From the men and women associated with the American Revolution and Civil War to the seminal figures in the struggles for civil and women's rights, Americans have been fascinated with icons of great achievement, or at least reputation. But who spins today's narratives about American heroism, and to what end? In Where Have All the Heroes Gone?, Bruce Peabody and Krista Jenkins draw on the concept of the American hero to show an important gap between the views of political and media elites and the attitudes of the mass public. The authors contend that important changes over the past half century, including the increasing scope of new media and people's deepening political distrust, have drawn both politicians and producers of media content to the hero meme. However, popular reaction to this turn to heroism has been largely skeptical. As a result, the conversations and judgments of ordinary Americans, government officials, and media elites are often deeply divergent. Investigating the story of American heroes over the past five decades provides a narrative that can teach us about such issues as political socialization, institutional trust, and political communication.
"Tom King's debut novel opens in an imaginative world of comic book superheroes struggling to take on normal lives after sacrificing their powers to save the world"--
Where Have All the Heroes Gone? provides an analysis of heroism's application and meaning among political and media elites, as well as the mass public over the past fifty years. In asking "what has happened" to American heroes over this span, it explores how heroes are used strategically by governing officials and providers of media content in ways that are frequently divergent from and even directly opposed to popular expectations.
Teenage Ellie has always had romantic ideas about drug addicts. The tragic, artistic souls drawn to needles and pills have been an obsession since the death of her junkie mother ten years ago. But when Ellie lands in an upscale rehab clinic where nothing is what it appears to be, she'll find another, more dangerous romance and find out how easily drugs and murder go hand-in-hand. MY HEROES HAVE ALWAYS BEEN JUNKIES is a seductive coming-of-age story, a pop and drug culture-fueled tale of a young girl seeking darkness and what she finds there. This gorgeous, must-have hardback is the first original graphic novel from ED BRUBAKERand SEAN PHILLIPS, the bestselling creators of CRIMINAL,KILL OR BE KILLED, THE FADE OUT, FATALE, and INCOGNITO.
The first in New York Times bestselling author Michael Grant's breathtaking dystopian sci-fi saga, Gone is a page-turning thriller that invokes the classic The Lord of the Flies along with the horror of Stephen King. In the blink of an eye, everyone disappears. Gone. Except for the young. There are teens, but not one single adult. Just as suddenly, there are no phones, no internet, no television. No way to get help. And no way to figure out what's happened. Hunger threatens. Bullies rule. A sinister creature lurks. Animals are mutating. And the teens themselves are changing, developing new talents—unimaginable, dangerous, deadly powers—that grow stronger by the day. It's a terrifying new world. Sides are being chosen, a fight is shaping up. Townies against rich kids. Bullies against the weak. Powerful against powerless. And time is running out: on your birthday, you disappear just like everyone else. . . . “A potent mix of action and thoughtfulness—centered around good and evil, courage and cowardice—renders this a tour de force that will leave readers dazed, disturbed, and utterly breathless.” —ALA Booklist (starred review) Read the entire series: Gone Hunger Lies Plague Fear Light Monster Villain Hero
The mind-blowing conclusion to the Monster trilogy and the final installment in the Gone series from science fiction and fantasy master Michael Grant is perfect for superhero and Stephen King fans alike. After the fall of Perdido Beach dome, a new set of humans developed mutant powers from the rock infected with alien virus. They are the Rockborn Gang: Dekka, Shade, Cruz, Malik, Armo, and Francis. With their superpowers, they have defended the earth from other rockborn who used their powers for evil, like Dillon Poe. When another rock carrying the virus strikes New York, a new foe, Bob Markovic, rises with a horrifying and nearly unstoppable ability. Markovic’s unending ambition and lack of a moral compass made him unbearable before the virus. And that was before he was a swarm of plague-ridden insects, with the power and means to take over the city—and maybe the world. As the Rockborn Gang try to defeat their latest villain, they will find themselves on morally gray grounds and have to make tough decisions if they want to save the world. In this pulse-pounding finale to the saga more than ten years in the making, Michael Grant delivers an unforgettable conclusion while asking: What does it take to be a hero? Praise for Monster: “Ratchets up the gore and action, and features a diverse cast of characters. An evocative, intricately plotted companion series.” –ALA Booklist Read the entire series: Gone Hunger Lies Plague Fear Light Monster Villain Hero
