Santa's not planned his vacation this year. Mrs. Claus says, "How 'bout Indiana, my dear? You always say it's your favorite place, but remember, the children should not see your face." Santa and Mrs. Claus want to go on a vacation--but can someone as famous as Santa stay out of sight? Snuggle up and read what happens when things don't quite go as planned. This Christmas regional series combines a fun and festive story with search-and-find artwork that will have children looking for Santa, Mrs. Claus, and Reindeer amongst Indiana's most iconic sights!
Noah writes a letter home each of the twelve days he spends exploring the state of Indiana at Christmastime, as his cousin Darcy shows him everything from the world's largest Christmas tree to the Indanapolis Motor Speedway. Includes facts about Indiana.
A beloved, bestselling classic of humorous and nostalgic Americana—the book that inspired the equally classic Yuletide film and the live musical on Fox. The holiday film A Christmas Story, first released in 1983, has become a bona fide Christmas perennial, gaining in stature and fame with each succeeding year. Its affectionate, wacky, and wryly realistic portrayal of an American family’s typical Christmas joys and travails in small-town Depression-era Indiana has entered our imagination and our hearts with a force equal to It’s a Wonderful Life and Miracle on 34th Street. This edition of A Christmas Story gathers together in one hilarious volume the gems of autobiographical humor that Jean Shepherd drew upon to create this enduring film. Here is young Ralphie Parker’s shocking discovery that his decoder ring is really a device to promote Ovaltine; his mother and father’s pitched battle over the fate of a lascivious leg lamp; the unleashed and unnerving savagery of Ralphie’s duel in the show with the odious bullies Scut Farkas and Grover Dill; and, most crucially, Ralphie’s unstoppable campaign to get Santa—or anyone else—to give him a Red Ryder carbine action 200-shot range model air rifle. Who cares that the whole adult world is telling him, “You’ll shoot your eye out, kid”? The pieces that comprise A Christmas Story, previously published in the larger collections In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash and Wanda Hickey’s Night of Golden Memories, coalesce in a magical fashion to become an irresistible piece of Americana, quite the equal of the film in its ability to warm the heart and tickle the funny bone.
A “poignant” collection of real letters sent to Santa Claus—a town in Indiana—from the 1930s to the twenty-first century, from both children and adults (The New York Times). For countless Christmases, children—and sometimes adults—have stuffed their dreams, wishes, and promises into envelopes. Over many decades, millions of these letters have poured into Santa Claus, Indiana. Arriving from all corners of the globe, the letters ask for toys, family reunions, snow, and help for the needy—sometimes the needy being the writers themselves. They are candid, heartfelt, and often blunt. Many children wonder how Santa gets into their chimneyless homes. One child reminds Santa that she has not hit her brothers over 1,350 times that year, and another respectfully requests two million dollars in “cold cash.” One child hopes to make his life better with a time machine, an adult woman asks for a man, and one miscreant actually threatens Santa’s reindeer! Containing more than 250 actual letters and envelopes from the naughty and nice reaching back to the 1930s, this moving book will touch hearts and bring back memories of a time in our lives when the man with a white beard and a red suit held out the hope that our wishes might come true. “Often very affecting . . . also offers an unusual window into American history.” —Library Journal “The letters . . . are alternately silly and somber, hilarious and heartfelt.” —The Weekly Standard
Discover the places in Indiana where tourists usually don't venture-- it's chock-full of oddball curiosities, ghostly places, local legends, crazy characters, cursed roads, and peculiar roadside attractions.
A new holiday series that features the Jolly Old Elf heading south from his home in the North Pole and flying to locations around the United States and Canada to deliver presents and good cheer.
For more than 150 years, Indiana University Bloomington's student-produced newspaper, the Indiana Daily Student, has grown and changed with the times and the school. Generations of student journalists, armed with notepads, cameras and a tireless devotion, have pursued both local and national stories since the newspaper's debut in 1867. In Indiana Daily Student: 150 Years of Headlines, Deadlines and Bylines, editors and IDS alumni Rachel Kipp, Amy Wimmer Schwarb and Charles Scudder piece together behind-the-scenes remembrances from former IDS reporters and photographers, newsroom images from throughout the decades and a curated collection of notable IDS front pages. From coverage of the end of World War I to the selection of Herman B Wells as IU's president to the Hoosiers' national basketball championship titles to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the IDS has chronicled news from a student perspective. Today, it serves as a training ground for fledgling journalists who have gone on to be monumental voices in American and global media. Remembrances from some of the most prominent journalists to emerge from the IDS are included here: among them, publisher and journalism philanthropist Nelson Poynter; National Public Radio television critic Eric Deggans; and Pulitzer Prize winners Ernie Pyle, Thomas French and Melissa Farlow. While at IU, students at the IDS built and maintained beloved traditions they continue to share today, all while offering a full spectrum of coverage for their readers. The first book on the paper's history, Indiana Daily Student offers a comprehensive celebration of the newspaper's achievements, as well as historic front pages, photographs and personal narratives from current and former IDS journalists.
Whose birthday is it anyway? If you are conflicted, just think about Santa! He must come up with a way to help children stay focused the on true meaning of Christmas. Without Christ there is no Chrismas. Follow Santa and Mrs. Clause as they come up with a solution.
In True Stories: Memories, Musings, Odds and Ends, C.J. Ott tells of the first seven years of his childhood in New York City and the next seven years in the Saugerties area, a hundred miles north of the city. He recounts his experiences as a postulant, novice and scholastic in the Marianist religious order; four years of military service in the U.S. Air Force, and a twenty-five year career as a teacher and principal in Trotwood-Madison City Schools, by Dayton, Ohio. Along the way he recalls the Great Depression, World War II, the Korean and Viet Nam Wars, and the tumultuous '60s. The author is a lifelong student and, by his own admission, addicted to reading. The musings cover a broad range of topics from philosophy, economics, politics and religion, to the good life, the golden years, and death and dying. True Stories looks back over more than seventy-five years of living. It was written for family, friends and progeny, but others will find it a pleasure to read.
