JoJo’s Circus is a stop-motion animation series which follows theadventures of JoJo, an adorable and curious clown who lives in Circus Town withher family and best friend, a pet lion named Goliath. JoJo’s Circusencourages kids at home to try movement activities along with JoJo and herfriends, while learning about the values of kindness, teamwork, and a sense ofbelonging. This 24 page easy-to-reads are the perfect books for beginning readers. With their simple and engaging text, these books will have kids "roaring for more" along with Jojo's best Lion friend, Golath!
You might recognize firecracker JoJo Siwa from Abby’s Ultimate Dance Competition, or maybe you fell in love with her on Dance Moms. JoJo’s nonfiction middle-grade debut is the next generation’s version of a real life Cinderella story: Nebraska girl becomes Hollywood’s belle of the ball, thanks to her spunky attitude and creative drive. Through the lens of JoJo’s personal experience and playful voice, she digs into themes such as finding your passion, keeping strong in the face of adversity, appreciating your individualism, the importance of being loyal, and never giving up. Most of all, JoJo’s story is meant to inspire young girls to find the courage and confidence to go after their dreams. Go Siwanatorz!
“Carlton Mellick III goes past silly, through weird, detours around dumb, blasts through bizarre, and gets to a place where the normal physics of narrative no longer apply. You will never be the same.”—Cory Doctorow, author of Little Brother and Homeland In a topsy-turvy world where clowns are killers and crooks, Little Bigtop is a three-ring circus of crime, and no syndicate is more dangerous than the Binzo family. From the wildly original mind of Carlton Mellick III comes the short-story collection ClownFellas—an epic mob saga where life is cheap and the gags will slay you. For years, the hard-boiled capos of the Binzo family have run all of the funny business in Little Bigtop, from the clown brothels to the illegal comedy trade. But hard times have befallen the Binzos now that Le Mystère, the French clown Mafia, has started moving in and trying to take over the city. If that weren’t enough, they’ve got to deal with the cops, the Feds, the snitches, the carnies, the mysterious hit man Mr. Pogo, and the mutant clowns over in the Sideshow district. With the odds stacked against them, the Binzos must fight to survive . . . or die laughing. Praise for ClownFellas “Mario Puzo meets Barnum & Bailey . . . You just can’t look away as the ridiculousness escalates.”—Publishers Weekly “The most original novelist working today? The most outrageous? The most unpredictable? These aren’t easy superlatives to make; however, Carlton Mellick may well be all of those things, behind a canon of books that all irreverently depart from the form and concepts of traditional novels, and adventure the reader into a howling, dark fantasyland of the most bizarre, over-the-top, and mind-warping inventiveness. In my opinion, ClownFellas is his best work to date.”—Edward Lee, author of City Infernal and Header “I rarely enjoy clowns—which is ironic since I’ve been one for over four decades—but ClownFellas is great on so many levels, irony being one of them. What can I say besides I love it! Great read, and funny as hell . . . I have been accused of being unfunny before, and after the trial I had to enter the Witless Protection Program. This is funny!”—Barry Lubin, aka Grandma, longtime Big Apple Circus clown “If Martin Scorsese and Ronald McDonald had a baby, this would be it. . . . Each story is clever, multi-layered, and filled with witty dialogue. . . . A must-read.”—This Is Horror “Mellick’s writing is wonderfully descriptive and wildly imaginative. . . . I was utterly delighted, amused, and engrossed. . . . ClownFellas is a gem!”—The Qwillery “A rollercoaster ride through a strange world that borders on our own reality . . . a story that is just as difficult to define as it is to put down.”—Examiner.com “Mellick has created another amazing read. . . . Highly recommended.”—Kitty Horror
The frightening yet comic clown is one of the best and most enduring characters in literature, theater, television, and film. Across the centuries, from Shakespeare's Porter in Macbeth to Edgar Allan Poe's "Hop-Frog," or Stephen King's Pennywise, horror and comedy have blended to create the perfect recipe for entertainment. This volume gives an in-depth analysis of the clown horror genre, including essays by revered horror scholars such as Kevin Wetmore, Dale Bailey, Kim Hester Williams, Jennifer K. Cox, and Joanna Parypinski. Their essays cover topics such as nostalgia, race, class, and new portrayals of the scary clown as zombies or phantoms. It also offers interviews with actors and directors working in the clown horror genre: Eoghan McQuinn (Stitches), Kevin Kangas (Fear of Clowns), and Jaysen Buterin (Kill Giggles). Some of fiction's most terrifying creations--like the Killer Klowns, Captain Spaulding, Art the Clown, Krusty, Frowny, the Joker, and Twisty--jig through these pages of analysis and deconstruction, asking what these many iterations of scary clowns have to say about our society and its fears.
