Mike Fink

Mike Fink was king of the keelboatmen -- the strongest, rowdiest bunch of fellows ever to work on the Mississippi. Mike was a whole lot more than a keelboater -- yes, sir! He was a crack shot and the best grizzly and gator wrestler on the river. They don't make 'em like Mike these days, now do they?

Mike Fink was the best keelboater on the river, and he was the first to admit it. He knew the river’s tricks. He could ride a waterfall like a bucking bronco, and he even wrestled alligators. What would happen when he made a bet with Davy Crockett? Could he win the race with Powderkeg Pete? Hop on board this rollicking story of an American tall tale hero.

Relates the extraordinary deeds of the frontiersman who became king of the keelboatmen on the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers.

One of the most entertaining genres of American literature is the bold, masculine, wildly exaggerated, and highly imaginative frontier humor of the Old Southwest, produced between 1835 and 1861 in an area that extended from Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia westward to Lousiana, Arkansas, Missouri, and Texas. Hennig Cohen and William B. Dillingham have tapped the wealth of this region to produce a collection that over the last three decades has become the standard anthology of Old Southwestern humor. This new, extensively revised edition includes an expanded introduction, a dozen replacement sections, an updated bibliography, and works by three new writers--Phillip B. January, Matthew C. Field, and John Gorman Barr. Most generously represented are George Washington Harris, Augustus Baldwin Longstreet, Johnson Jones Hooper, and Thomas Bangs Thorpe. Selections from twenty-five authors are featured along with brief biographical essays that combine historical and political analysis with perceptive literary criticism. These selections document important facets of antebellum American culture and provide the background of the literary achievement of Mark Twain and William Faulkner.

Contains over 500 articles Ranging over foodways and folksongs, quiltmaking and computer lore, Pecos Bill, Butch Cassidy, and Elvis sightings, more than 500 articles spotlight folk literature, music, and crafts; sports and holidays; tall tales and legendary figures; genres and forms; scholarly approaches and theories; regions and ethnic groups; performers and collectors; writers and scholars; religious beliefs and practices. The alphabetically arranged entries vary from concise definitions to detailed surveys, each accompanied by a brief, up-to-date bibliography. Special features *More than 2000 contributors *Over 500 articles spotlight folk literature, music, crafts, and more *Alphabetically arranged *Entries accompanied by up-to-date bibliographies *Edited by America's best-known folklore authority

Walter Blair was the literary scholar who almost single-handedly gave the study of American humor significance in the academic world. By categorizing the writings of American literary humorists into such diverse styles as the Old Southwest, Local Color, and Literary Comedian humor -- each having serious social import--Blair abolished the notion that they were all practicing the same kind of intellectual irreverence. Moving through more than six decades of Walter Blair's works, Essays on American Humor: Blair through the Ages provides a comprehensive introduction to the discipline he developed. Hamlin Hill has selected and ordered this collection to show the scope of Blair's expertise, which encompasses the careers of tall-tale characters like Baron Munchausen as well as the achievements of such real-life humorists as E. B. White. The pieces range in time from Blair's introduction to the 1928 edition of Julia A. Moore's poetry to his 1989 introduction to a work commemorating Davy Crockett's two-hundredth anniversary. Historical and biographical essays, source-and-influence studies, and analyses of texts constitute the bulk of the book. An entire section is devoted to discourses on Mark Twain, Blair's major subject.

This helpful resource provides all-new tested, standard-based lessons accompanied by reproducible handouts and easy-to-follow directions. A new book by Joyce Keeling, an elementary librarian and teacher with more than two decades' experience, Standards-Based Lesson Plans for the Busy Elementary School Librarian presents many integrated lesson plans for students in each of the elementary grades, kindergarten through 5th grade. All lessons have been tested and refined in a school setting, and they are specifically written to match the AASL Information Literacy Standards, the McREL Compendium of Standards and Benchmarks, and the Common Core State Standards. In addition to the reproducible lesson plan worksheets, the book offers in-depth discussion of how best to collaborate to teach information literacy within the scope of common elementary school curricula.