Search Results: 49 books from 1 publisher. Learn more

Emerald Lizard

Pleasant DeSpain (author)

Publisher: August House ISBN: 9780874835526

For the past three decades, Pleasant DeSpain has explored Latin America its people, customs, cultures, and especially the myths and legends. The tales in this collection are full of compassionate souls, tricks and humor, explanations of nature and geography and as always, memorable characters and places. Mario Lamo-Jimnez's Spanish translation that accompanies the English version reverberates with the rich, vibrant quality that has become the bench mark for the best stories from Latin America.

Spiders in the Hairdo

David; Mooney Holt (author)

Publisher: August House ISBN: 9780874835250

This collection of urban myths assembles 50 brief stories from modern oral tradition. Commonly attributed to FOAFs (friend of a friend), they are intriguing and often frightening tales passed along in casual conversation. These tales are the substance of modern folklore, an evolving treasury of narratives. From the famous Vanishing Hitchhiker to incredulous tales of alligators in the New York City sewer system these stories still live in our collective imagination.

Earth Care

Margaret Read MacDonald (author)

Publisher: August House ISBN: 9780874837841

This collection of traditional tales and proverbs from over twenty ethnic groups touches upon both human and ecological themes such as environmental protection, the care of other creatures, and the connection of all things in nature.

Exploding Toilet

David; Mooney Holt (author)

Publisher: August House ISBN: 9780874837155

A humorous collection of modern urban myths and legends grouped under chapters as "School Days," "The Home Front," "Scary Stories," "Scams and Conspiracies," and "Dumb Luck and Bad Breaks.

Curing the Cross-Eyed Mule

Loyal Jones (author)

Publisher: August House ISBN: 9780874830835

Appalachian humor can be dry, colorful, and earthy. The chapters vary greatly ranging from topics of Love and Marriage; Schools, Religion; Lawyers; Mountaineers and the Law; Animals and Hunting; Mountaineers and City Folks; Health and Medicine; and Rural Life.

Buried Treasures of the South

W.C. Jameson (author)

Publisher: August House ISBN: 9780874832860

This fifth volume in W.C. Jameson's Buried Treasure series contains 38 tales and legends about Native American Indian hoards, Civil War caches, lost mines, and robbery stashes. Jameson includes classic treasure stories like The Lost Treasure of Pirate William Kirk (Virginia), Chief Sontechee's Silver Hoard (North Carolina), Natchez Trace: Treasure Trail (Mississippi) that are part myth and part history.

Buried Treasures of the Mid-Atlantic States

W.C. Jameson (author)

Publisher: August House ISBN: 9780874835311

The Mid-Atlantic States are rich in history, legends of lost fortunes, and buried treasure stories. This twelfth book in W.C. Jameson's Buried Treasure collection offers thirty tales of this region that have remained largely untold for generations. Lost mines, buried loot, caches of gold and silver ingots, gangsters, Native American Indians, pirates, chests of precious stones -- such are the ingredients of a rich stew of folklore gathered from the melting pot of the Mid-Atlantic region.

Buried Treasures of the Pacific Northwest

W.C. Jameson (author)

Publisher: August House ISBN: 9780874834383

Do Native Americans know the location of the cursed Lost Gold of Devil's Sink? Did Sir Francis Drake bury millions of dollars' worth of ancient Incan treasures? Has anyone found the box of gold coins buried by a reputed giant in the Washington rain forest? Is there a noble family's fortune buried near an old log cabin in the Cascades? The Pacific Northwest provides a picturesque backdrop for these stories as it stretches from the rugged coastline east over the snowy mountains and into the vast plateau that leads to Idaho. For over a century, outlaws, prospectors, Russians, Indians, loners, soldiers, and immigrants have thrown themselves into all of the adventure and intrigue money can buy.

Buried Treasures of the Rocky Mountains

W.C. Jameson (author)

Publisher: August House ISBN: 9780874832723

These 32 tales from the Backbone of America include The Gold Behind the Waterfall (Arizona), The Treasure of Deadman Cave (Colorado), Lava Cave Cache (Idaho), Henry Plummer's Lost Gold (Montana), The Curse of the Lost Sheepherder's Mine (Nevada), Lost Train Robbery Loot in Cibola County (New Mexico), Eighty Ingots in Spanish Gold (Utah), and Lost Ledge of Gold (Wyoming). As Jameson points out in his introduction, the Rocky Mountains still have many remote areas that even today can only be reached on horseback or on foot. Centuries ago Native American Indians, Spaniards, explorers, prospectors, miners, the occasional wandering cowboy and even outlaws fleeing the law roamed these rugged mountains. Today this land remains laced with hidden treasures just waiting to be found.

