Once Upon A Time In Great Britain

Visiting England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales? Don't miss Narnia, Wonderland, Hogwarts and Middle-Earth! If you're planning a trip abroad--or just a flight of fancy into literature's best-loved magical lands--Melanie Wentz's Once Upon a Time in Great Britain is a wonderful chance to read all about the creation of your favorite children's books. This book is both a practical travel guide for your family vacation to the UK, and a terrific source of armchair-travel fascination. Each chapter covers classics such as Peter Rabbit and Paddington Bear for the youngest tourists, Alice in Wonderland, Kidnapped and The Secret Garden for the older kids, and C.S. Lewis' Narnia Chronicles and J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter books for everyone. Read about the real chocolate factory that made such an impression on the young Roald Dahl, or the cozy pub where C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien introduced their friends to Narnia and hobbits. Treat your kids to a visit to the real "100 Aker Wood" that helped A.A. Milne create Winnie the Pooh, or the station where Thomas the Tank Engine lives. And enjoy the many original illustrations that made the books so distinctive on their first publications. From parents who grew up on Wind in the Willows, Mary Poppins and Peter Pan to kids who thrill to Harry Potter, Once Upon a Time in Great Britain is a must-have addition to the libraries of children--and adults--everywhere.

Wentz provides information about attractions, restaurants, and other sights tied to dozens of beloved children's books throughout the British Isles. Chapters cover classics such as "Winnie the Pooh, Peter Rabbit" (and other Beatrix Potter tales), "Paddington Bear" and J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter books for all readers. 30 illustrations.

Once Upon a Time is creative non-fiction written in the form of a memoir which focuses on the fact that another Baghdad existed not too long ago when people of different nationalities and religions lived and worked together peacefully. The central point of the book is life in Baghdad during the 1940s and 1950s, a period remembered as the golden age of Iraq. The stories told are as seen through the eyes of a young girl and woman, the author, who was born and raised in a Christian multicultural middle class family in Baghdad of the time. The book spans the first twenty years of her life spent in the Middle East. Intertwined with her personal story, the author tells of the lives of others, family, relatives and friends, as she knew them in the Baghdad of her youth. Iraq was a nation of multicultural and diverse people of all backgrounds and beliefs, with a heritage that goes back thousand of years. Iraqis and non-Iraqis, Moslems and non-Moslems, Christians and Jews lived, worked and mingled together in harmony, each aware of their particular cultural boundaries and respectful of others. As the author narrates her personal story she reveals many insights into her life, customs and cultures of Christian and Moslem families, both Iraqis and non-Iraqis who lived and thrived in Baghdad. Interwoven with the personal stories are historical chapters and facts that enable the reader to gain in-depth knowledge of the complexities of the religions, cultural and socio-economic background of Iraq and its people. References to present day conditions in Iraq act like a magnifying glass, making the potential for the country¡¦s possibly hopeful future, if it can find a connection to its more happy past, all the more vivid. The story is not told chronologically. The author weaves back and forth making time and space, condense and merge. There is a co-presence of different eras and events giving the book an unusual richness. Flashbacks and leaps into the present co-exist simultaneously creating a weave not unlike the arabesque intertwining of Arabic ornaments.

All in all, what happened was, after Captain Kempers service during the American Revolution, serving directly under General Washington, which contributed to helping us win our victory, everything was fine. Then in the pension years, beginning in 1832, he filled out a declaration in order to receive a pension. After going through scrutiny by the War Department, he was awarded a pension. What he did not know was that they were stealing his pension money. His brother, Colonel Daniel Kemper, brought this to his attention and told him to hire an attorney and he would back him up 100 percent since he was deputy clothier-general of the Continental Army and the one who procured his brothers appointment. When John contacted his New York State agent and attorney, Giles F. Yates, his pension was cancelled. Mr. Yates fought for over twenty years to restore his pension, including ten years after he died. Congressmen and other statesmen came behind Captain Kemper. Everyone lost until his records were passed down to this author, his fifth great-grandson. In reality, Captain Kemper was tortured to death by the very country he loved and adoredAmerica! It was not physical torture but mental torture. Captain Kempers daughter, Elizabeth, filed the first law suit in American history against the pension department of the War Department; likewise, she lost. This is why President Reagan came behind it as well as two- and three-star generals at the Pentagon, members of the US Senate and Congress, etc. You can see all in my list in Acknowledgements.

