Gossip Books

I picked this book up as something to read on the plane, not knowing or even hearing of Ms. Kellogg ever before. But, once I started reading it, I just couldn't put it down. I was very impressed with Ms. Kellogg's style--she gives her main character, Lilly Bennett, such insight and wisdom into all the other brilliant characters that inhabit the story, I was enraptured to the end. I love the setting and general feel of the book- the laid-back, yet sophisticated upper-class western that the book is set in was a breath of fresh air from what seems like every other stuffy, old-school murder mystery dealing with the upper class.

I'm working on reading all the rest of Ms. Kellogg's work now, and I have to say that it just keeps getting better. Kudos to you, Marne!

She is the President of Bennett Security as well as the Federal Marshal at the tourist attraction of Bennett's Fist. As the extremely successful Lily Bennett nears fifty, she falls in love for the first time in her life. In six days, she plans to marry the man of her dreams. Ever since Lily became a cop instead of a debutante at twenty-two, her mother has prayed every night for this day to occur.

Even as her calendar is filled with last minute social events and wedding details, Lily is also working on a case. A power struggle between two half-sisters over control of Rutherford Oil has led to one of the siblings being shot to death. The deceased's spouse Wade Gilhooey hires Lily to prove that he did not kill his wife. Lily quickly learns that the victim had many enemies, but things turn personal and ugly when an attempt to kill Lily's brother occurs because he has information that someone does not want leaked. With her plate boiling over, readers must wonder whether Lily will make it to the church in one piece.

Fans will enjoy the believable changes that love has made to Lily, who remains one of the best female sleuths in nineties literature. However, what makes NOTHING BUT GOSSIP click is the juxtaposition between murder scenes and wedding events. Mame Davis Kellog takes a rather risky chance with her popular sleuth, but succeeds in freshening up her series.

Harriet Klausner

Forget the plot -- read Kellogg's books for her wordsmithing. In this novel, sleuth Lily really comes into her own with her on-target marksmanship rivaled only by her pinpoint accuracy in assessing the world as we know it. Her comments on an indecent exposure case are worth the price of admission. And how refreshing it is to have a protagonist who doesn't cut her own hair with nail scissors but who can still shoot-em-up with the best of 'em.

Heiress, private sleuth and U.S. Marshall, Lilly Bennett, is finally getting married, an event which her mother had almost given up on. After more than a couple decades of trying to find the right man, Lilly is marrying Richard...who is everything a woman could want. She takes on the case of a murdered oil heiress the week of her fabulous wedding and puts not only her life and that of her brother's on the line, but is expected to attend a number of high society pre-marital parties. Can she do it all and still keep the love of her life? Lilly has fun skewering both ends of the political spectrum as well as societal mores. A professional woman sleuth...with a big difference.

When she was very young, my daughter loved pop-up books like this one. The sections that pop up form opening and closing mouths and bills, something that she was fascinated with. The story involves a series of common Earth animals all talking about a flying saucer that landed on the roof. They are: a cat, a crossbill, a bulldog, a duck and a hippo. The last animal is a little green Martian. My daughter would have loved this book.

We are on our second generation of kids enjoying Jan Pienkowski's wonderful pop-up books, including Small Talk, which was originally titled "Gossip". The illustrations are bright, vivid and amaze children & adults alike. Highly highly highly recommend these books.

Cute pop-ups, good for very young children. It's one of my childhood favorites as well as my sister's.(We're 13 & 11 now)

This is one of my favorite Jan Pienkowski books. The text is sparse. It's a short message that gets boggled as it is repeated over and over (like in the game "telephone") by a series of animals. It's not really a story, though--it's more of a statement. To that end, I suppose a teacher could use it as an entree to a discussion of listening skills. Or, perhaps a parent could use it to highlight the importance of taking accurate phone messages or something of the sort. But I don't see it as the type of book a child, particular an older child (post-kindergarten) would read over and over again. On the other hand, I think it is a very appealing book for babies and young toddlers, even though it is not recommended for that age group. The text will be lost on them, but the marvelous pop-ups won't. They are big, colorful, three-dimensional animal faces. My son loved them. He was only a baby, but I would lay him on his back and show him the pictures and make the animal sounds. He would reach up and put his hands in the animals' mouths and giggle. As he got a little older, he would go through the book himself, saying the names of the animals and making their sounds. Of course, the downside of babies and pop-up books is that the pop-up books end up taking a beating. SMALL TALK did not make it to my son's second birthday. Even so, when I have another baby, it's the first book I'm going to buy him (or her).

