Bleak House, Dickens's most daring experiment in the narration of a complex plot, challenges the reader to make connections--between the fashionable and... the outcast, the beautiful and the ugly, the powerful and the victims. Nowhere in Dickens's later novels is his attack on an uncaring society more imaginatively embodied, but nowhere either is the mixture of comedy and angry satire more deftly managed.

In the fog of London, lawyers enrich themselves with endless litigation over a dwindling inheritance. A sterling example of Dickens's genius for... character, dramatic construction, and social satire, this novel was hailed by Edmund Wilson as a "masterpiece".

Few people would have expected bloodshed in Kansas Territory. After all, it had few slaves and showed few signs that slavery would even flourish. But... civil war tore this territory apart in the 1850s and 60s, and "Bleeding Kansas" became a forbidding symbol for the nationwide clash over slavery that followed. Many free-state Kansans seemed to care little about slaves, and many proslavery Kansans owned not a single slave. But the failed promise of the Kansas-Nebraska Act--when fraud in local elections subverted the settlers' right to choose whether Kansas would be a slave or free state--fanned the flames of war. Nicole Etcheson seeks to revise our understanding of this era by focusing on whites' concerns over their political liberties. The first comprehensive account of "Bleeding Kansas" in more than thirty years, her study re-examines the debate over slavery expansion to emphasize issues of popular sovereignty rather than slavery's moral or economic dimensions. The free-state movement was a coalition of settlers who favored black rights and others who wanted the territory only for whites, but all were united by the conviction that their political rights were violated by nonresident voting and by Democratic presidents' heavy-handed administration of the territories. Etcheson argues that participants on both sides of the Kansas conflict believed they fought to preserve the liberties secured by the American Revolution and that violence erupted because each side feared the loss of meaningful self-governance. Bleeding Kansas is a gripping account of events and people-rabble-rousing Jim Lane, zealot John Brown, Sheriff Sam Jones, and others-that examines the social milieu of the settlers along with the political ideas they developed. As Etcheson demonstrates, the struggle over the political liberties of whites may have heightened the turmoil but led eventually to a broadening of the definition of freedom to include blacks. Her insightful re-examination sheds new light on this era and is essential reading for anyone interested in the ideological origins of the Civil War.

Hanna simply wants to be loved. With a head plagued by hallucinations, a medicine cabinet full of pills, and a closet stuffed with frilly, violet... dresses, Hanna’s tired of being the outcast, the weird girl, the freak. So she runs away to Portero, Texas, in search of a new home. But Portero is a stranger town than Hanna expects. As she tries to make a place for herself, she discovers dark secrets that would terrify any normal soul. Good thing for Hanna, she’s far from normal. And when a crazy girl meets an even crazier town, only two things are certain: Anything can happen and no one is safe.

We stare at each other because we don't know which tribe, and then nod at the last possible instant. Standard procedure. You pick it up the first time a... white friend leads you across a room just to stand you up by another Indian, arrange you like furniture, like you should have something to say to each other. As one character after another tells it in these stories, much that happens to them does so because "I'm an Indian." And, as Stephen Graham Jones tells it in one remarkable story after another, the life of an Indian in modern America is as rich in irony as it is in tradition. A noted Blackfeet writer, Jones offers a nuanced and often biting look at the lives of Native peoples from the inside. A young Indian mans journey to discover America results in an unsettling understanding of relations between whites and Natives in the twenty-first century, a relationship still fueled by mistrust, stereotypes, and almost casual violence. A character waterproofs his boots with transmission fluid; another steals into Glacier National Park to hunt. One man uses watermelon to draw flies off poached deer; another, in a modern twist on the captivity narrative, kidnaps a white girl in a pickup truck; and a son bleeds into the father carrying him home. Rife with arresting and poignant images, fleeting and daring in presentation, weighty and provocative in their messages, these stories demonstrate the power of one of the most compelling writers in Native North America today.