Once Upon a Time in Jerusalem tells the saga of a Palestinian family living in Jerusalem during the British mandate, and its fate in the diaspora following the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948. The story is told by two voices: a mother, who was a child in Jerusalem in the 1930s, and her daughter, who comments on her mother's narrative. The real hero of the narrative, however, is the family home in Old Jerusalem, which was built in the 15th century and which still stands today. Within its walls lived the various members of the extended family whose stories the narrative reveals: parents, children, stepmothers, stepsisters, aunts and uncles, nieces and cousins. This is no idealized, nostalgic narrative of perfect characters or an idyllic past, but a truthful rendition of family life under occupation, in a holy city that was conservative to the extreme. Against a backdrop of violence, much social history is revealed as an authoritarian father, a submissive mother, brothers who were resistance fighters, and an imaginative child struggled to lead a normal life among enemies. That became impossible in 1948, when the narrator, by then a young girl studying in Beirut, realized she could not go home. She traveled to Cairo, where she had to start a new life under difficult conditions, and reconcile herself to the idea of exile. Narrated in a terse, matter-of-fact tone, "Once Upon a Time in Jerusalem" is a bildungsroman in which the child is initiated into loss and despair, and a life about which little is known. The book shows a city of the 1930s from a new perspective: a cosmopolitan Jerusalem where people from all nations and faiths worshiped, married and lived together, until such co-existence came to an end and a new order was enforced.

Merriam Press Memoir. Once Upon a Time There Was a War is a kaleidoscope of events. It starts with World War II seen through the eyes of a child. The author was only nine years old when the war started and he writes about his memories of horrible events like hangings and executions of innocent people; senseless killings that brought misery to so many lives. But, being only a child, he also had times of fun and play. The reality of war, however, was ever-present. Despite those dark times, Les remained an optimist; he had his dreams of becoming an animator and of going to Hollywood. He didn't know how, but he was sure that someday he would reach his goal. Les reached his goal and had a long career working for studios in Poland, as well as Disney and Hanna-Barbera in the U.S., and others. Those fascinating stories, and many more, are also in this memoir.

Half a century ago a youth appeared from the American hinterland and began a cultural revolution. The world is still coming to terms with what he did. How he did it - and why - has never been fully explored. In Once Upon a Time, award-winning writer Ian Bell draws together the tangled strands of the many lives of Bob Dylan in all their contradictory brilliance. For the first time, the laureate of modern America is set in his entire context: musical, historical, literary, political and personal. In this acclaimed book, full of new insights into the legendary singer, his songs, his life and his era, the artist who invented himself in order to reinvent America is uncovered. Once Upon a Time is a biographical study of a personality that has splintered and reformed, time after time, in a country forever struggling to understand itself. Dylan has become the puzzle that illuminates. Here, in the first part of a major two-volume work, the puzzle is explained.

Not quite four months after the Western Region's election of October 10, 1965, did the localized mayhem in that Region find its way furiously into the center of the nation on January 15, 1966! It was like a whirl-wind of nothing but anarchy and lawlessness. The serious aftermath of the marred and rigged election was that it acted as the last straw that broke the Carmel's back, providing immediate reason for the army to overthrow the government of Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe. Anarchy ensued; a counter coup led to the death of Major-General Ironsi. Callous barbarous massacre of thousands of easterners in the North followed. With their lives in jeopardy, easterners fled for safety to eastern region; refugee crisis followed. To guarantee their safety, easterners seceded from Nigeria and on May 30th 1967, formed an independent and sovereign nation of the Republic of Biafra. Determined to bring Easterners back, on July 6, 1967 Nigeria invaded Biafra; waged a gruesome thirty-month-civil war against Biafra. Nigeria blockaded Biafra on land, sea and air, to prevent food from entering Biafra. A malnutrition disease, Kwashiorkor that caused the deaths of thousands of Biafrans, followed. Nigeria bombed Biafran civilians, killing thousands. On January 12, 1970 the war ended leaving more than three million people dead in a war that was totally avoidable!