Winchell: Gossip, Power and the Culture of Celebrity is an historical biography of Walter Winchell, a lower class Russian-American Jewish boy who morphed himself from a teenaged vaudeville performer into a nationally famous gossip columnist and radio personality that helped shape Depression-era and World War II America.

Walter Winchell was born in Harlem on April 7, 1897. As an adult, Winchell recalled an unhappy childhood of poverty, deprivation and neglect, surrounded by people who insulted and reviled him because he was poor. Author Neal Gabler says Winchell's childhood made him antagonistic, suspicious and resentful throughout his life. As an adolescent, he found the attention he craved and the skills he would use later in his career on the vaudeville stage. From vaudeville, Gabler says Winchell learned the values of mass culture and how to appear to be incautiously independent, unselfconscious and liberated. In reality, he was none of these. Gabler maintains "vaudeville made Walter Winchell an entertainer for life and in life."

When he was 12, Winchell taught himself to dance and was hired as a "song plugger" at a decrepit movie theater across from his apartment building. Song pluggers sang new tunes before the movie began, often leading the audience in group singing designed to sell them sheet music. When he was 13, Winchell won an audition with six other boys to fill parts in a show called the "Song Revue" that toured the country for a year on the Orpheum vaudeville circuit. Winchell performed with vaudeville companies and in a two-person act with his first wife, Rita Greene, until he was 23 when he escaped the stage to the poorly paid world of trade journalism as an assistant editor of "The Vaudeville News." Gabler says there is no evidence Winchell ever thought about becoming a reporter. He had little formal education and certainly no training in journalism. Nonetheless, he was driven to find a way to earn a living more secure than that of a vaudevillian. Attracted by the power of publicity that was indispensable to a vaudeville show, he leveraged his stage training, distinctive voice and theatrical personality into a character that looked like a traditional journalist. Rather than report, analyze and interpret legitimate news, however, Winchell became a big-name media gossip with enormous impact in a crucial period of 20th century American life.

Winchell worked incredibly hard for his fame. By 1933, he was internationally famous for his Jergens Lotion-sponsored ABC radio program, his movie roles and newsreel narrations, personal appearances and his daily "The Column" in the New York Mirror, syndicated nationally by Hearst's King Features. Alexander Woolcott wrote, "I have never been able to get far enough into the North woods not to find some trapper there who would quote Winchell's latest observation." Winchell's power did not derive from his accuracy; he was often very wrong. He never admitted mistakes as his fault, never issued retractions. Gabler says "The Column" was so sacrosanct and café society's faith in publicity so devout that Winchell spoke and wrote with an oracular authority. "If Winchell says so, it's gotta be true," said Lucille Ball about a Winchell report she was expecting a child (she was). Journalist-turned-film-producer David Brown was shocked to read in Winchell one day that his wife was divorcing him, then heard from her lawyer the next morning.

Winchell built his huge radio and newspaper following with a quirky blend of serious news seasoned with trivial theatrical gossip, topped off with stinging personal comment. He wrapped it all in a pop entertainment package that imitated journalistic form. He would give the same urgency and drama to a story of 10,000 people killed in an Ethiopian earthquake as to one about a cross-eyed man whose eyes were uncrossed when he was hit by a truck. Winchell's loyalists patronized him for his vicious attacks on famous people and his implied promise to tell them what was going to happen before it actually occurred. His shtick irritated traditional journalism and disgusted intellectuals who stumbled into listening or reading him. Gabler says Winchell was successful in the 1930s because Americans in the Depression distrusted traditional authority. And he nails the main reason for Winchell's success: for most folks, Walter Winchell was fun.

His radio audience lived primarily in eastern states and in urban areas with populations over 50,000. New York Herald Tribune radio critic John Crosby explained Winchell as an anxiety-monger who brilliantly captured the national mood in times of uncertainty. He added, "There's a definite feeling of guilt connected with listening to Walter Winchell." Gabler reports Winchell was at the top of national radio ratings just after Pearl Harbor and for several months in 1947-48 as Americans faced the threat of another war, this time with the Soviet Union. At times, his radio audience was larger than those of Bob Hope and Jack Benny.

