The hero's closet

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Gillian Conahan

"This essential handbook offers detailed, step-by-step instructions that cover the basics of sewing costumes (which often require skills not found in standard sewing guides) to help even the most novice sewists create the costumes of their dreams. A skilled crafter and avid cosplayer, Gillian Conahan walks readers through finding inspiration online and through their fandom; shares insight into translating character art into real-world garments; and offers advice on pattern selection, alterations, fabrics, and embellishment techniques. The book also features 11 original step-by-step basic patterns--such as jumpsuits, jackets, and pants. It then suggests ideas for mixing and matching these basics to create costumes of all styles, including superheroes, pirates, elves, school girls, and adventurers"--Provided by publisher.

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Hooman Majd

A revealing look at Iran by an American journalist with an insider's access behind Persian wallsThe grandson of an eminent ayatollah and the son of an Iranian diplomat, now an American citizen, Hooman Majd is, in a way, both 100 percent Iranian and 100 percent American, combining an insider's knowledge of how Iran works with a remarkable ability to explain its history and its quirks to Western readers. In The Ayatollah Begs to Differ, he paints a portrait of a country that is fiercely proud of its Persian heritage, mystified by its outsider status, and scornful of the idea that the United States can dictate how it should interact with the community of nations.With wit, style, and an unusual ability to get past the typical sound bite on Iran, Majd reveals the paradoxes inherent in the Iranian character which have baffled Americans for more than thirty years. Meeting with sartorially challenged government officials in the presidential palace; smoking opium with an addicted cleric, his family, and friends; drinking fine whiskey at parties in fashionable North Tehran; and gingerly self-flagellating in a celebration of Ashura, Majd takes readers on a rare tour of Iran and shares insights shaped by his complex heritage. He considers Iran as a Muslim country, as a Shiite country, and, perhaps above all, as a Persian one. Majd shows that as Shiites marked by an inferiority complex, and Persians marked by a superiority complex, Iranians are fiercely devoted to protecting their rights, a factor that has contributed to their intransigence over their nuclear programs. He points to the importance of the Persian view of privacy, arguing that the stability of the current regime owes much to the freedom Iranians have to behave as they wish behind "Persian walls." And with wry affection, Majd describes the Persian concept of ta'arouf, an exaggerated form of polite self-deprecation that may explain some of Iranian President Ahmadinejad's more bizarre public moments. With unforgettable portraits of Iranians, from government figures to women cab drivers to reform-minded Ayatollahs, Majd brings to life a country that is deeply religious yet highly cosmopolitan, authoritarian yet with democratic and reformist traditions--an Iran that is a more nuanced nemesis to the United States than it is typically portrayed to be.

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Sherry North

**(Age 7+) (Gr.2-3)** In illustrations and verse, lists some of the places a teacher would take her students if she had the means, from a hot-air balloon trip over China's Great Wall to an air-boat ride in the Everglades to observe alligators. **Fun, clear illustrations and easy to read print.** **Goodreads review:** One devoted teacher will **stop at nothing to show her class the wonders of the world.** From soaring over the Great Wall of China to hang gliding in the Australian Outback, the class has all kinds of adventures, across all seven continents. **Because You Are My Teacher**, a companion to **Because You Are My Baby** and **Because I Am Your Daddy** by the dynamic author-illustrator team of Sherry North and Marcellus Hall, is an exciting introduction to geography and makes a touching gift for any teacher who has broadened your child’s horizons. **The book includes a note about the seven continents and each of the places or creatures mentioned in the book.**

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Robyn Mundy

Freya has come to Antarctica ostensibly to undertake a photographic expedition to retrace Frank Hurley's iconic photographs--but also to escape a stifling relationship. Once she is there, though, living in the cramped and close confines of Davis Station, the extraordinary world of Antarctica gets under her skin and she starts to unfurl, finding her world change in ways she would never previously had thought possible. Weaving in a vivid recreation of Douglas Mawson's ill-fated 1911- 1914 Antarctic expedition into the contemporary story of a woman coming to terms with the end of her marriage, this is a poetic, multi-stranded novel of present and past, hope and tragedy, love and loss. It is not only a love story and a heart-stopping, intensely moving polar adventure story, but also a story of place, bringing to vivid life the extraordinary landscape of Antarctica, the frozen continent that intrigues us all--Cover, p.4.