“A smart, deep, black magic carnie noir existential bloodbath” from the acclaimed author of Boon (Gemma Files, Shirley Jackson Award–winning author). In the shadow of World War II, the barren, dusty streets of Litchfield, Arkansas, are even quieter than usual, leaving hotel detective George “Jojo” Walker with too much time to struggle with his own personal demons. But everything changes when a traveling picture show comes to town. The film’s purveyors check into the hotel where Jojo works and set up a special midnight screening at the local theater. The curtain rises on a surreal carnival of dark magic and waking nightmares, starring Jojo and the residents of Litchfield, as madness, murder, and mayhem threaten to engulf them all . . . “A stunner of a story . . . Flat-out brilliant . . . Unfolds like petals of an exotic and scandalous black flower—each one gently opening to give the reader a distressing revelation . . . Powerful ideas, wrapped in a dark mantle of horror.” —My Haunted Library “If you like pulpy noir with a dose of existentialism mixed with some utterly bizarre horror, this book is for you.” —Fangoria “Genre mash-ups like this one are difficult to execute, but Kurtz navigates it deftly, with writing so visceral and evocative it feels less like reading a book and more like watching a film in real time.” —Literary Hub “While it echoes with the shadowy threatening of Bradbury’s Something Wicked This Way Comes and the religious dread of Hjortsberg’s Falling Angel, the clearest voice here is Kurtz’s own cry into the existential abyss.” —Bracken MacLeod, author of Mountain Home
Boys' Life is the official youth magazine for the Boy Scouts of America. Published since 1911, it contains a proven mix of news, nature, sports, history, fiction, science, comics, and Scouting.
Benjamin Matthews, née Benjamin Pollock, is a successful businessman marketing the slimming formula “The Daisy Effect.” He is preparing for a new life with his wife Rebecah and their twins, Luke and Lucy, moving from England to the United Arab Emirates, where Rebecah just got a job as a nurse. Ben’s unfortunate white lie (that his name is Pollock) leads him to discover just as he is about to fly out of the country, that his origins are not all that they seem. The confusion over his real last name gets him stopped at the airport, whilst he watches his wife and children fly away without him. Will Ben be able to get a new passport and prove his identity so he can fly out to join them? Or will other incidents prevent him from leaving? More to the point, can he escape Daphne, the undercover cop who is chasing him? Ben’s continuing story is fraught with calamities and frustrations ... until The Penny Drops! This second book in the Penny series offers a rollicking tale of confusion and nonstop action. It is the sequel to A Penny for Them.
Pennies from Heaven is the fourth book in Pat McDonald’s Penny series. Benjamin Pollock (aka Ben Matthews) is a successful businessman trading over the internet with his diet product The Daisy Effect. “Living the dream” in the United Arab Emirates with his wife Rebecah, Ben receives the startling news that he is about to become a father again. Their twins Luke and Lucy are quite a handful, so Ben thought his family was already complete. The prospect of welcoming another child is quite daunting, leaving Ben to reflect on his life. An invitation to stay at one of Dubai’s exclusive hotels is received thanks to Don Luis Fernandez Rodrigues, a Colombian cartel drug baron turned legitimate film backer for the film, “Zombie Apocalypse: The Final Resolution,” which Ben’s family have parts in. They find themselves guests for the weekend and are determined to take full advantage of the unexpected getaway. It is here that Ben begins to discover the seedier side of the UAE, the amazingly beautiful place that has allowed his imagination to run riot. The trouble with Ben’s past is it has a habit of catching up with him.
In rural Bethnal Green, Lizzie Brown takes pity on a couple of drunks and gives them a free palm reading. However, she is horrified when she has a vision of one of the pair meeting a great danger in a graveyard at midnight. She sees a huge black hound with flashing eyes mauling him. Lizzie and the Penny Gaff Gang track down the dog, who belongs to a ruthless team of professional grave robbers. It's up to the gang to expose their vile trade before they strike again.
A bad penny always turns up, so the saying goes. A Bad Penny is the third book in a series by Pat McDonald. In her first book, A Penny for Them, Benjamin Matthews (nee Pollock), discovers after several startling revelations that he isn’t who he thought he was, which stops him from leaving with his wife and children for the United Arab Emirates. Determined to join them, Ben manages to escape the clutches of Sergeant Daphne Johnson, when in book two, The Penny Drops, he sneaks out of the UK to “live the dream” in the desert country’s opulent culture. Feeling sheer relief upon arrival, and lured by his new exotic surroundings and the mysteries of the desert, Ben sees no point in telling his wife who he really is. Believing him to be an orphan, she remains blissfully ignorant of both his families, until his two mothers show up together, complete with suitcases. This sparks the beginning of another inevitable run of bad luck for Ben. Just when things seem to be going okay, something always turns up to spoil it! In A Bad Penny, Ben’s easy escape to United Arab Emirates is short lived, when, like a bad penny, everyone turns up!
