The Dream Box

A whirlwind blew through the City of Memphis at the beginning of summer. As quickly as it came, it quickly left leaving behind a trail of discovered dreams, hope for the future and answered prayers. Her name was Amber Jones. A ten-year-old girl filled with the wisdom of her grandmother, and possessed with an angelic spirit felt by everyone who crossed her path. Bringing with her a Dream Box that held the power to manifest any desire to whoever was brave enough to believe.

Children young and old will delight in the artistic splendor of this illustrated nonfiction tale about artist Joseph Cornell, from celebrated picture book biographer Jeanette Winter. Joseph Cornell loved to draw and paint and collect things. With these drawings and paintings and collected treasures, he made marvelous shadowboxes—wonderlands covered in glass. And who did he most like to share them with? Children, of course. For they noticed all the details and took in all the magic Mr. Cornell had created. In this inspiring nonfiction picture book, Jeanette Winter has painted a moving portrait of a New York artist who always felt his work was best understood by children.

The "Warriors" of the 5th Battalion, 12th Infantry, 199th Light Infantry Brigade joined the U.S. Army's lightning offensive into the Cambodian border sanctuaries late in the afternoon of May 12th, 1970. Less than six hours after arriving at a small, poorly-constructed patrol base called LZ Brown, two under-strength infantry companies from the battalion were fiercely engaged with the 174th NVA Regiment. This battle marked the North Vietnamese Army's first major counter-attack of the Cambodian Incursion. For the next two months during that hectic summer of 1970, the 5-12th Infantry and Delta Battery, 2nd Battalion, 40th Artillery fought head to head on a daily basis with some of the toughest and most determined units in the North Vietnamese Army.

Bobby and his family are visiting Civil War battlefields on the eve of the war's centenary, while inside their car, quiet battles rage. When an accident cuts their trip short, they return home on a bus and witness an incident that threatens to deny a black family seats. What they don't know is the reason for the family's desperation to be on that bus: a few towns away, their child is missing. Lunch-Box Dream presents Jim Crow, racism, and segregation from multiple perspectives. In this story of witnessing without understanding, a naïvely prejudiced boy, in brief flashes of insight, starts to identify and question his assumptions about race.

The Magical Dream Box introduces the concept of our minds and its power to a very early age reader in a subtle and simple way.

Poetry. Edited by Ben Estes and Alan Felsenthal. Introduction by Geof Hewitt. Though Hamilton wrote thousands of poems during his lifetime, only a small percentage of them ever found their way into print. His poems appeared in small poetry journals during the 60s, 70s and 80s; two chapbooks, The Big Parade and Sphinx; and one full-length collection, The Poems of Alfred Starr Hamilton, published by The Jargon Society in 1970. In this new volume, Ben Estes and Alan Felsenthal present a collection of Hamilton's poems from these publications, along with many of Hamilton's poems that were previously considered lost and poems from posthumously found notebooks. "Hamilton is the author of spare, wry, slightly surreal poems that have, so far as I can see, no real equivalent in American English." Ron Silliman "Alfred Starr Hamilton 'wrote to the governor of poetry / And simply signed his] own name.' Consider this collection assembled by two very dedicated allographers an essential expansion on said letter. People who've encountered Hamilton's work previously will be glad for the chance to see familiar poems alongside many marvelous new ones. And how I envy first-time readers of this most generous and genuine American writer." Graham Foust "It is a hidden world, a hushabye place that Alfred Starr Hamilton occupies, a secluded place where he is free to summon daffodils and stars, chimes and angels, thread and old-fashioned spoons. There is Hungarian damage, blue revolutionary stars, a sedge hammer (which is not a typo). He is obsessively drawn to fine metals bronze, silver and gold. He would be golden, but can never grasp the elusive sad: 'One cloud, one day / Came as a shadow in my life / And then left, and came back again; and stayed' like "Anything Remembered" which is the title of that poem. He is too removed to see things any other way but his own. It is a silver peepshow in the wonderbush, and there is always a moon to scrape from the bottom of his view." C. D. Wright "We are living in the Badlands. Dorothy's ruby-slippers would get you across the Deadly Desert. So will these poems." Jonathan Williams"

Learn how to focus your creative energy to make things—and make things happen. In this blend of memoir and hardworking handbook, creativity and craft maven Amy Tangerine shows how to find your flow, maintain a positive mindset, and cultivate a rich and fulfilling life by focusing on what truly matters and implementing small yet powerful changes. Chapters explore how to craft the soul, craft the right mindset, craft the right environment, craft good habits, rediscover your creative mojo, and maintain momentum, with each section offering exercises for taking your creative practice to the next level. For anyone who has felt disconnected from their creativity or has had trouble saving a space for their passions, Craft a Life You Love will teach you how to make time for creativity each and every day.

The legendary Dolly Parton shares her heartfelt hopes and dreams for everyone. Expanding on the popular commencement speech Dolly Parton gave at the University of Tennessee, Dream More is a deeper and richer exploration of the personal philosophy she has forged over the course of her astonishing career as a singer, songwriter, performer, and philanthropist. Dolly elaborates on the four great hopes she wants us all to embrace: Dream more, Learn more, Care more, and Be more. She offers examples from her own life, from her childhood in the hills of eastern Tennessee to her life as the iconic performer she is today. From one of the legends of our time, Dream More is an honest, funny, and uplifting anthem for all who want to take charge of their lives and forge a future on their own terms.

A stirring, dramatic story of a slave who mails himself to freedom by a Jane Addams Peace Award-winning author and a Coretta Scott King Award-winning artist. Henry Brown doesn't know how old he is. Nobody keeps records of slaves' birthdays. All the time he dreams about freedom, but that dream seems farther away than ever when he is torn from his family and put to work in a warehouse. Henry grows up and marries, but he is again devastated when his family is sold at the slave market. Then one day, as he lifts a crate at the warehouse, he knows exactly what he must do: He will mail himself to the North. After an arduous journey in the crate, Henry finally has a birthday -- his first day of freedom.

Dream Box is a collection of 161 short stories, anecdotes, dialogues, dreams, and reflections. All of the stories are fictional, but they are all based on real events. Dream Box is the first volume of a series that will ultimately comprise 1001 stories. The second volume is in the works, and should be available next year. Muriel Spark wrote “If I write it, it’s grammatical” and it applies to Dream Box. I write in a borrowed language, but I have made it my own. It is the way I express myself and the way I want to be heard. It remains the voice of a stranger, of a foreigner, with its fragility, idiosyncrasies, contradictions, and its own particular flavor.