacy and explains why it has sometimes worked and why it has more often failed

Elmer Berger was the best-known Jewish anti-Zionist during most of his lifetime, particularly from World War II through the 1967 Six-Day War and its aftermath. This title presents the life of Rabbi Berger as an illustration of diversity and evolution in American Jewish opinion

A Scrabble-like game in which one to eight players form individual crossword puzzles with words that can change as players continue to draw tiles throughout the game. When there are no more tiles to draw, first player to use all his/her letters wins.

A graphic-style introduction to evolution, covering everything from Earth's primordial soup to the human body's vestigial structures.

An illustrated chronology of physics, containing 250 entries. It explores such topics as dark energy, parallel universes, the Doppler effect, the God particle and Maxwell's demon.

The story of how the science of medieval Islam preserved and enhanced the knowledge acquired from Greece, Mesopotamia, India, and China during Europe's Dark Ages, and how that knowledge later influenced Western thinkers and contributed to the Renaissance.

Integrates the traditional presentation of the nature, scope, philosophy, and history of physical education and sport with the career opportunities available within this field. This book emphasizes preparation for a diversity of careers, addressing areas such as teaching, coaching, exercise leadership, and athletic and personal training

While vacationing at Celesteville-on-the-Sea, the Babar family matches wits with a bold gang of thieves.

Babar and Celeste convert Celesteville's old railroad station into an art museum containing famous masterworks featuring elephants. Includes fold-out poster.

An illustrated reimagining of Saint Francis of Assisi's thirteenth-century tribute to nature.

Amanda and her alligator have lots of fun playing together and surprising each other, but when Amanda's grandfather buys her a panda, Alligator must learn to make new friends.

When a newly orphaned baby in the moon makes friends with the children of Earth, he begins to shine as brightly as possible to ward off their fears

When Jonathan's parents decide that he has gotten too old to have a stuffed animal, they trade his favorite bear, Frederick, for a toaster, so he sets off aboard a boat to search for his old friend.

After many years of retirement, an old Kamishibai man--a Japanese street performer who tells stories and sells candies--decides to make his rounds once more even though such entertainment declined after the advent of television.

While sick in bed, a young boy opens a box from his uncle and embarks on a fantastical fishing trip.

Little Mouse refuses to reveal his secret despite being questioned by his friends.

In Gee's Bend, Alabama, Miz Pettway tells young Alex about the historic role her mule played in the struggle for civil rights led by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Includes factual information about the community of Gee's Bend and Martin Luther King, Jr.

Nicholas St. North, a daredevil swordsman seeking treasure in the fiercely guarded village of Santoff Claussen finds, instead, the great wizard Ombric Shalazar and a battle against the Nightmare King and his evil Fearlings--a battle Nicholas can win only if he finds five other Guardians in time.

In three brief stories, Ivy, the younger of two fox sisters, goes along with her older sister's schemes, even when they seem a bit daring.

Fearing that her legal guardian plans to abandon her to return to France, ten-year-old aspiring scientist Lucky Trimble determines to run away while also continuing to seek the Higher Power that will bring stability to her life.

In a gray and colorless kingdom, the Prince receives an unusual, colorful new pet for his birthday.

A hyper-curious young girl tries a series of wacky experiments, such as seeing if a piece of bologna will fly like a frisbee and determining whether seedlings will grow if watered with expensive perfume, and then must suffer the consequences of experiments gone awry.

Two families--one that is perfect and one that is far from it--celebrate Christmas in their own loving ways.

Illustrates the well-known poem about an important Christmas visitor.

An illustrated version of the traditional English carol, with hidden gifts to find in each picture.

After destroying all of the gifts and decorations at home, Bad Kitty escapes from the car on Christmas Eve and finds a new friend, who helps her learn the true meaning of Christmas.

After harvesting an especially large "tear" of a resin known as myrrh, a young boy and his father visit a spice merchant whose three customers are seeking a special gift to bring to a baby. Includes biblical references and historical information about the Magi and myrrh.

Rather than use the same old colors, a child paints animals and objects in a variety of different hues. Includes information about the German painter Franz Marc, who created unconventional animal paintings in the early 1900s, and how his art, banned by the Nazi regime, inspired young Eric Carle.

When the snow falls, a young boy makes a snowman that becomes his friend until the seasons change.

Allows children to interact with and develop a greater understanding of Latin American art through colorful reproductions, brief biographies and criticism of the artists and questions that facilitate conversation.

Come Look with Me: Discovering African American Art for Children introduces children to twelve important works of art. The Come Look with Me series of interactive art books from Lickle Publishing offers both children and adults a whole new way of encountering works of art, one which engages the imagination as much as the eye. Well suited for both individual and classroom use, Discovering African American Art for Children pairs great works of art with thought-provoking questions. Children are invited to wake up with Romare Bearden's Morning. They are invited to explore and join in important ceremonies from Clementine Hunter's Baptism to Ellis Wilson's The Funeral Procession. They can explore the ideas and the unique struggles of African American artists and their contribution to the culture of the United States.

A lonely little rabbit wants to make a friend.

