Tea Party Rules

An award-winning book by a New York Times bestselling author! When he follows his nose through the woods, Cub discovers a backyard tea party…with cookies! He is just about to dig in when the hostess of the tea party shows up. And she has several strong opinions on how Tea Party must be played. Cub tries to follow her rules . . . but just how much can one bear take, even for cookies? A laugh-out-loud funny look at the required give-and-take of playtime, Tea Party Rules is an eventual friendship story that will delight grubby cubs, fancy girls, and cookie lovers everywhere.

Drink from delicate cups, eat dainty finger foods, dress up in your finery, and be as polite as you can be: it’s time to come to tea. With the help of this oh-so charmingly illustrated guide, you can throw a delightful tea party for birthdays, holidays, or just to have fun with friends. You can even choose a theme to make it extra-special. Start by designing your own invitations and decorations. Then, follow the recipes for making a great cup of tea, simple cucumber and other creative sandwiches, shortbread bars, and more tasty treats. What kind of party are we going to have? A Mad Hatter Tea, Teddy Bear Picnic, Garden Party, Fairy Tea, or one just with your dolls or your mom? Plus: crafts, games, boxed hostess tips, and delicious "tea party” quotes from favorite books, all shown in pictures that capture the timeless pleasures of this favorite little-girl event. A quintessential gift from grandmother to granddaughter.

This revised edition features a new afterword, updated through the 2016 election. On February 19, 2009, CNBC commentator Rick Santelli delivered a dramatic rant against Obama administration programs to shore up the plunging housing market. Invoking the Founding Fathers and ridiculing "losers" who could not pay their mortgages, Santelli called for "Tea Party" protests. Over the next two years, conservative activists took to the streets and airways, built hundreds of local Tea Party groups, and weighed in with votes and money to help right-wing Republicans win electoral victories in 2010. In this penetrating new study, Harvard University's Theda Skocpol and Vanessa Williamson go beyond images of protesters in Colonial costumes to provide a nuanced portrait of the Tea Party. What they find is sometimes surprising. Drawing on grassroots interviews and visits to local meetings in several regions, they find that older, middle-class Tea Partiers mostly approve of Social Security, Medicare, and generous benefits for military veterans. Their opposition to "big government" entails reluctance to pay taxes to help people viewed as undeserving "freeloaders" - including immigrants, lower income earners, and the young. At the national level, Tea Party elites and funders leverage grassroots energy to further longstanding goals such as tax cuts for the wealthy, deregulation of business, and privatization of the very same Social Security and Medicare programs on which many grassroots Tea Partiers depend. Elites and grassroots are nevertheless united in hatred of Barack Obama and determination to push the Republican Party sharply to the right. The Tea Party and the Remaking of Republican Conservatism combines fine-grained portraits of local Tea Party members and chapters with an overarching analysis of the movement's rise, impact, and likely fate.

Rattlesnake Revolution takes a lively romp through American history from the Boston Tea Party December 16, 1773 to a tea party near you today. Dean Allen's insights and observations give the tea party movement credit for amazing accomplishments in a short period, without glossing over weaknesses and challenges of a movement priding itself on being disorganized and leaderless. Is the tea party a flash-in-the-pan destined to fade into oblivion? Will the tea party become the next paradigm shift permanently liberating our republic from a sea of red ink? Rattlesnake Revolution provides the tools for the latter outcome!

Which would you rather do--read about the Boston Tea Party OR dress up like an Indian, sneak onto a boat in the middle of the night and dump a whole bunch of tea into Boston Harbor?

100 rules to garden by Gardening doesn’t have to be difficult, and Kate Frey—expert gardener and designer—makes it easier than ever with her new book, Ground Rules. Frey distills the vital lessons of gardening into 100 simple rules that will yield a gorgeous, healthy, and thriving home garden. Discover tips on garden design, care and maintenance, healthy soil, and the best ways to water. You’ll also learn how to create a garden that encourages birds and butterflies, how to choose healthy plants at the garden center, how and when to re-pot a container, and much more. With bite-size chunks of expert information and inspiring photographs, Ground Rules is your new go-to resource.

An engaging historical survey of tea in literature from ancient China to today. The History of Tea focuses on tea and tea time in books, plays, and poems. Whether used for flirtation or a reason to bring key characters together, this delightful book explores our relationship with tea through fiction. Divided into chapters to include a brief tea history, romantic teas and tea parties (from the infamous Boston Tea Party to the bizarre Madhatter’s Tea Party), Claire Hopley takes us on a walk through the long, dark tea time—of literature. The use of recipes based on the scenes in the featured books is bound to appeal to readers.