Professor Astro Cat's Atomic Adventure


Book Description

Class is in session, and the subject is physics. Your teacher? Why, he’s the smartest cat in the galaxy! In this brilliant follow up to Professor Astro Cat’s Frontiers of Space, our trusty feline returns to take you on a journey through the incredible world of physics. Learn about energy, power and the building blocks of you, me and the universe in this all new ATOMIC ADVENTURE!




Trinity: A Graphic History of the First Atomic Bomb


Book Description

Trinity, the debut graphic book by Jonathan Fetter-Vorm, depicts the dramatic history of the race to build and the decision to drop the first atomic bomb in World War Two—with a focus on the brilliant, enigmatic scientist, J. Robert Oppenheimer. "Succeeds as both a graphic primer and a philosophical meditation." —Kirkus Reviews (starred review) This sweeping historical narrative traces the spark of invention from the laboratories of nineteenth-century Europe to the massive industrial and scientific efforts of the Manhattan Project, and even transports the reader into a nuclear reaction—into the splitting atoms themselves. The power of the atom was harnessed in a top-secret government compound in Los Alamos, New Mexico, by a group of brilliant scientists led by the enigmatic wunderkind J. Robert Oppenheimer. Focused from the start on the monumentally difficult task of building an atomic weapon, these men and women soon began to wrestle with the moral implications of actually succeeding. When they detonated the first bomb at a test site code-named Trinity, they recognized that they had irreversibly thrust the world into a new and terrifying age. With powerful renderings of WWII's catastrophic events at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Fetter-Vorm unflinchingly chronicles the far-reaching political, environmental, and psychological effects of this new invention. Informative and thought-provoking, Trinity is the ideal introduction to one of the most significant events in history.




The Rise of Nuclear Fear


Book Description

After a tsunami destroyed the cooling system at Japan's Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant, triggering a meltdown, protesters around the world challenged the use of nuclear power. Germany announced it would close its plants by 2022. Although the ills of fossil fuels are better understood than ever, the threat of climate change has never aroused the same visceral dread or swift action. Spencer Weart dissects this paradox, demonstrating that a powerful web of images surrounding nuclear energy holds us captive, allowing fear, rather than facts, to drive our thinking and public policy.Building on his classic, Nuclear Fear, Weart follows nuclear imagery from its origins in the symbolism of medieval alchemy to its appearance in film and fiction. Long before nuclear fission was discovered, fantasies of the destroyed planet, the transforming ray, and the white city of the future took root in the popular imagination. At the turn of the twentieth century when limited facts about radioactivity became known, they produced a blurred picture upon which scientists and the public projected their hopes and fears. These fears were magnified during the Cold War, when mushroom clouds no longer needed to be imagined; they appeared on the evening news. Weart examines nuclear anxiety in sources as diverse as Alain Resnais's film Hiroshima Mon Amour, Cormac McCarthy's novel The Road, and the television show The Simpsons.Recognizing how much we remain in thrall to these setpieces of the imagination, Weart hopes, will help us resist manipulation from both sides of the nuclear debate.




The Mouse Machine


Book Description

Throughout Disney's phenomenally successful run in the entertainment industry, the company has negotiated the use of cutting-edge film and media technologies that, J. P. Telotte argues, have proven fundamental to the company's identity. Disney's technological developments include the use of stereophonic surround sound for Fantasia, experimentation with wide-screen technology, inaugural adoption of three-strip Technicolor film, and early efforts at fostering depth in the animated image. Telotte also chronicles Disney's partnership with television, development of the theme park, and depiction of technology in science-fiction narratives. An in-depth discussion of Disney's shift into digital filmmaking with its Pixar partnership and an emphasis on digital special effects in live-action films, such as the Pirates of the Caribbean series, also highlight the studio's historical investment in technology. By exploring the technological context for Disney creations throughout its history, The Mouse Machine illuminates Disney's extraordinary growth into one of the largest and most influential media and entertainment companies in the world. Hardbook is unjacketed.




The Idea of Nature in Disney Animation


Book Description

In the second edition of The Idea of Nature in Disney Animation, David Whitley updates his 2008 book to reflect recent developments in Disney and Disney-Pixar animation such as the apocalyptic tale of earth's failed ecosystem, WALL-E. As Whitley has shown, and Disney's newest films continue to demonstrate, the messages animated films convey about the natural world are of crucial importance to their child viewers. Beginning with Snow White, Whitley examines a wide range of Disney's feature animations, in which images of wild nature are central to the narrative. He challenges the notion that the sentimentality of the Disney aesthetic, an oft-criticized aspect of such films as Bambi, The Jungle Book, Pocahontas, Beauty and the Beast, and Finding Nemo, necessarily prevents audiences from developing a critical awareness of contested environmental issues. On the contrary, even as the films communicate the central ideologies of the times in which they were produced, they also express the ambiguities and tensions that underlie these dominant values. In distinguishing among the effects produced by each film and revealing the diverse ways in which images of nature are mediated, Whitley urges us towards a more complex interpretation of the classic Disney canon and makes an important contribution to our understanding of the role popular art plays in shaping the emotions and ideas that are central to contemporary experience.