Grumpy Old Man Fookwire's new neighbor has a cat that threatens his beloved birds, but some pesky squirrels figure out a way to solve the problem.

A story in rhyme, lovingly expressing that every child is born with a crown of features that gives him or her unique value.

News travels quickly through a small village when a wolf is seen in the hills, compelling animal friends to warn one another and, in the process, turn hearsay into an increasingly inaccurate rumor.

Rhymed text and illustrations follow a family's activities as they prepare to celebrate Hanukkah.

Counts the candles of a menorah on each night of Hanukkah while recalling images of Jewish life in different places and times, such Herod's temple in Jerusalem, a shtetl in Russia, and a refugee ship bound for the New World.

Presents the true story of the building and launching of the Titanic and offers a "you are there" feeling when the steamship struck an iceberg and sank on her maiden voyage.

Looks at life in a medieval castle and shows many perspectives that are not always elegant.

Sixth-grader Tommy and his friends describe their interactions with a paper finger puppet of Yoda, worn by their weird classmate Dwight, as they try to figure out whether or not the puppet can really predict the future. Includes instructions for making Origami Yoda.

Dick and Jane meet a creepy, cape-wearing vampire and, unexpectedly, they all become friends.

Pop-up figures accompany descriptions of the meanings and customs of Kwanzaa, an Afro-American holiday.

A bear almost gives up his search for his missing hat until he remembers something important.

When Floyd's kite gets stuck in a tree, he tries to knock it down with increasingly larger and more outrageous things.

An simple introduction to African-American history, from Revolutionary-era slavery up to the election of President Obama.

"Uncle Tom's Cabin" continues to provoke impassioned discussions among scholars; and to be the locus of much heated debate surrounding race relations in the United States. This work interrelates the cultural status of this still controversial novel, and also chronicles the changing mood and mores of the nation during the past century and a half

"Sophocles' "Oedipus tyrannus" is the most famous of ancient tragedies and a literary masterpiece. It is not, however, the only classical dramatization of Oedipus' quest to discover his identity. Seneca composed a fine, but neglected and often disparaged Latin tragedy on the same subject, which, in some ways, comes closer to our common understanding of the Oedipus myth." In new translations by Frederick Ahl, readers can compare the two versions.

Poems, in both English translation and the original Spanish, deal with fate, nature, language, intimacy, love, friendship, and the senses. This landmark bilingual edition gathers all the poetry the 1990 Nobel Laureate has published in book form since 1957, the year his long poem Sunstone, here translated anew, made its first appearance. Included are the complete texts of Days and Occasions, Solo for Two Voices, A Drift of Shadows, East Slope, Toward the Beginning, and more; plus Paz's most recent collection, A Tree Within

Winner of the 1986 Nobel Prize for Literature, this Nigerian poet, playwright, and novelist writes of the rich cultural traditions as well as the hopes and frustrations of black Africa. This two-volume collection of his plays includes A Dance of the Forests, The Swamp Dwellers, The Strong Breed, The Road, and The Bacchae of Euripides in the first volume, and The Lion and the Jewel, Kongi's Harvest, The Trials of Brother Jero, Jero's Metamorphosis, and Madmen and Specialists in the second volum

When Gao Xingjian was crowned Nobel Laureate in 2000, it was the first time in the hundred-year history of the Nobel Prize that this honor had been awarded to an author for a body of work written in Chinese. The same year, American readers embraced Mabel Lee's translation of Gao's lyrical and autobiographical novel Soul Mountain, making it a national best seller. Gao's plays, novels, and short fiction have won the Chinese expatriate an international following and a place among the world's greatest living writers. The bold and extraordinary essays in this volume ... embody an argument for literature as a universal human endeavor rather than one defined and limited by national boundaries. Gao believes in the need for the writer to stand apart from collective movements, regardless of whether these are engineered by political parties or driven by economic or other forces not related to literature. This collection presents Gao's innovative ideas on aesthetics, and it constitutes the very kernel of his thinking on literary creation.--Book jacket

"This collection contains two plays by Gao Xingjian, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature 2000. Escape was written in 1989 in the wake of the June 4 Student Movement in Tiananmen Square in Beijing. With the publication ofo the play, Gao was expelled from the Chinese Communist Party, dismissed from his state appointment and ahd his house in Beijing confiscated. Perhaps because of this controversy, Escape has become the most performed of all of Gao's plays: it has been staged in Sweden, Germany, Belgium, France, Poland, Japan, Ivory Coast, Tunisia, and Canada. Wherever it was staged, it was given a locally relevant intepretation and was well received, which lends credence to Gao's claim of the universality of the play he describes as the tragedy of modern man. The Man Who Questions Death is the latest of Gao's plays. It is also one of the most exciting and powerful.

This collection brings together Idanre and Other Poems and A Shuttle in the Crypt, two powerful and distinctive volumes of the early poetry of Nobel Prize laureate and Nigerian exile Wole Soyinka. Taken has a whole, Soyinka's early poetry may be viewed as a valiant effort to reconcile the mysterious legacy of the old with the often harsh realities of an entire continent's abrupt entry into the twentieth century.

