Unexpected adventures await ten-year-old Missy and her twelve-year-old brother when they travel without their parents to the Big Thicket area of Texas in December 1913.
In the Big Thicket, the unknown makes profound intrusions into what we call "reality." There are wonders in this region of East Texas and in Southwestern Louisiana
Sparked by the opportunity to explore his personal passions, David Kroese turns away from a rewarding yet languishing career and begins the adventure of a lifetime. What happens next evolves into a tour of all four hundred-plus units in America's National Park System -- a perfect way to celebrate the 2016 National Park Service centennial. The Centennial: A Journey Through America's National Park System details David's compelling centennial explorations to 387 parks in 360 days. The story continues through December 2017, when he becomes one of fewer than fifty people known to have visited all 417 national parks. His personal expedition is a poignant exploration into quintessential America as told through its historical and natural wonders. Delve into diverse locations from Hawaii to the Rockies, New England to the Caribbean, Charleston to the California desert, Alaska to American Samoa. Join David and experience the inherent marvels within America's unique landscape and fascinating history, revealed in engaging context, poetic descriptions, and heartfelt appreciation. The Centennial: A Journey Through America's National Park System is an odyssey of self discovery and fulfillment through the nation's soul.
Now a Tubi original film starring Peter Dinklage and Juliette Lewis, this rip-roaring adventure set at the dark dawn of the East Texas oil boom is the perfect introduction to Joe R. Lansdale, whose work has been called "as funny and frightening as anything that could have been dreamed up by the Brothers Grimm — or Mark Twain" (New York Times Book Review). Jack Parker thought he'd already seen his fair share of tragedy. His grandmother was killed in a farm accident when he was barely five years old. His parents have just succumbed to the smallpox epidemic sweeping turn-of-the-century East Texas -- orphaning him and his younger sister, Lula. Then catastrophe strikes on the way to their uncle's farm, when a traveling group of bank-robbing bandits murder Jack's grandfather and kidnap his sister. With no elders left for miles, Jack must grow up fast and enlist a band of heroes the likes of which has never been seen if his sister stands any chance at survival. But the best he can come up with is a charismatic, bounty-hunting dwarf named Shorty, a grave-digging son of an ex-slave named Eustace, and a street-smart woman-for-hire named Jimmie Sue who's come into some very intimate knowledge about the bandits (and a few members of Jack's extended family to boot). In the throes of being civilized, East Texas is still a wild, feral place. Oil wells spurt liquid money from the ground. But as Jack's about to find out, blood and redemption rule supreme. In The Thicket, award-winning novelist Joe R. Lansdale lets loose like never before, in an action-packed adventure that's equal parts True Grit and Stand by Me.
Follow the backroads, the historical paths, and the scenic landscape that were fashioned by geologic Ice Ages and traveled by Big Thicket explorers as well as contemporary park advocates as you explore this diverse area. From Spanish missionaries to Jayhawkers, and from timber barons to public officials, travel along fifteen tours, with maps included.
The years from 1820 to 1920 saw the sport of bear hunting at its greatest flowering. Much of the country was still wild enough to support large numbers of both black and grizzly bears, who in turn supported a remarkable assortment of bear hunters. Some, like David Crockett and Theodore Roosevelt, became internationally famous. Others, like Wilburn Waters and Holt Collier, are almost completely forgotten, though their exploits were just as extraordinary. "The Bear Hunter's Century "brings to life the hard, thrilling lives, of these men. Not just a book of adventures, this a fascinating social history told with wit and style, a penetrating examination of the often inaccurate lore of bear hunting, and a celebration of the amazing skills developed by the best bear hunters.
Coiled beneath discarded trash or rocky slabs, basking along river edges, and tucked into rock cuts beside the highway, reptiles and amphibians constantly surround us. While many people go out of their way to avoid snakes or shudder at the thought of touching a toad, herpers take to the field armed with cameras, hooks, and notebooks hoping to come across a horned lizard, green tree frog, or even a diamondback rattlesnake. In Herping Texas: The Quest for Reptiles and Amphibians, Michael Smith and Clint King, expert naturalists and field herpers, take readers on their adventures across the state as they search for favorite herps and rare finds. Organized by ecoregion, Herping Texas describes some of the state’s most spectacular natural places, from Big Bend to the Big Thicket. Each chapter contains photographs of the various snakes, lizards, toads, and turtles Smith and King have encountered on their trips. Part nature travel writing and part guide to field herping, Herping Texas also includes a section on getting started, where the authors give readers necessary background on best field herping practices. A glossary defines herping lingo and scientific terms for newcomers, and an appendix lists threatened and endangered species at the state and federal level. Herping Texas promotes experiencing natural places and wildlife equipped with solid information and a responsible conservation ethic. Throughout their decades tracking herps, Smith and King have collected humorous anecdotes and fascinating facts about reptiles and amphibians. By sharing those, they hope to dispel some of the stigma and false ideas people have about these misunderstood animals.
Before the establishment of the Big Thicket Nature Preserve, the Big Thicket of Texas became a symbol of nature's last stand against encroaching civilization. Here, in a mingling of ecological zones, come together plants, animals, and birds—many of them rare—the flora and fauna of north and south, east and west. Northern maples and beeches stand not too great a distance from cypresses and Southern magnolias. American hollies grow large and orchids bloom among Northern ferns. Mesquite and tumbleweed, plants of the Western desert, survive where the annual rainfall averages sixty inches. On a major flyway, the Big Thicket is a stopping place for many birds in passage as well as home to a wide variety. Beavers build their dams there, and an occasional coyote yips in the night. Because of its great beauty and rich natural resources, use of the Big Thicket was the object of a forty-year struggle involving financiers, politicians, conservationists, and countless Thicket lovers. Each group viewed the Thicket from a different perspective and foresaw its future in different terms. This book records the impressions of two Thicket lovers. Michael Frary's paintings and drawings of woods and water, of birds in flight and strange plants growing close to the moist earth are pictures of a place, a time, a mood caught today—and not the same if left until tomorrow. The qualities of gentleness and violence are constant, but often hidden—there to be brought out by human need or human greed. William Owens writes of the people who have lived their lives in the Big Thicket, who have stirred its stillness with whoop and holler across the waters, who have taken in its stillness and explosive beauty until they themselves are made up of gentleness and violence. Together the impressions show what the Big Thicket was and is. What it will be—that is the chief concern of the book.
In an age of electronic games, TV, videos, and the Internet…You can raise a book lover. Reading opens up a lifetime of learning and delight to children. In How to Grow a Young Reader, Kathryn Lindskoog and Ranelda Mack Hunsicker offer suggestions for creating a reader-friendly home, truths about how literature strengthens character development, and helpful strategies for nurturing a love of reading in any child. Includes a helpful guide to over 1,800 books.