The 1990s was the decade in which the Soviet Union collapsed and Francis Fukuyama declared the 'end of history'. Nelson Mandela was released from prison, Google was launched and scientists in Edinburgh cloned a sheep from a single cell. It was also a time in which the president of the United States discussed fellatio on network television and the world's most photographed woman died in a car crash in Paris. Radical pop band The KLF burned a million quid on a Scottish island, while the most-watched programme on TV was Baywatch. Anti-globalisation protestors in France attacked McDonald's restaurants and American survivalists stockpiled guns and tinned food in preparation for Y2K. For those who lived through it, the 1990s glow in the memory with a mixture of proximity and distance, familiarity and strangeness. It is the decade about which we know so much yet understand too little. Taking a kaleidoscopic view of the politics, social history, arts and popular culture of the era, James Brooke-Smith asks - what was the 1990s? A lost golden age of liberal optimism? A time of fin-de-siecle decadence? Or the seedbed for the discontents we face today?

A touching tale of a grandmother and her granddaughter exploring and cherishing the natural world. Words, the woods, and the world illuminate this quest to save the most important pieces of our language-by saving the very things they stand for. When Mimi finds out her favorite words-simple words, like apricot, blackberry, buttercup-are disappearing from the English language, she elects her granddaughter Brook as their Keeper. And did you know? The only way to save words is to know them. * With its focus on the power of language and social change, The Keeper of Wild Words is ideal for educators and librarians as well as young readers. * For any child who longs to get outside and learn more about nature and the environment * A loving portrait of the special relationship that grandparents have with their grandchildren For children who love such books as Outside Your Window: A First Book of Nature, And Then It's Spring, and Finding Wild.

The delightful figural toothbrush holders that are so beloved by collectors today have their roots in the early 1800s. Here is the whole range of the holders, with hundreds of the most sought-after designs portrayed in full color. Compiled by some of America's foremost collectors and dealers, this book has over 400 color photos, including examples in ironstone, porcelain, bisque, or other ceramics, as well as glass, chalkware, celluloid, plastic, and lithographed tin. Some of the forms they took were purely decorative, and some were clearly designed to encourage children to brush more frequently. They include whimsical characters, animals, nursery rhymes, sports, occupations, deco animals and figures, holidays, and cartoon characters. Often the toothbrush itself, when in place, would make up a key element in the holder's design, a horse's tail, say, or the neck of a violin. The authors have compiled a brief history of toothbrush holders, along with important information for collectors. The concise captions include size, material, maker (when known), and an estimate of the value on the current collector's market. The variety of forms, the cleverness of the designs, and the nostalgia some of the themes encourage, will delight dentists, toothbrush specialists, and all lovers of the ceramic arts.

'It's stimulating stuff: more of a guide to reflection, perhaps, than to action, but encouraging none the less as a counterblast to the control-and-command mentality that characterises mosr education policy and practice today.' - Michael Duffy, TES

'It's stimulating stuff: more of a guide to reflection, perhaps, than to action, but encouraging none the less as a counterblast to the control-and-command mentality that characterises mosr education policy and practice today.' - Michael Duffy, TES

The British public school is an iconic institution, a training ground for the ruling elite and a symbol of national identity and tradition. But beyond the elegant architecture and evergreen playing fields is a turbulent history of teenage rebellion, sexual dissidence, and political radicalism. James Brooke-Smith wades into the wilder shores of public-school life over the last three hundred years in Gilded Youth. He uncovers armed mutinies in the late eighteenth century, a Victorian craze for flagellation, dandy-aesthetes of the 1920s, quasi-scientific discourse on masturbation, Communist scares in the 1930s, and the salacious tabloid scandals of the present day. Drawing on personal experience, extensive research, and public school representations in poetry, school slang, spy films, popular novels, and rock music, Brooke-Smith offers a fresh account of upper-class adolescence in Britain and the role of elite private education in shaping youth culture. He shows how this central British institution has inspired a counterculture of artists, intellectuals, and radicals--from Percy Shelley and George Orwell to Peter Gabriel and Richard Branson--who have rebelled against both the schools themselves and the wider society for which they stand. Written with verve and humor in the tradition of Owen Jones's The Establishment: And How They Get Away With It, this highly original cultural history is an eye-opening leap over the hallowed iron gates of privilege--and perturbation.

The Abused Ballet is the culmination of a three-year project written in honor of my mother. My work is educational and entertaining intended to promote healing and growth. Like learn and share or; watch, perform and educate. At the very least, have some enriched fun.

The Abused Ballet is an entire production. This is the piano part of the entire symphonic score. A lot of hard work, dedication and love went into this work. The pieces are dark, melodic, eery and classical. With all of the parts it forms a masterpiece and with one part it forms an adventure.