"In 1927, Henry Ford, the richest man in the world, bought a tract of land twice the size of Delaware in the Brazilian Amazon. His intention was to grow rubber, but the project rapidly evolved into a more ambitious bid to export America itself. Fordlandia, as the settlement was called, soon became the site of an epic clash. On one side was the lean, austere car magnate; on the other, the Amazon, the most complex ecological system on the planet. Indigenous workers rejected Ford's midwestern Puritanism, turning the place into a ribald tropical boomtown. And his efforts to apply a system of regimented mass production to the Amazon's diversity resulted in a rash environmental assault that foreshadowed many of the threats laying waste to the rain forest today.

For decades American cinema has mirrored and promoted the postmodern anxieties and paranoid perceptions embedded in our society. Tapping into the moviegoing audience's own projected fears, many Hollywood films seem to confirm our belief that there are indeed secret sinister forces at work and that our lives are at risk because of them. Pratt revisits blockbusters and cult favorites alike and shows how their images of conspiracy have been fostered by the public's increasing distrust of large organizations, producing in turn a cinematic "narrative of resistance" that challenges the status quo. He offers Seven Days in May and Dr. Strangelove as signposts of Cold War hysteria; Chinatown, The Conversation, and Missing as clear reflections of our distrust of political and corporate elites in the wake of Vietnam and Watergate; and Blue Velvet and The Stepfather as dark countermyths to the "family values" touted by Ronald Reagan in the 1980s. He also considers gender paranoia in films like Klute, Fatal Attraction, and Silence of the Lambs and reminds us that sometimes, as in Serpico, our guardian police forces need a bit of guarding themselves

The making of the motion picture "Hotel Rwanda."

"Writing JFK: Presidential Rhetoric and the Press in the Bay of Pigs Crisis provides the full text of both speeches and the press conference, as well as Benson's analysis of what would come to be known as "spin control." He demonstrates how the speeches display the implicit collaboration of Kennedy with his speech writers and the press to create a depiction of Kennedy as a political and moral agent. A central feature of this book is Benson's exploration of "the enormous power of the presidency to compel press restraint and to command the powers of publicity."

'Uncle Tom Mania' looks at the novel 'Uncle Tom's Cabin' and the songs, plays, sketches, translations and imitations it inspired. In particular it shows how the theatrical mode of blackface minstrelsy, the slavery question, and America's emerging cultural identity affected how the novel was read & discussed.

Looking for politics in private places, this study looks at the extent to which ordinary people in mid 19th century America were politically conscious.

Reveals the influence of the frontier romance of the 1820s on later anti-slavery works such as Uncle Tom's Cabin

Forty-two stories. In The Bloody Chamber, a bride discovers she married a sadist, The Quilt Maker is on aging, and Our Lady of the Massacres is on the destruction of Indians.

Containing more than 100 original essays organized by quotations, James illuminates, rescues, or occasionally destroys the careers of many of the greatest thinkers, humanists, musicians, artists, and philosophers of the 20th century

The death of a childhood friend casts a shadow that affects the rest of Jon's life.

Uses birds as characters to explore the tragedy of life.

A look inside the world of forensics examines the use of human cadavers in a wide range of endeavors, including research into new surgical procedures, space exploration, and a Tennessee human decay research facility.

Inspired by Jack Kerouac s On the Road, Andrzej Stasiuk, Poland s most accomplished living prose writer, takes readers into the forgotten Europe.

"Mao's early philosophical writings underpinned the Chinese revolutions and their clarion calls to insurrection remain some of the most stirring of all time.

Maverick philosopher Slavoj Zizek's firecracker commentary reaches unsettling conclusions about the place of Mao's thought in the revolutionary canon

Soon after the Bolshevik victory in the Russian Revolution, Leon Trotsky led the Red Army against the counter-revolutionary White armies. Part of the "Revolutions" series, this work argues that Trotsky's attack on the illusions of democracy has a vital relevance

The Venezuelan revolutionary Simon Bolivar, also known as El Libertador, sought to lead Latin America to independence from the Spanish in the early nineteenth century. This book presents an introduction to Bolivar's writings and legacy, explaining why Bolivar continues to inspire

A collection of writings from Paul Theroux's fifty years of travel. Included are writings from other travelers such as Charles Dickens, Eudora Welty, Anton Chekhov, Ernest Hemingway and many others.

Did the Maya really predict that the world would end in December of 2012? If not, how and why has 2012 millenarianism gained such popular appeal? In this deeply knowledgeable book, two leading historians of the Maya answer these questions in a succinct, readable, and accessible style. Matthew Restall and Amara Solari introduce, explain, and ultimately demystify the 2012 phenomenon.

Young children will enjoy using their senses when they smell the flowers, play peek-a-boo, look in the mirror, feel Daddy's scratchy face, and, or course, pat the bunny!

This innovative, dramatic graphic novel recounts the spiritual odyssey of philosopher Bertrand Russell. In his agonized search for absolute truth, Russell crosses paths with legendary thinkers and finds a passionate student in the great Ludwig Wittgenstein.

Traces the lives of 10 Americans who played significant roles in the country's westward expansion