Teenage pregnancy has attracted the attention of sociologists, psychologists, social workers, teachers, politicians, taxpayers, and parents. But in the midst of gathering statistics and designing programs, few people have stopped long enough to pay close attention to the young people themselves—to try to understand who they are and what they feel about their lives. In this book, Daniel B. Frank has drawn a series of sensitive and revealing portraits of adolescents confronted with the fact of parenthood.

For two years Frank worked as a tutor at Our Place, a Family Focus center for black teenagers in Evanston, Illinois, listening to them talk about their lives, their feelings, and their private dreams. The power of this volume lies in the voices of these young people describing the pleasures as well as the shocks and bruises of thier new role.

Hope, disillusion, fortitude, loneliness: these themes occur and recur as each story unfolds. Readers will be drawn into the lives of these teenagers and will emerge with fresh insight and understanding about teenage parenthood.

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In 1987 photographer Sandra Dyas moved to Iowa City and began documenting the area’s vibrant live music scene, with its distinctive combination of folk, blues, roots/Americana, and rock sounds. The sixty photos in Down to the River capture her twenty years of photographing live music venues and shooting portraits of musicians in and around the city, resulting in a collection of images as compassionate and honest as the music itself.

Dyas’s photographs present both the sweaty intensity of live performances and the more contemplative moments of individual portraits. They are complemented by Chris Offutt’s empathetic essay, which also encapsulates the experience of connecting with a new home through its music. A companion CD with eighteen tracks by Iowa’s finest singer/songwriters, including Dave Moore, Greg Brown, Bo Ramsey, David Zollo, and Pieta Brown, add up to an unmatched perspective on Iowa music and musicians.

CD Tracks
1.     Iowa Crawl, Joe Price
2.     Poor Back Slider, Greg Brown
3.     Parnell, David Zollo
4.     #807, Pieta Brown
5.     Wheels of Steel, Radoslav Lorkovic
6.     Down to the River, Dave Moore
7.     Lucy and Andy Drive to Arkansas, Kevin Gordon
8.     Chuck Brown, Mike and Amy Finders
9.    Nobody But You, Joe Price
10.     Earleton, BeJae Fleming
11.     Ceremonial Child, High and Lonesome
12.     Sidetrack Lounge, Bo Ramsey
13.     On the Edge, Pieta Brown
14.     One Wrong Turn, Greg Brown
15.     Not in Iowa, Kelly Pardekooper
16.     Living in a Cornfield, Bo Ramsey
17.     ’57 Chevy, Tom Jessen’s Dimestore Outfit
18.     Roll on John, the Pines

Drawing on Anger: Portraits of U.S. Hypocrisy is a collection of Eric J. García’s most unabashed political cartoons about U.S. history and politics from 2004 to the present. They offer a scathing indictment of Republicans, Democrats, and the self-proclaimed greatest country on earth. Garcia reconstructs pivotal moments in history—such as U.S. complicity in the disappearance of forty-three Mexican students, genocide and torture in Iraq, and femicide along the U.S.—Mexico border—and reflects on the larger themes of anti-immigration laws, global imperialism, veterans affairs, and the conquest of the Americas. His cartoons are equally critical of both political parties and of both the United States and Mexico–lobbing criticism and satire in every direction.
 
For over a decade García has been serving up inked visuals with the sharpest of political critiques through a Chicano lens. If you’re looking for funny punch lines, these aren’t the cartoons for you. But if you want to pull down Uncle Sam’s pants and see what’s really going on, this is your book.