Walter Winchell enjoyed a deep insider relationship with Franklin Roosevelt's White House and considered FDR a father figure and his benefactor. Just like Winchell's back-scratching friendship with FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, the Roosevelt-Winchell association was a quid pro quo arrangement. Roosevelt guided Winchell politically for years, elevating him from the mud of gossip to occasionally credible political commentary. In return, Winchell flacked for FDR - and for Hoover - delivering the President's spin to Walter's massive radio and newspaper audiences. Roosevelt was also Winchell's apologist, lending him the power of the Oval Office when Walter needed protection. FDR's death marked the beginning of the end of Winchell's career.

Gabler compares Winchell to FDR's successor, Harry Truman and in the process, helps readers understand the real Winchell. He says Truman was the "quintessence of nineteenth century rural Midwestern America, Walter of twentieth-century eastern urban America. Truman was self-effacing, Walter self-aggrandizing. Truman was dispassionate, Walter the very model of hot unreason. Truman was a moderator by instinct, Walter a crusader. Truman was a private man thrust into a public role, Walter was a man without any private life at all, a man always on stage."

After bowing at Roosevelt's throne, Winchell found no majesty in Truman. He lacked the theatricality Roosevelt had in abundance that was so important to Winchell. What's more, Truman would never court Winchell as Roosevelt had and Walter resented it.

One of Winchell's sharpest critics was Time magazine. The magazine infuriated Winchell with steel fisted jabs wrapped in velvet gloves, asking him to show "a greater sense of responsibility in deciding what is legitimate public news and what is mere trouble-making gossip." Winchell was always happy to return the disrespect. As he became a strident, scare-mongering critic of Russian communism, he lashed out at Time. "Whittaker Chambers, Russian spy, started as top editor at Time mag in 1939 and not long after that (sic) mag could find nothing good about anything this American reporter wrote or said."

Because he'd been on the air, in print and in the national public eye so long, Winchell's audience had come to know what it could expect and developed a familiar, simple trust in him. Roosevelt's insider tips and interpretation of nuance had been extraordinarily important to Winchell in this regard. However after FDR's death, Winchell's naiveté and questionable judgment appeared with increasing frequency and America's trust in him declined. Two examples are telling. Shortly after Churchill's 1946 anti-Russian "Iron Curtain" speech at Westminster College in Missouri, Winchell wrote a piece praising Soviet dictator Josef Stalin, commending his "stern realism." Even though Winchell had always detested communism, it was hard for him to muster the same antagonism toward it as he had against Nazi fascism. Despite evolving into a staunch anti-Soviet, scaring America by calling for preparation for war against Russia, the Stalin piece weakened the Winchell mystique.

He pushed his own popularity over a cliff with strong support for Senator Joseph McCarthy. In fact, he was McCarthy's loudest cheerleader during the Army-McCarthy hearings. Winchell was later subpoenaed by the Watkins bipartisan congressional committee investigating McCarthy's communist witch hunt, interrogating him about sources for his "reporting." Winchell never revealed them, but word on the street made him a stooge for McCarthy and his committee's counsel, Roy Conn. While McCarthy faded from public consciousness, Winchell continued to defend him. As he did, Gabler says people came to see Winchell as a "crazy reactionary who destroyed careers, exacted revenge, baited alleged Reds, flung lies and half-truths and generally engaged in the worst excesses of this shameful period. And it was all true ... he had become a right-wing fanatic himself."

Toward the end of his career, Winchell confessed the fear that drove him constantly to self-promotion. "Who else will write about me?" he asked. Perhaps more revealing was Winchell's reaction to criticism that he'd talked too fast on one of his broadcasts. "If I slowed up," he said, "listeners would understand what I'm saying. Then they'd realize how unimportant it is and turn me off." Gabler says Winchell was always sensitive to the thin thread of celebrity, fearing it eventually would snap and banish him to the unknown. Rather than snap, though, Winchell's celebrity simply stretched into irrelevancy. Lonely and far removed from the center of public attention at the end of his frenetic professional and turbulent personal life, he died in California on February 20, 1972, a few months before his 75th birthday.