This text enhances the fields of early childhood education, early childhood special education, and the “blended” field of both by assisting in the... preparation of professionals for inclusive teaching and learning environments.   The goal of the text is to help teachers meet the needs of ALL young children within the primary inclusive classroom, and it accomplishes this in two ways: it provides a strong foundation of Early Childhood Education and Early Childhood Special Education as preparation for reaching a wide variety of young learners, and it then presents proven methods for adapting and modifying content area curricula.    This text, with chapters contributed by leading experts in the field,  provides an overview and rationale for inclusive education, methods for early childhood education and early childhood special education, foundations in content area material (e.g. math, language arts), and instructional strategies (content specific accommodations and modifications).  Because students need to understand the theoretical framework for the knowledge, skills, and dispositions necessary to serve the needs of all young children (those who are typically developing as well as those with delays or disabilities and those from diverse backgrounds), this text will provide a resource for teaching and learning this information.

This core early childhood curriculum textbook bridges the gap between early childhood education and early childhood special education. The book... advocates a linked systems approach for developing curriculum that is composed of four independent program processes: assessment, curriculum & goal development, instruction & intervention, and monitoring. This early childhood curriculum textbook bridges the gap between early childhood education (ECE) and early childhood special education (ECSE). The book provides university students and early childhood professionals with an integrated approach to working with children with and without disabilities and their families.

Blender Foundations is the definitive resource for getting started with 3D art in Blender, one of the most popular 3D/Animation tools on the market .... With the expert insight and experience of Roland Hess, noted Blender expert and author, animators and artists will learn the basics starting with the revised 2.6 interface, modeling tools, sculpting, lighting and materials through rendering, compositing and video editing. Some of the new features covered include the completely re-thought interface, the character animation and keying system, and the smoke simulator. More than just a tutorial guide, "Blender Foundations" covers the philosophy behind this ingenious software that so many 3D artists are turning to today. Start working today with Blender with the accompanying web site which includes all of the projects and support files alongside videos, step-by-step screenshots of the trickier tutorials, as well as a direct links to official resources like the Blender download site and artist forums.

For Tom Romano, the multigenre paper is much more than a writing assignment. It is a multilayered, multivoiced literary experience. Genres of narrative... thinking require writers to make an imaginative leap, melding the factual with the imaginative. Writers can't just tell. They must show. They must make their topics palpable. They must penetrate experience. Multigenre papers enable their authors to do that. Blending Genre, Altering Style is the first book to address the practicalities of helping students compose multigenre papers. Romano discusses genres, subgenres, writing strategies, and stylistic maneuvers that students can use in their own multigenre papers. Each idea is supported with actual student writing, including five full-length multigenre papers that demonstrate the possibilities of a multigenre approach to writing. There are also discussions of writing poetry, fiction, and dialogue, in which readers will discover how students can create genres out of indelible moments, crucial processes, and important matters in the lives of the subject under inquiry. One chapter alone is devoted to helping writers create unity and coherence in their papers. Imbued with Romano's passion for teaching, Blending Genre, Altering Style is an invaluable reference for any inservice or preservice English language arts teacher. The only prerequisite is a desire to help students write.

In today's managed-care environment, therapeutic techniques must be proven to be effective to be reimbursable. This comprehensive volume is written by... leaders in the field and collects classic and emerging evidence-based and cognitive behavioral therapy treatments therapists can use when working with children and adolescents. Step-by-step instruction is provided for implementing the treatment protocol covered. In addition, a special section is included on therapist self-care, including empirically supported studies. For child and play therapists, as well school psychologists and school social workers.

Play script. Cricket, a young teenage girl, struggles to come to terms with her older brother Tom who has Down syndrome. Contemporary settings. 6-9... roles (3M, 2F, 1 Either with doubling/ OR 5M, 3F, 1 Either.)Tom is obsessed with the legendary movie tap dancers and his own cherished tap shoes. Cricket's embarrassment and frustration evolve into an appreciation of her brother's special gifts and an understanding that his unique world, as sometimes revealed in the person of a mysterious tap-dancing stranger, is a joyous place to live.

Nineteenth-century globalization made America exceptional. On the back of European money and immigration, America became an empire with considerable... skill at conquest but little experience administering other people's, or its own, affairs, which it preferred to leave to the energies of private enterprise. The nation's resulting state institutions and traditions left America immune to the trends of national development and ever after unable to persuade other peoples to follow its example. In this concise, argumentative book, Eric Rauchway traces how, from the mid-1800s to the early 1900s, the world allowed the United States to become unique and the consequent dangers we face to this very day.