Carl Hiaasen is an American journalist and novelist. He began his career as a newspaper reporter and by the late 1970s had begun writing novels in his spare time, both for adults and for young-adult readers. Two of his novels have been made into feature films.
Jim Dale is an English actor, composer, director, narrator, singer and songwriter. In the United Kingdom he is known as a pop singer of the 1950s who became a leading actor at the National Theatre. In British film, he became one of the regulars in the Carry On films, along with Leslie Phillips, Valerie Leon, Kenneth Cope, Julian Holloway, Hugh Futcher, Anita Harris, Amanda Barrie, Jacki Piper, Angela Douglas and Patricia Franklin.
Ecotage is sabotage carried out for environmental reasons.
Eddie Asner was an American actor and former president of the Screen Actors Guild. He is best remembered for portraying Lou Grant during the 1970s and early 1980s, on both The Mary Tyler Moore Show and its spin-off series Lou Grant, making him one of the few television actors to portray the same character in both a comedy and a drama. Asner is the most honored male performer in the history of the Primetime Emmy Awards, having won seven – five for portraying Lou Grant. His other Emmys were for performances in two television miniseries: Rich Man, Poor Man (1976), for which he won the Outstanding Lead Actor for a Single Performance in a television series award, and Roots (1977), for which he won the Outstanding Single Performance by a Supporting Actor in a television series award.
The Bad Beginning is the first novel of the children's novel series A Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket. The novel tells the story of three children, Violet, Klaus, and Sunny Baudelaire, who become orphans following a fire and are sent to live with Count Olaf, who attempts to steal their inheritance.
Hoot is a 2002 mystery/suspense novel, recommended for ages 9–12, by Carl Hiaasen. The setting takes place in Florida, where new arrival Roy makes two oddball friends and a bad enemy, and joins an effort to stop construction of a pancake house which would destroy a colony of burrowing owls who live on the site. The book won a Newbery Honor award in 2003.
The Rebecca Caudill Young Readers' Book Award (RCYRBA) is an annual award given to the author of the book voted most outstanding by students in grades four through eight in participating Illinois schools and libraries. It is named in honor of children's author Rebecca Caudill, who lived and worked in Urbana, Illinois, and has been presented annually since 1988. It is administered by a volunteer board of directors and presented in cooperation with the Illinois Association of Teachers of English, the Illinois Reading Council, and the Illinois School Library Media Association.
"The Owl and the Pussy-cat" is a nonsense poem by Edward Lear, first published in 1870 in the American magazine Our Young Folks: an Illustrated Magazine for Boys and Girls and again the following year in Lear's own book Nonsense Songs, Stories, Botany, and Alphabets. Lear wrote the poem for a three-year-old girl, Janet Symonds, the daughter of Lear's friend and fellow poet John Addington Symonds and his wife Catherine Symonds. The term "runcible", used for the phrase "runcible spoon", was invented for the poem.
Bill Harley is an American children's entertainer, musician, and author who has been called "the Mark Twain of contemporary children's music" by Entertainment Weekly. He uses a range of musical styles, and his audience includes both children and adults. Harley began singing and storytelling in 1975 while still in college. Much of his material is autobiographical, focusing on vignettes from childhood.
Hoot is a 2006 American family comedy film, based on Carl Hiaasen's novel of the same name. It was written and directed by Wil Shriner, and produced by New Line Cinema and Walden Media. The film stars Luke Wilson, Logan Lerman, Brie Larson, Tim Blake Nelson, Neil Flynn and Robert Wagner. Filming took place from July to September 2005 in Florida, with additional shooting in California the following January. The film was released on May 5, 2006. Hoot was a commercial failure, and received negative reviews from critics.
Gracie: A Love Story is a 1988 biography of comedian Gracie Allen by George Burns. The tribute to Burns' wife and professional partner reviews their life together and contrasts Allen's scatterbrained public persona with the intelligent actress and devoted wife she actually was.
Dean Pitchford is an American songwriter, screenwriter, director, actor, and novelist. His work has earned him an Oscar and a Golden Globe Award, as well as nominations for three additional Oscars, two more Golden Globes, eight Grammy Awards, and two Tony Awards.
American on Purpose: The Improbable Adventures of an Unlikely Patriot is a memoir written by entertainer Craig Ferguson.
Emma Katherine Walton Hamilton is a British-American children's book author, theatrical director, and actress. She is an instructor in the MFA program at Stony Brook Southampton, where she serves as Director of the Southampton Children's Literature Fellows program and the Young Artists and Writers Project (YAWP). She is the daughter of singer and actress Dame Julie Andrews and set/costume designer Tony Walton.
Born to Run is an autobiography of American songwriter-musician Bruce Springsteen that was released on September 27, 2016. The title is named after Springsteen's iconic 1975 album and song Born to Run. The book is a companion piece to Chapter and Verse, a career-spanning album featuring songs from all stages of Springsteen's career that was released four days before the book. On the date of the book's release, Springsteen embarked on a nine-date book tour in the United States. The book has received critical acclaim.
M Train is a 2015 memoir written by Patti Smith. Smith's audiobook recording of M Train earned a Grammy Award nomination for Best Spoken Word Album.
Elizabeth Acevedo is a Dominican-American poet and author. In September 2022, the Poetry Foundation named her the year's Young People’s Poet Laureate.
Blowout: Corrupted Democracy, Rogue State Russia, and the Richest, Most Destructive Industry on Earth is a 2019 non-fiction book by Rachel Maddow. It is her second book and was published by Crown on October 1, 2019. It concerns corruption in the oil and gas industry and the Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections.