Walter Winchell entertained millions of Americans for decades by appealing to base human instincts. He was a far cry from a critical thinking, reflective journalist. On the contrary, he was a simplistic, opportunistic gossip who knew how to grab the public's attention. As a journalist, he lurked in the intellectual shadows of contemporaries Walter Lippmann, H.L. Mencken, Dorothy Thompson, Boake Carter and David Lawrence, each of whom overpowered Winchell with their insight.

Gabler's excellent book encourages a reflection on Winchell's legacy. He is the only American columnist / commentator ever to hold simultaneous top national broadcast ratings and print circulations in unrelated media properties and he did it for almost 20 years. His generation-long dominance of the American media-consuming audience of the day makes Walter Winchell arguably the most powerful individual voice in American journalistic history. In addition, he was one of the major characters who helped build U.S. radio. He was one of the first practitioners of tabloid journalism. Some would consider him the father of today's chatty, siren-chasing television content that masquerades as news.

There is no question Walter Winchell left an extraordinarily large footprint on 20th century America from the Great Depression through the years immediately after World War II. Tens of millions of Americans formed opinions reading and listening to him gossip, speculate and ridicule famous people. This legacy is why Winchell by Neal Gabler is important: the book helps us understand how a great deal of American public opinion was formed in a crucial time of U.S. history. Much of that opinion came from the typewriter and voice of Walter Winchell.

Although most of us remember Walter Winchell fo rhis rapid-fire narration for the old "Untouchables" television show, he was much more than that. Neal Gabler chronicles Winchell's career and life, but it's his analysis of Winchell's affect on his times and culture that makes this book transcend routine biography. Winchell's became a powerful voice for a time: businessmen wanted to be his friend, celebrities needed him, and politicians feared him. In fact, most people feared him. But somehow, Winchell created a definition of celebrity that has endured even today. Although he may be forgetton in our conscious memories, Winchell still looms large in our cultural memory. This is a stunning biography of a man who fought hard to get it all and fought equally hard to keep his fame and recognition as lost it in a blaze of self-destructiveness. One of the best books I've read in years.

This is a great story of a strange man. Someone who got power, defined the celebrity personal interest story, exploited the influence he developed, thought he was God, and ruined his own life. It is especially compelling reading when it becomes clear that our fascination with famous people and their love lives and personal faults is really whipped up by these media people. It is also great when talking about Lucille Ball and how the public embraced her. When you see Winchell making the fateful mistake when siding with McCarthy, it seems like karma. This is a fantastic book.

One has to admire Walter Winchell for he had it all: fame, power, money and beautiful women. Everything a man could want. And he had it for a long time (from the 1930s to the 1950s).

He also had an enormous ego which fostered many feuds with others he feared.

An outstanding book.

I have found this book to give an extremely good insight into the heart of man. If they would look into themselves, one will be able to see many dark areas in their lives. They will know also that our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ is the only one who can save, and most of all, forgive.I hope that others will find themselves within the pages.

When I was reading this book, I actually felt as though I, myself, was living on Christian Island. These parables about gossip, pride and discontentment are written in such a way that you as a reader become totally engrossed in all that is going on. It really gave me a very real and practical look of how gossip, pride and discontentment effects not only me but my relationship with God as well as others. I strongly encourage you to read this book to see how important it is NOT to let these 3 issues be a part of your life and ultimately cause breakdowns between you and God.

I coun't put it down for a minute. I felt the characters were interesting and I counld't wait to know what happens to them next. The book is filled with small surprizes. I would refer this book to everyone. It's a winner!

As a health care professional, I have shared Darcy Daisy with many patients as a way for them to explain bipolar disorder to their children. Darcy has earned a permanent place on our bookshelf!! Traci, RN, BSN, IBCLC

Darcy Daisy is a wonderful book for teaching children about an all too common disorder. It is brilliantly written and the illustrations are so colorful and exciting. A great educational book for children of all ages.

This book is a great tool for teaching kids. The illustrations are BEAUTIFUL! The illustrations along with the great story keep interest as well as teach a wonderful lesson on acceptance for others who are different!!! I can't say enough great things about this book!!!! Great for "kids" of all ages!