Buried Treasures of the Great Plains

W.C. Jameson (author)

Publisher: August House ISBN: 9780874834864

The dusty trails heading west of the Mississippi provided intrigue, adventure, and danger for the men and women who set out in search of a new life and fortune. Outlaws along with pioneers and forty-niners traveled this frontier often, finding and losing riches along the way. The Great Plains region - loaded with history from Native Americans, Spanish explorers, and Mexican, German, and Scots-Irish settlers, holds some of the country's most promising opportunities for finding buried treasure. Scattered from North Dakota to Texas, these stories provide a glimpse into the lives of fleeing outlaws, hard-working ranchers, priests, prospectors, and immigrantsall entwined in their search for treasure.

Buried Treasures of the Atlantic Coast

W.C. Jameson (author)

Publisher: August House ISBN: 9780874834840

This book is a collection of more than thirty stories about long lost buried treasures and forgotten stashes that are said to be hidden along the Atlantic Coast.

Buried Treasures of the Appalachians

W.C. Jameson (author)

Publisher: August House ISBN: 9780874831269

A cedar chest that had been packed with gold coins robbed from a bank just south of Lexington, Kentucky in 1860 was recovered 50 years later by a fishing guide at King's Mill Pond. Only a handful of coins were left in the chest, which had mostly rotted away. Is the rest settled beneath the silt of the pond today? The Appalachian Mountains have witnessed untold fortunes gained and lost. The confluence and clashes of a number of cultures Native American Indian, French, Spanish, pioneer, and Union and Confederate forces - often resulted in struggles over mineral resources or fights about stashes of gold and silver that were hidden for later retrieval. W.C. Jameson gathered his material from journals, maps, on-site research in the Southern Appalachian Mountains and from interviews with people whose lives have been entwined with the search for long lost treasures. This book contains 40 legends with accounts of caves stacked from floor to ceiling with gold ingots; of caches guarded by skeletons and curses; and of Union payrolls scattered to the four winds.

Buried Treasures of the American Southwest

W.C. Jameson (author)

Publisher: August House ISBN: 9780874830828

Modern-day counterparts of the Spanish conquistadors and the early nineteenth-century settlers still cling to the image of El Dorado and the promise of riches. The folklore of the land still exerts its magical pull as the pickup truck has replaced the horse and mule, but treasure hunters still travel with little more than their dreams and hopes. They can be found even now in the mountains and the valleys of the American Southwest, still searching for the elusive riches that have been lost or remain buried in the rugged terrain.

Buried Treasures of New England

W.C. Jameson (author)

Publisher: August House ISBN: 9780874834857

This book contains more than thirty stories from New England and the Northeast about hidden riches, forgotten war loot, and sunken ship treasures. Marie Antoinette's $1 million necklace lies in the cold waters of the Pennichuck Brook just a few miles from downtown Nashua, New Hampshire. A steamboat, possibly the country's first one, still remains deep in Lake Morey near Fairlee, Vermont. A young woman discovers her great-grandfather's lost money in the chimney of his mysterious Massachusetts mansion. But was there more hidden in the bricks? From Revolutionary War and Civil War tales to a legend about a missing silver church bell, this lore, grown out of true accounts and actual histories, has propelled New England into one of the most fascinating regions for lost treasure.

Buried Treasures of California

W.C. Jameson (author)

Publisher: August House ISBN: 9780874834062

After reading these 30 revived tales of wealth and splendor, you will be tempted to throw some supplies into a backpack like the '49-ers of old and head west. Although stories of lost gold and silver veins are abundant (Mysterious Blue Ledge of Gold, The Curse of the Mormon Silver Ledge), they in no way represent all of the wealth hidden in California's geography and folklore. Does Death Valley hold more than just sand and arid desert; is it also the Canyon of Lost Gold and site of the Golden Gravels of Goler Wash? Is the long California coastline covering secrets (Gold in the Sand) and hidden riches (Lost North Beach Million, Five Hundred Pound Silver Ingot)? Are the sprawling metropolises now covering the priceless artifacts of an emperor (The Hollywood Bowl Treasure)? Outlaws, prospectors, Indians, loners and Mexicans throw themselves into all the adventure and intrigue. California's mountains, deserts, beaches, and citiesas well as sunken treasureare all encompassed in this collection.

Buried Treasures of Texas

W.C. Jameson (author)

Publisher: August House ISBN: 9780874831788

Part of the colorful history of Texas includes legends of outlaw loot, pirate hoards, buried mines, and Santa Anna's lost pack-train carrying gold. This book contains 31 legends ranging from lost fortunes of Native Americans, French pirates, Spanish explorers, and Mexican soldiers to the early exploits of German and Scotch-Irish settlers. These unique tales from the people of the Lone Star State highlight their adventures and struggles in search of lost mines and forgotten treasures.

