Martin Woodside

An abridged and illustrated chapter book retelling of The Wind in the Willows, part of the bestselling Classic Starts series that has sold more than 8 million copies! Follow the delightful escapades of Mole, Rat, Toad, and Badger as they make their way through the seasons while racing motorcars through the English countryside, getting lost in the Wild Wood, and rescuing Toad Hall from a marauding band of weasels. This charming animal foursome and their stories of friendship and adventure will capture the imaginations and hearts of today's young readers.

When Horace Greeley published his famous imperative, “Go West, young man, and grow up with the country,” the frontier was already synonymous with a distinctive type of idealized American masculinity. But Greeley’s exhortation also captured popular sentiment surrounding changing ideas of American boyhood; for many educators, politicians, and parents, raising boys right seemed a pivotal step in securing the growing nation’s future. This book revisits these narratives of American boyhood and frontier mythology to show how they worked against and through one another—and how this interaction shaped ideas about national character, identity, and progress. The intersection of ideas about boyhood and the frontier, while complex and multifaceted, was dominated by one arresting notion: in the space of the West, boys would grow into men and the fledgling nation would expand to fulfill its promise. Frontiers of Boyhood explores this myth and its implications and ramifications through western history, childhood studies, and a rich cultural archive. Detailing surprising intersections between American frontier mythology and historical notions of child development, the book offers a new perspective on William “Buffalo Bill” Cody’s influence on children and childhood; on the phenomenon of “American Boy Books”; the agency of child performers, differentiated by race and gender, in Wild West exhibitions; and the cultural work of boys’ play, as witnessed in scouting organizations and the deployment of mass-produced toys. These mutually reinforcing and complicating strands, traced through a wide range of cultural modes, from social and scientific theorizing to mass entertainment, lead to a new understanding of how changing American ideas about boyhood and the western frontier have worked together to produce compelling stories about the nation’s past and its imagined future.

When Horace Greeley published his famous imperative, ""Go West, young man, and grow up with the country,"" the frontier was already synonymous with a distinctive type of idealized American masculinity. But Greeley's exhortation also captured popular sentiment surrounding changing ideas of American boyhood; for many educators, politicians, and parents, raising boys right seemed a pivotal step in securing the growing nation's future. This book revisits these narratives of American boyhood and frontier mythology to show how they worked against and through one another - and how this interaction shaped ideas about national character, identity, and progress. The intersection of ideas about boyhood and the frontier, while complex and multifaceted, was dominated by one arresting notion: in the space of the West, boys would grow into men and the fledgling nation would expand to fulfill its promise. Frontiers of Boyhood explores this myth and its implications and ramifications through western history, childhood studies, and a rich cultural archive. Detailing surprising intersections between American frontier mythology and historical notions of child development, the book offers a new perspective on William ""Buffalo Bill"" Cody's influence on children and childhood; on the phenomenon of ""American Boy Books""; the agency of child performers, differentiated by race and gender, in Wild West exhibitions; and the cultural work of boys' play, as witnessed in scouting organizations and the deployment of mass-produced toys. These mutually reinforcing and complicating strands, traced through a wide range of cultural modes, from social and scientific theorizing to mass entertainment, lead to a new understanding of how changing American ideas about boyhood and the western frontier have worked together to produce compelling stories about the nation's past and its imagined future.

Following Sterling's spectacularly successful launch of its children's classic novels (240,000 books in print to date), comes a dazzling new series: Classic Starts. The stories are unabridged and have been rewritten for younger audiences. Classic Starts treats the world's beloved tales (and children) with the respect they deserve. Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, Aladdin, Sinbad the Sailor: these are just some of the strange and amazing stories that clever Scheherazade tells to captivate her husband, King Shahryar...and to save her own life. Each one is more fantastic than the last, filled with demons and dervishes, caliphs and genies, men transformed into dogs and monsters with eyes that glow. Like the king, children will find themselves enchanted by every tale.

Following Sterling's spectacularly successful launch of its children's classic novels (240,000 books in print to date), comes a dazzling new series: Classic Starts. The stories are unabridged and have been rewritten for younger audiences. Classic Starts treats the world's beloved tales (and children) with the respect they deserve. "Tom Sawyer liked adventures, which means he was always getting in trouble." Searching for treasure, witnessing a murder, getting caught in a bat cave, tricking others into doing his work, running away with Huckleberry Finn--Tom Sawyer's antics and mischief-making are sheer, child-pleasing delight. Every boy and girl should experience the joy and fun of this classic tale.