If you love reading junkey teen books such as the Clique or the A list,youll love this one! This is the first book in the series, so deffenetly read if first.

Blair, the main character has her life set out for her, shes the most popular girl, and she has a gorgeous boyfriend, untill her ex- friend serena comes back from bording school. She ignors her friend, and struggles to keep her boyfriend, nate interested in her. Not only that but she constanley worries about Serena (ex-friend) taking her positon, losing her virginity, and planning a great party.

Serena comes back from bording school to find that all her old friends are now avoiding her. She has no friennds, but still manages to attract the boys. When she relizes that she has to step it up to get into college, she decides she wants to create movies. Can she steal Nate from Blair, or will Nate stay loyal?

Nate is going out with Blair and is not sure if he loves her or not. He suddenly has a longing for Serena, and juggles between the two girls, who do not speak to eachother. Will he fall in love with Blair for real?

This is quite a juicy book and you should read it. Remember that was only a description, you have to actually read it to find out what happens!!!!!

I love reading this book and every Gossip Girl book, not only do I just love reading it, but I share it with all my friends and my Mom
she loves the books just as much as I do. My Mom said it reminds her of my friends and I, but without all of the sex and drugs and refreshments if you know what I mean. I a new GRAD from High School class of 2006 GVHS in California and I will continue to read the GG books and if you don't already know about the IT GIRL you need to start reading it before you get behind in all of the Gossip....
N Martinez

This book is like constantly reading a juicy bit of information and you just want to find out more and more about the lives of the kids at New York's finest schools. You learn these kids are just like any normal person, in a sense. They can feel lonely or have the best parties. Some of the plot points are focused on `the perfect couple,' the jealous ex-best friends(the story of that is not as dramatic as it may sound but that part is a good read that anyone with an ex-friend can relate to), and crushes. The book is written from the author's point of view, except during the internet pages. The internet pages are pages on all of the characters from one of them. This mole leaks secrets but only calls them by the first letter in their name. No one knows who it is. The internet pages are not part of the plot, they just make it seem like more of a gossip book. The only con is that you cannot figure out which character you should like. It is very much like real life in that sense, but you just don't know who you should root for. This book is great for someone that loves gossip, the lives of others, or any high school student. It is not only filled with rich kids but a few kids with scholarships. They bring a different, more relating point of view to the book. Overall this book is great and very addicting. It is a series, so you can just keep on reading. Each book covers about three to five weeks in time. They are written in a sequence. I would recommend reading the others if you like this one.

the gossip girl books are fun to read. i don't like some of the casting for the show but i think blair(the girl who plays her) is cute

Read it when it first came out... However, i'm not satisfied with the cover from the new tv series. These actress do not convey the way i imagined Serena & Blair to look like. I have the complete series and in none of the book cover you get to see the face of none of the girls and i was very pleased with that.

Serena's come home after getting kicked out of boarding school and everyone wants to know if the rumors are true. Was she pregnant and did she leave her baby in France? Is she really dealing drugs with her initial "S" stamped on each pill? And what's up with her clothes? Is she getting them from a homeless shelter?

All Serena wants to do is hang with her friends and have her old life back. Unfortunately, her friends and old life don't seem to want her back. But don't waste any time feeling sorry for her. She's still rich and gorgeous, and manages to draw the attention of two photo-artists who ask her to model for them and then plaster the city with her pictures. (Well, pictures of some part of her. No one's really quite sure which part, though. Belly button, maybe?) Anyway, she also manages to make new friends and shows signs of adding some depth to her otherwise shallow world.

Don't expect to walk away feeling enlightened after reading this page turner, however. It's not great literature, but it is entertaining and a breezy bit of escapism, much like its tv namesake. Fans of the weekly drama will note some character differences: the names are the same, but physical descriptions, personality traits and economic status vary - most notably in the characters of Dan and Ginny Humphrey. Dan is a little more gritty and angst-ridden and Ginny doesn't look so much like Barbie's little sister, Skipper.