Buried Treasures of the Ozarks

W.C. Jameson (author)

Publisher: August House ISBN: 9780874831061

This collection brings together 43 legends from Arkansas, Missouri, and Oklahoma - stories about fabulous mines abandoned by De Soto's soldiers; ingots carried partway across the Ozarks long ago, stashed in some moment of danger and never recovered; lodes of precious metal known only to local Indians; and thieves and murderers' plunder that still lies hidden underground.

Sweet Land of Story

Pleasant DeSpain (author)

Publisher: August House ISBN: 9780874835694

This unique collection of American stories from the frozen tundra of Alaska to the lush green hills of Virginia; from the sweltering bayous of Louisiana to the windswept prairies of South Dakota is told in DeSpain's signature gentle style. Every reader will find something of interest - the stories range from practical tales of wisdom such as Pulling the Rope to silly and scary ones such as The Haint that Roared and The Big, Smelly, Hairy Toe. The stories represent not only the geographic diversity of the United States but also offer a portrait of our nation's character, values, beliefs, and customs that differ from region to region yet retain a fundamental sense of shared community.

Ride the Butterflies

Donald Davis (author)

Publisher: August House ISBN: 9780874836066

Maybe it's because his mother was a teacher. Or maybe it's because he has spent most of his life in classrooms - as a wide-eyed first grader, a naive college student, a seminarian, and now as a visiting writer in residencies across the country. There's something about school that infuses the work of Donald Davis and he has collected his all-time favorite school stories in the book. Whether we're traveling around the world with Miss Daisy, the fourth grade teacher who was integrating arithmetic, geography and English before the term whole language ever surfaced; or watching in awe as a classmate conjugates malaprops in Miss Vergilius Darwin's Latin class; or driving a school bus and learning about segregation - we experience flashes of recognition in moments that transcend Donald Davis's childhood stories.

Of Kings and Fools

Michael; Olivier Parent (author)

Publisher: August House ISBN: 9780874834819

Bubbling with beautiful princesses, dragon-slaying underdogs, and crafty tricksters, these Franco-American stories explore a heritage that has become known as "a quiet presence". Co-authors, Parent and Olivier recount the lutin's tricks on farmers, the Jack-like adventures of Ti-Jean, Pierre and his modern-day chainsaw, a beautiful princess conquering an evil witch, and family stories passed down from generation to generation. Meet Michael's grandfather, Honor Fournier, who spoiled his grandchildren with kindly generosity, and Alexis Lacasse, Julien's grandfather, who didn't let a prank stop him from arriving to dinner on time. Life in Franco-American families revolved around two entities: family and church. The authors address these two important aspects and how they have influenced their stories. Olivier and Parent inherited their families' love of stories and continue that legacy by sharing their ancestry and heritage in this charming book.

Listening for the Crack of Dawn

Donald Davis (author)

Publisher: August House ISBN: 9780874836059

The fourteen personal stories in this delightful coming of age book apply universal elements with characters and situations that everyone will recognize so that only the names, places and times change from our own childhood stories.

Farm On Nippersink Creek

Jim May (author)

Publisher: August House ISBN: 9780874834468

Jim May writes the stories of his youth, growing up in the rural Midwest between the Truman and the JFK eras, where trading stories was as common as trading horses, and frequently required the same skills. Neighboring, as his mother called it, was part of the social fabric. These 18 poignant and humorous stories of life's joys and trials told with the freshness of youth, yet tempered with the wisdom of age evoke a simpler time in our nation's history without romanticizing the inherent hardships.

Barking At a Fox-fur Coat

Donald Davis (author)

Publisher: August House ISBN: 9780874831405

Highly acclaimed, award winning author Donald Davis wants us all to remember and share our family stories. Among other tall tales, he writes about how his uncle hung onto the multitudinous Democratic votes of the Ratherton clan while at the very same time keeping them from shooting Davis' squirrels in a lean year; how he got Phyleete, wife Jolly, their eleven sub-natural sons and one forgettably natural daughter to move their log house from the unlikely place they'd built it; and how he tried to solve the problem of the chatty Misses Lena and Lucy Leatherwood, who clogged up the eight-party telephone line so badly that Uncle Frank paid for his new phone four months before he ever got the chance to talk on it. Davis offers seventeen vintage family stories, including Rainy Weather, The Southern Bells, and Old Man Hawkins' Lucky Day.

Asian Tales and Tellers

Cathy Spagnoli (author)

Publisher: August House ISBN: 9780874835267

In this abundant and kaleidoscopic collection, Spagnoli includes stories from Japan, India, Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia, the Philippines, Bangladesh, Laos, Tibet, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, China, Indonesia, Taiwan, Burma, and Nepal. After profiling modern Asian storytellers practicing traditional storytelling styles, she arranges the stories around dominant Asian themes such as Harmony and Friendship