Yes, I Glow in the Dark!


Book Description

CLOSE ALL YOUR DOORS AND WINDOWS AND DO NOT GO OUTSIDE UNLESS YOU ABS0LUTELY HAVE TO. The police loudspeaker warned that what was not supposed to happen had happened: a malfunctioning nuclear reactor just down the road. That's where author Libbe HaLevy found herself in 1979, when she visited a friend in a small, quiet Pennsylvania town and ended up one mile away from the Three Mile Island nuclear reactor during its radiation-spewing meltdown. YES, I GLOW IN THE DARK! tells the story of not only that meltdown, but its impact on a life beyond the mere physical damage caused by radiation exposure. From 1950's Duck-and-Cover exercises in case of a nuclear bomb and Disney's Our Friend, the Atom through decades of post-TMI nuclear PTSD to her current level of international media activism, HaLevy's YES, I GLOW IN THE DARK! tells how one nuclear victim learned to fight back with the facts, sarcasm, and a podcast. She draws parallels between the behaviors of nuclear industry officials and perpetrators of sexual abuse, and explains how the people at TMI and around other nuclear sites have been victims of perpetrational behavior by vested nuclear interests. She also nails the nuclear industry on how they have continued to get away with slow motion murder, from manipulating language to their ongoing, well-funded media propaganda campaigns, to flat-out lying. Fierce, uncompromising, yet surprisingly funny, HaLevy has written a book that Australian physician, author, and anti-nuclear advocate Dr. Helen Caldicott calls, "Absolutely fascinating. This book must be read by all people who care about the future of the planet and their children."




The Football Girl


Book Description

For every athlete or sports fanatic who knows she's just as good as the guys. This is for fans of The Running Dream by Wendelin Van Draanen, Grace, Gold, and Glory by Gabrielle Douglass and Breakaway: Beyond the Goal by Alex Morgan. The summer before Caleb and Tessa enter high school, friendship has blossomed into a relationship . . . and their playful sports days are coming to an end. Caleb is getting ready to try out for the football team, and Tessa is training for cross-country. But all their structured plans derail in the final flag game when they lose. Tessa doesn’t want to end her career as a loser. She really enjoys playing, and if she’s being honest, she likes it even more than running cross-country. So what if she decided to play football instead? What would happen between her and Caleb? Or between her two best friends, who are counting on her to try out for cross-country with them? And will her parents be upset that she’s decided to take her hobby to the next level? This summer Caleb and Tessa figure out just what it means to be a boyfriend, girlfriend, teammate, best friend, and someone worth cheering for. “A great next choice for readers who have enjoyed Catherine Gilbert Murdock’s Dairy Queen and Miranda Kenneally’s Catching Jordan.”—SLJ “Fast-paced football action, realistic family drama, and sweet romance…[will have] readers looking for girl-powered sports stories…find[ing] plenty to like.”—Booklist “Tessa's ferocious competitiveness is appealing.”—Kirkus Reviews “[The Football Girl] serve[s] to illuminate the appropriately complicated emotions both of a young romance and of pursuing a dream. Heldring writes with insight and restraint.”—The Horn Book




Fast Food Nation


Book Description

An exploration of the fast food industry in the United States, from its roots to its long-term consequences.




Atomic Awakening: A New Look at the History and Future of Nuclear Power


Book Description

“Persuasive and based on deep research. Atomic Awakening taught me a great deal."—Nature The American public's introduction to nuclear technology was manifested in destruction and death. With Hiroshima and the Cold War still ringing in our ears, our perception of all things nuclear is seen through the lens of weapons development. Nuclear power is full of mind-bending theories, deep secrets, and the misdirection of public consciousness, some deliberate, some accidental. The result of this fixation on bombs and fallout is that the development of a non-polluting, renewable energy source stands frozen in time. Outlining nuclear energy's discovery and applications throughout history, Mahaffey's brilliant and accessible book is essential to understanding the astounding phenomenon of nuclear power in an age where renewable energy and climate change have become the defining concerns of the twenty-first century.




Destruction Rites


Book Description

In the early sixties, crowds gathered to watch rites of destruction - from the demolition derby where makeshift cars crashed into each other for sport, to concerts where musicians destroyed their instruments, to performances of self-destructing machines staged by contemporary artists. Destruction, in both its playful and fearsome aspects, was ubiquitous in the new Atomic Age. This complicated subjectivity was not just a way for people to find catharsis amid the fears of annihilation and postwar trauma, but also a complex instantiation of ideological crisis in a time with some seriously conflicted political myths. Destruction Rites explores the ephemeral visual culture of destruction in the postwar era and its links to contemporary art. It examines the demolition derby; games and toys based on warfare; playgrounds situated in bomb sites; and the rise of garage sales, where goods designed for obsolescence and destined for the garbage heap are reclaimed and repurposed by local communities. Mona Hadler looks at artists such as Jean Tinguely, Niki de Saint Phalle, Martha Rosler and Vito Acconci to expose how the 1960s saw destruction, construction and the everyday collide as never before. During the Atomic age, whether in the public sphere or art museums, destruction could be transformed into a constructive force and art objects and performances often oscillated between the two.