Lou S On First

This intimate portrait of Lou Costello (1906-1959) offers a rare look at one of the most talented comedians of all time. Starting in the 1930s, Costello attained enormous fame touring the burlesque circuits with straight man Bud Abbott (1895-1974). Their live skits (including "Who's on First?"), radio programs, and films such as One Night in the Tropics, Buck Privates, Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, and In the Navy made comic history. Behind the scenes, however, Costello faced numerous crises: a bout with rheumatic fever that left him bedridden for months, the drowning death of his young son, and constant haggles with Universal Studios over its reluctance to adequately finance productions of Abbott and Costello films. Lou's on First goes beyond Costello's clownish persona to explore his Pagliacci nature: the private demons behind the happy public face, the heartbreaking moments in an otherwise storybook marriage, the business ventures soured by unscrupulous managers, and the true nature of the breakup of his twenty-one-year partnership with Bud Abbott.

A creative companion to Stand Tall, Molly Lou Melon Molly Lou Melon's grandma taught her to be happy with herself no matter what, but that's not all she learned. Molly Lou heard all about how her grandma didn't have fancy store-bought toys when she was little. She made dolls out of twigs and flowers and created her own fun in her backyard. So Molly Lou does just that, proving that the best thing to play with is a huge imagination!

Although overshadowed by her higher-profile successors, Lou Henry Hoover was in many ways the nation’s first truly modern First Lady. She was the first to speak on the radio and give regular interviews. She was the first to be a public political persona in her own right. And, although the White House press corps saw in her “old-fashioned wifehood,” she very much foreshadowed the “new woman” of the era. Nancy Beck Young presents the first thoroughly documented study of Lou Henry Hoover’s White House years, 1929–1933, showing that, far from a passive prelude to Eleanor Roosevelt, she was a true innovator. Young draws on the extensive collection of Lou Hoover’s personal papers to show that she was not only an important First Lady but also a key transitional figure between nineteenth- and twentieth-century views on womanhood. Lou Hoover was a multifaceted woman: a college graduate, a lover of the outdoors, a supporter of Girl Scouting, and a person engaged in social activism who endorsed political involvement for women and created a program to fight the Depression. Young traces Hoover’s many philanthropic efforts both before and during the Hoover presidency—contrasting them with those of her husband—and places her public activities in the larger context of contemporary women’s activism. And she shows that, unlike her predecessors, Hoover did more than entertain: she revolutionized the office of First Lady. Yet as Young reveals, Hoover was constrained as First Lady by her inability to achieve the same results that she had previously accomplished in her very public career for the volunteer community. As diligently as she worked to combat the hardship of the Depression for average Americans by mobilizing private relief efforts, her efforts ultimately had little effect. Although her celebrity has paled in the shadow of her husband’s negative association with the Great Depression, Lou Hoover’s story reveals a dynamic woman who used her activism to refashion the office of First Lady into a modern institution reflecting changes in the ways American women lived their lives. Young’s study of Hoover’s White House years shows that her legacy of innovation made a lasting mark on the office and those who followed.

Biography of Bud Abbott and Lou Costello, one of the greatest comedy teams of all time.

Be yourself like Molly Lou Melon no matter what a bully may do. Molly Lou Melon is short and clumsy, has buck teeth, and has a voice that sounds like a bullfrog being squeezed by a boa constrictor. She doesn't mind. Her grandmother has always told her to walk proud, smile big, and sing loud, and she takes that advice to heart. But then Molly Lou has to start in a new school. A horrible bully picks on her on the very first day, but Molly Lou Melon knows just what to do about that.

When Koala Lou's mother becomes so busy that she forgets to tell her firstborn how much she loves her, Koala Lou enters the Bush Olympics, intending to win an event and her mother's love all at one time. "A first-rate choice for bedtime, story hour, or reading aloud."--The Horn Book