I rated the book five stars because I really enjoyed it and plan on reading the rest of the series. Would I recommend it to you? Well, if you're familiar with and enjoyed Morgan Burke's Party Room trilogy, Melissa De La Cruz's Blue Bloods or Hobson Brown's The Upper Class, you'll probably like Gossip Girl, too. They all center around spoiled, rich kids - or, in the case of Blue Bloods, spoiled, rich vampires - and the dirty secrets that sometimes even money can't hush.

I first found this book at the library, then decided I wanted my own copy to have these delightful poems always at hand. If they were visual art they would be collage -- forgotten images, bits of dreams, a flash of childhood color, combined in new and surprising ways. It is risky to take phrases out of context, especially with these poems, but I loved lines like, "Attention shoppers: national emergency on sale next week" and "Don't marry until you see the ache in their eyes." Buy the book and see for yourself!

I loved this little book! The crazy painting on the cover caught my eye, then the poems inside really got me going. I didn't understand all the references, but the writing was so twisted and wild, I couldn't put the book down. One of my faves, "And Called It Milk," was both silly and profound at the same time. How does Fink do it? The combination of words, the patterns, the rhythms, make the reading (and the rereading) a truly total experience. I'll be looking out for more Fink books-- after I read Gossip again. That guy must be one cool dude!

Highly recommended!

This book offers the type of well-rounded experience that wonderful poetry can offer. The poems are purr-fectly pitched as they -- alluding to the title theme of GOSSIP -- capture the private back-and-forths going through a person's mind in the midst of a conversation, in addition to the public narratives being articulated. While the poems develop along a strong energy path, they also throw off many wonderful lines that deserve to become epigrams. Thus, the poet masters the balance between offering a meaningful narrative that, yet, does not get in the way of the poem's abstract energy. That is, Thomas Fink has written pure music without discounting narrative. Adept, cerebral, passionate, wry, wise , lucid, resonantly imagistic -- it is a marvel to read, behold and experience. My favorite line arguably is: "Icarus lived, and the sky turned pink."

I highly recommend Val Holley's latest study, of the late gossip columnist Mike Connolly, for anyone interested in reading between the lines of Hollywood history. Connolly, not all that likeable a character, managed to kow-tow to 1950's norms yet retain his individuality as a gay blade while becoming an important Tinsel-town presence in a time of conformity. Holley's bio of this unforgettable presence is a snappy read and gives the same insights into the man's character and motivations as his bios of James Dean do for that star.

This book tells the story of a flamboyant Hollywood character, who had the personal power to make or break careers of movie stars and other well-known people, long before the likes of the National Enquirer were ever thought of. The in-depth research for this book is so all-inclusive that even reading the bibliography can be a literary experience in its own right. Its thorough coverage of the Communist-chasing Senator Joseph McCarthy's dark period when so-called black-listed people could either not find work, or who had to work under assumed names, also gives historical credence to the book. Connolly's dogged anti-communist and anti-smut campaigns are described with full-blown candor.

The truth that the gifted journalist Mike Connolly was gay would come as a surprise to many readers such as myself, and it did not negate or overshadow his staunch Catholic upbringing, his campaigns against vice, or his writing. His being gay does not overwhelm either the book, or the reader.

You will not be able to put this book down, once you begin to read it. ...

