Stay Golden

Superstar male model Lucky Blue Smith, described as “the Rolling Stones, the Beatles, and Justin Bieber rolled into one” by the New York Times, brings us an intimate, fully illustrated behind-the-scenes peek into his world. With over 2.3 million Instagram followers and accolades like Male Model of the Year (Elle Style Awards), Lucky Blue Smith is the biggest male model on the planet. Now journey into the heart of Lucky’s universe with this collectible gift book. Featuring a unique collection of personal photographs, this full-color book will put you right beside Lucky as he shares stories about his life, his inspirations, and his passions, and reflects on the daily pressures of being a teenager in the modern world. Granting his fans an unprecedented level of access, Lucky reveals all, from his style influences to his relationships, from his family to his fans, from music, modeling, and movies to fond memories of his childhood and a backstage look at his crazy life on the road. Along the way he shares the various lessons he’s learned and offers refreshing advice on how to be happy, healthy, and confident in your own skin. Funny, cool, and totally honest, this is a must-have for Lucky Blue Smith fans or anyone looking for teen advice and memoirs. “The man of the moment…the reigning heartthrob of social media.” —Vogue

Debut author Tobly McSmith delivers a coming-of-age teen love story about a transgender boy who’s going stealth at his new Texas high school and a cisgender girl who is drawn to him, even as she’s counting down the days until graduation. Perfect for fans of David Levithan, Becky Albertalli, and Jenny Han. Pony plans to fly under the radar this year. Tired of getting too much attention at his old school after coming out as transgender, he’s hoping for a fresh start as a Hillcrest High senior. But it’s hard to live your best life with the threat of exposure lurking around every corner. Georgia is beginning to think there’s more to life than cheerleading. She just wants to keep a low profile until graduation . . . which is why she promised herself that dating is a nonstarter for the foreseeable future. Then, on the very first day of classes, the new guy and the cheerleader lock eyes… In this moving, honest debut from Tobly McSmith, one transformative relationship opens the eyes of a whole town—and opens the door for Pony and Georgia to celebrate their truths, even when it feels hard.

What does it mean to be almost healthy? For Daniel Selvakumar, it was being born with a heart defect that offered a slim chance of surviving past childhood. At 14 months old, he underwent the first of three open-heart surgeries. Grappling with his own mortality, Daniel accepted the big and small gifts of life – a close-knit family, lasting friendships, a business launched, a first love. In his own way, he sought to leave the world a bit better, whether by helping a friend struggling with drug addiction, coaching teenagers or brightening the lives of nurses and fellow hospital patients in his last days. Daniel’s heart was deformed by its defect as much as it was enlarged by love. He used it to make each of his 25 years count, and for the brief season that he was alive, left his mark on the hearts of friends, family and strangers, changing them forever. In one of Daniel’s final postings on social media, he outlines his approach for a life well lived – Live full, love hard, be grateful and own that shit. Eloquent, heartrending and pensive, Stay Gold is a glowing tapestry of a memoir told through the interwoven perspectives of Daniel, his parents and the people he loved. Poised between past and present with a gaze at the future never to be, Daniel’s story asks how an almost healthy boy can find his place in a mostly healthy world, and how a single life can be meaningful when time is running out.

The Golden Girls made its prime-time debut in 1985 on NBC, and the critically acclaimed show has been a constant television companion through cable reruns and streaming media services ever since. Most people know that The Golden Girls is a sitcom about four feisty, older women living together in Miami who love to eat cheesecake, but Kate Browne argues that The Golden Girls is about so much more. Drawing on feminist literary studies and television studies, Browne makes a case for The Golden Girls as a TV milestone not only because it remains one of the most popular sitcoms in television history but also because its characters reflect shifting complexities of gender, age, and economic status for women in the late twentieth century and beyond. Each chapter is dedicated to exploring what makes these remarkable characters defy expectations of how older women should look, act, and love. Chapter 1 focuses on Dorothy Zbornak’s intriguing gender performance and shifting desirability. Chapter 2 digs into Blanche Devereux’s difficult relationship with motherhood and aging. Chapter 3 highlights how Rose Nylund made all the "right" choices in life but consistently finds herself disenfranchised by the same social and economic institutions that promised to protect her at midlife. Chapter 4 centers on how Sophia Petrillo drives the action of the show as a trickster—bending plots to her own desires and offering moral lessons to the other characters. The book offers an important analysis of a hugely popular sitcom that extends the boundary of what makes TV groundbreaking and worthy of study. Browne argues that The Golden Girls is a "classic" sitcom in almost every way, which keeps audiences engaged and allows the show to make subversive moves when it matters most. Written with both superfans and scholars in mind, the book invites new, diverse ways of thinking about the show to spark future scholarship and conversation about four of the most beloved characters in sitcom history.

From Ron Rash, PEN / Faulkner Award finalist and New York Times bestselling author of Serena, comes a new collection of unforgettable stories set in Appalachia that focuses on the lives of those haunted by violence and tenderness, hope and fear—spanning the Civil War to the present day. The darkness of Ron Rash’s work contrasts with its unexpected sensitivity and stark beauty in a manner that could only be accomplished by this master of the short story form. Nothing Gold Can Stay includes 14 stories, including Rash’s “The Trusty,” which first appeared in The New Yorker.

A interdisciplinary introduction to American culture, American Cultural Studies examines the tensions that exist within the multifaceted and multicultural mix of American life. Exploring the changing debates throughout the century, specific consideration is given to issues such as race and religion, gender and sexuality, and youth. The volume draws on literature, art, film, theatre, architecture and music, employing techniques and arguments both from traditional analysis and cultural studies. Through examining forms of cultural expression in relation to their contexts, this book highlights American distinctiveness and is sure to challenge orthodox paradigms of American Studies.

In this new book, you’ll learn how to teach evidence-based writing using a variety of tools, activities, and sample literary texts. Showing elementary and middle school students how to think critically about what they’re reading can be a challenge, but author C. Brian Taylor makes it easy by presenting twelve critical thinking tools along with step-by-step instructions for implementing each one effectively in the classroom. You’ll learn how to: Design units and lesson plans that gradually introduce your students to more complex levels of textual analysis; Encourage students to dig deeper by using the 12 Tools for Critical Thinking; Help students identify context and analyze quotes with the Evidence Finder graphic organizer; Use the Secret Recipe strategy to construct persuasive evidence-based responses that analyze a text’s content or technique; Create Cue Cards to teach students how to recognize and define common literary devices. The book also offers a series of extra examples using mentor texts, so you can clearly see how the strategies in this book can be applied to excerpts from popular, canonical, and semi-historical literature. Additionally, a number of the tools and templates in the book are available as free eResources from our website (http://www.routledge.com/9781138950658), so you can start using them immediately in your classroom.