Many church-goers will recognize the name William Bradbury, a nineteenth-century American composer of popular hymns still sung at Sunday services. Bradbury’s name may also bring to mind Esther, the Beautiful Queen, his choral setting of a text based on the biblical Book of Esther. Written for amateur singers, the uncomplicated score became enormously popular almost immediately after its initial publication in 1856. In From Biblical Book to Musical Megahit: William B. Bradbury’s "Esther, the Beautiful Queen," Juanita Karpf traces the work’s rich performance and reception history. Bradbury emphatically stated that he intended Esther to be sung as an unadorned religious and educational piece. Yet many music directors exploited the potential for his score, producing elaborately staged events with costumes, scenery, and acting. Although directors retained Bradbury’s original music, they nonetheless facilitated Esther’s rapid entrée into the realm of music theater. This stylistic transformation ignited a firestorm of controversy. Some clergy and religiously pious citizens condemned theatrical representations of biblical texts as the epitome of debauchery, sacrilege, and sin. In contrast, more tolerant and open-minded theater enthusiasts welcomed the dramatic staging of Esther as wholesome entertainment and as evidence of a refreshingly enlightened approach to biblical interpretation. However heated this debate seemed at times, it did little to quell the continued rise in popularity of Esther. In fact, by the late 1860s, Bradbury’s score had worked its way across the continent, north to Canada and, eventually, to Great Britain, Australia, Asia, and Africa. With performances recorded over a century after Bradbury published his score, Esther became, by any measure, an international megahit.

Once upon a bed, in a royal palace, there lived a little princess with a big imagination called Amma. Every day she was ready to battle knights with the queen, look for mermaids with the king and even hunt for dragons with Grandma Grace. But every bedtime brought with it a whole host of worries. Her blankets felt heavy and the shadows on the walls looked dark and scary. And the worries were all because Princess Amma wet the bed. The royal household was put to work to try and put and end to Priciness Amma’s bedwetting. But what will help her? Lemons under her pillow? Ridiculous! Dry toast before bed? Preposterous! Luckily, Grandma Grace is close by to encourage Princess Amma to relax and use her big imagination to help put an end to her worries. With magical artwork and a gentle rhyming story, this is a sensitive story that helps children work through their worries and understand that everyone has accidents sometimes.

Eloise, ’n aangenome kind, word onsensitief deur haar biologiese grootouers verwerp. Die 17-jarige Ane se lewe verander dramaties wanneer sy ’n nasionale modelkompetisie wen en vinnig in ’n genadelose grootmenswereld moet aanpas. In Durban oorweeg kinderlose Petra die moontlikheid van aanneming. Die leser word gekonfronteer met aanneming, aangrypend uitgebeeld vanuit verskillende perspektiewe.

In Performing Racial Uplift: E. Azalia Hackley and African American Activism in the Postbellum to Pre-Harlem Era, Juanita Karpf rediscovers the career of Black activist E. Azalia Hackley (1867-1922), a concert artist, nationally famous music teacher, and charismatic lecturer. Growing up in Black Detroit, she began touring as a pianist and soprano soloist while only in her teens. By the late 1910s, she had toured coast-to-coast, earning glowing reviews. Her concert repertoire consisted of an innovative blend of spirituals, popular ballads, virtuosic showstoppers, and classical pieces. She also taught music while on tour and visited several hundred Black schools, churches, and communities during her career. She traveled overseas and, in London and Paris, studied singing with William Shakespeare and Jean de Reszke-two of the classical music world's most renowned teachers. Her acceptance into these famous studios confirmed her extraordinary musicianship, a "first" for an African American singer. She founded the Normal Vocal Institute in Chicago, the first music school founded by a Black performer to offer teacher training to aspiring African American musicians. Hackley's activist philosophy was unique. Unlike most activists of her era, she did not align herself unequivocally with either Booker T. Washington or W. E. B. Du Bois. Instead, she created her own mediatory philosophical approach. To carry out her agenda, she harnessed such strategies as giving music lessons to large audiences and delivering lectures on the ecumenical religious movement known as New Thought. In this book, Karpf reclaims Hackley's legacy and details the talent, energy, determination, and unprecedented worldview she brought to the cause of racial uplift.

Once upon a bed, in a royal palace, there lived a little princess with a big imagination called Amma. Every day she was ready to battle knights with the queen, look for mermaids with the king and even hunt for dragons with Grandma Grace. But every bedtime brought with it a whole host of worries. Her blankets felt heavy and the shadows on the walls looked dark and scary. And the worries were all because Princess Amma wet the bed. The royal household was put to work to try and put and end to Priciness Amma's bedwetting. But what will help her? Lemons under her pillow? Ridiculous! Dry toast before bed? Preposterous! Luckily, Grandma Grace is close by to encourage Princess Amma to relax and use her big imagination to help put an end to her worries. With magical artwork and a gentle rhyming story, this is a sensitive story that helps children work through their worries and understand that everyone has accidents sometimes.