Marvelously fun and fascinating; this is the most delightful and interesting work I've read in some time. The scads of delectable skinny alone make this book almost impossible to put down. But there's more here than dish: the Mike Connolly who emerges from Holley's carefully researched biography is an intriguing, complex, powerful, hilarious, and superbly talented figure. The author could easily have sketched a simplistic image of Connolly as a repressed gay intellectual, swerving his rage into anti-Communist vitriol. Instead, Holley builds up a nuanced portait of his subject by painstakingly mining the written record and loads of interviews with the subject's friends, family, and colleagues. In Holley's view, Connolly's campaign against leftist influence in the movie industry sprang from numerous sources, including his Irish Catholicism, his identification with the culture of Hollywood, his patriotism, his status in the movie industry, and the childhood poverty that fueled Connolly's drive to assimilate into elite society. The author sees Connolly, not as a victim of sexual politics, but as a forerunner of today's influential Log Cabin Republicans. Likewise, Holley eschews commonplace notions of the "closet" in presenting an intricate image of Connolly's gayness and Connolly's success in holding the mirror up to gay Hollywood culture. The author vividly depicts Connolly's strikingly "open" way of life, and details the various "rules" by which Connolly and other gay film industry figures thrived within industry boundaries. All the while, the author spices the account with excerpts from Connolly's writing, by turns witty, playful, bitchy, scolding, vicious, and luxuriating in scandal. Moreover, Holley's story casts light - often new and always engaging - on numerous landmarks in Hollywood history, among them the "Confidential" magazine crisis and the threatened outing of Rock Hudson, the rivalry among the leading gossip writers, the Blacklist, and the movie industry's pivotal role in the 1960 Presidential campaign. Doubtless, Holley's book will appeal to an array of readers. Movie buffs will fasten on discoveries about their favorite stars and scandals (don't miss the inside scoops on Sinatra, JFK, and Peter Lawford); devotees of Hollywood camp will enjoy scores of delicious anecdotes and zingers (Tallulah Bankhead's 52nd birthday extravaganza surely takes the prize); film historians will find a well researched contribution to the social history of the later studio system; and gay studies scholars will uncover much of value: new tools for analyzing gay writing (such as Holley's "Rules of Gay Gossip" and Connolly's techniques for "openly" publishing gay scuttlebutt), a detailed picture of a pioneer of gay political conservatism, and a multifaceted and innovative depiction of queer Hollywood.

Kathy Park's illustrations pop off the pages of "The Student from Zombie Island and tickle your funny bone! While children laugh themselves silly at the book's original humor -- only a child author like Michael Moorehead can really relate to what makes his peers laugh -- adults love the subliminal message it teaches about not spreading false rumors.

Bust `em Up Bill is starting his first day at a new school in the middle of the school year, setting the stage for outrageous rumors to circulate about him before he even sets foot in the classroom. They say his breath is so bad, it will singe your face if you get too close, and if he burps near you, it might even set your hair on fire! Everyone knows he must be a frightening, horrible, rotten monster! Could it be true? With a name like his, why wouldn't it be? You'll have to read it to find out!


The "Student From Zombie Island" is the perfect book for gift-giving!

here's a new student coming to class and no one is looking forward to it. The kids have been told he's called Bust `Em Up Bill, but they aren't sure why. Rumors fly as they try to decide what Bust `Em Up Bill will be like.

Each student has their own idea of how Bill must have gotten his name. Suzy Frederick is sure he's six feet tall and set kids hair on fire with his horrible breath. Penny Jinx thinks he must torture kids on the playground and make them swing from the monkey bars - by the tails. T.J. McGravy says Bill doesn't exercise in gym class, but makes kids run around the track 5,000 times - sideways. Who to believe? How bad will Bust `Em Up Bill be?

The Student From Zombie Island was written by Michael J. Moorhead when he was just seven years old. The book teaches children the danger of believing rumors and reminds readers that rumors can easily grow out of control and be far from the truth. It's a funny book - well written and includes adorable illustrations by Kathy Parks.

I enjoyed this book, as did my children. My daughter will be starting kindergarten in the fall, so this book came at a perfect time. It helped open up discussion about rumors and how to treat new kids at school and is written in such a way that it made it a fun topic to talk about instead of feeling threatening.

Reviewed by Brianne Plach (age 10) For Reader Views (1/08)

Have you ever had a new kid in your school? Do wonder what the person would be like? Sometimes your imagination can run away with you. Bust `em up Bill might have the same ideas as you? Some people might say this guy is.... troublemaker or a thief. Do you sometimes believe them? The book seems so realistic. Imagine bringing live bees to study spelling and putting whoopee cushions with chocolate pudding on other peoples' chairs! Most of the time, the kid isn't as bad as they say he is. Busting up your classmates can sometimes mean more than just beating up on their classmates.

Michael J. Moorehead has written a very entertaining book which will entertain children of all ages. This will be a delight to the kids who have a new kid in their class, or are a new kid in a class. Adjusting to being new in a school can sometimes be hard, but if you enter laughing and have a good attitude, there is nothing you can't do and you will soon find some new friends.

Jumping to conclusions without finding out the facts is never a good idea. The concept of "The Student from Zombie Island: Conquering the Rumor Monster" comes across in a smooth way and humorous pictures. I would love to read more books about the student from Zombie Island and his adventures at his new school!