World-renowned folklorist Maria Tatar reveals an astonishing but long-buried history of heroines, taking us from Cassandra and Scheherazade to Nancy Drew and Wonder Woman. The Heroine with 1,001 Faces dismantles the cult of warrior heroes, revealing a secret history of heroinism at the very heart of our collective cultural imagination. Maria Tatar, a leading authority on fairy tales and folklore, explores how heroines, rarely wielding a sword and often deprived of a pen, have flown beneath the radar even as they have been bent on redemptive missions. Deploying the domestic crafts and using words as weapons, they have found ways to survive assaults and rescue others from harm, all while repairing the fraying edges in the fabric of their social worlds. Like the tongueless Philomela, who spins the tale of her rape into a tapestry, or Arachne, who portrays the misdeeds of the gods, they have discovered instruments for securing fairness in the storytelling circles where so-called women’s work—spinning, mending, and weaving—is carried out. Tatar challenges the canonical models of heroism in Joseph Campbell’s The Hero with a Thousand Faces, with their male-centric emphases on achieving glory and immortality. Finding the women missing from his account and defining their own heroic trajectories is no easy task, for Campbell created the playbook for Hollywood directors. Audiences around the world have willingly surrendered to the lure of quest narratives and charismatic heroes. Whether in the form of Frodo, Luke Skywalker, or Harry Potter, Campbell’s archetypical hero has dominated more than the box office. In a broad-ranging volume that moves with ease from the local to the global, Tatar demonstrates how our new heroines wear their curiosity as a badge of honor rather than a mark of shame, and how their “mischief making” evidences compassion and concern. From Bluebeard’s wife to Nancy Drew, and from Jane Eyre to Janie Crawford, women have long crafted stories to broadcast offenses in the pursuit of social justice. Girls, too, have now precociously stepped up to the plate, with Hermione Granger, Katniss Everdeen, and Starr Carter as trickster figures enacting their own forms of extrajudicial justice. Their quests may not take the traditional form of a “hero’s journey,” but they reveal the value of courage, defiance, and, above all, care. “By turns dazzling and chilling” (Ruth Franklin), The Heroine with 1,001 Faces creates a luminous arc that takes us from ancient times to the present day. It casts an unusually wide net, expanding the canon and thinking capaciously in global terms, breaking down the boundaries of genre, and displaying a sovereign command of cultural context. This, then, is a historic volume that informs our present and its newfound investment in empathy and social justice like no other work of recent cultural history.
Missionaries of the left, saviors are people of privilege who believe they have all the answers. They want to help, but don’t want to listen; they lead but never follow. From post-Katrina New Orleans, to anti-sex-traficking work, to do-gooder journalists, Flaherty’s book reveals saviors’ misdeeds but also shows how activists can build new, stronger movements.
Acclaimed author Michael Grant’s globally bestselling Gone series continues with Villain, where old foes return and new ones rise, with action-packed scenes, gory battles, and plot twists that will leave readers scrambling for more. It’s been four years since the events of GONE. The Perdido Beach dome is down, but the horrors within have spread. The alien virus-infested rock that created the FAYZ is creating monsters—monsters that walk the cities and countryside, terrorizing all. There are tanks in the street and predator drones in the sky, doomed efforts to stop the disintegration of civilization. Into this chaos comes a villain with the power to control anyone with just the sound of his voice. Dillon Poe wanted to be a comedian once . . . but everyone made fun of him. Dillon the loser. Dillon the freak. Now he’s sending thousands to their death. Who’s laughing now? The only people who can stop a superpowered villain are superpowered heroes. Dekka, Shade, Cruz, Malik, Armo, and a new mutant with unmatched powers, are all that stand in Dillon’s way. But when the lines begin to blur between hero and villain—some begin to wonder who’s really the monster. Praise for Monster: “Ratchets up the gore and action, and features a diverse cast of characters. An evocative, intricately plotted companion series.” –ALA Booklist Read the entire series: Gone Hunger Lies Plague Fear Light Monster Villain Hero
