James Lincoln Collier

Christopher Collier

The classic story of one family torn apart by the Revolutionary War All his life, Tim Meeker has looked up to his brother. Sam is smart and brave, and is now a part of the American Revolution. Not everyone in town wants to be a part of the rebellion. Most are supporters of the British, including Tim and Sam's father. With the war soon raging, Tim knows he will have to make a choice between the Revolutionaries and the Redcoats, and between his brother and his father.

My Brother Sam Is Dead

Draws on the latest research and scholarly thinking to reconstruct the personality and ideological clashes that marked the proceedings of the Constitutional Convention, and offers profiles of the fifty-five men who met in Philadelphia in 1787 to create the document that would become the cornerstone of American democracy. Reprint.

The Constitutional Convention of 1787

Decision in Philadelphia

While trying to transport food to Richmond, Virginia, during the Civil War, fourteen-year-old Johnny is captured by a black Union soldier.

With every drop of blood

James Collier

Jump Ship to Freedom

Angry and frustrated that his entire family is considered to be poor trash, fourteen-year-old Harry defies his father and attempts to prove that a factory is polluting their small Adirondack community.

When the Stars Begin to Fall

With Every Drop of Blood

A Comprehensive History

The Making of Jazz

Scholastic Inc

Tara McCarthy

A study guide featuring author biographies, chapter summaries, reproducibles, and discussion questions for the Colliers' novel, "My brother Sam is dead"

Literature Guide

Young Tim Meeker is caught between his brother's patriotism and his father's Tory sympathies in this story of the American Revolution.

Traces the development of electric lighting.

Electricity and the Light Bulb

A biography of the great jazz trumpeter traces his growth as an artist, his success as an entertainer, and his relationships with fellow musicians

Louis Armstrong, an American Genius

Orphaned and homeless, twelve-year-old Chipper Carey is a street-wise gang member in 1890s New York City, until a con man introduces him to a wealthy woman who is seeking her long-lost nephew and Chipper must decide where his loyalties lie.

Chipper

At thirteen, George Stable still hasn't made his mark on the world. Oh, he plays the guitar and sings a little. And he appeared on television for six whole seconds once. A couple of years ago, he even wrote a sort of book, called The Teddy Bear Habit. But nothing really exciting has happened to him. But now, it looks as if his big chance has finally come. This agent of his, Woody Woodward, who discovered him during his six-second TV career, has come up with a plan to make him a hot new guitar-playing teenage star—"George Stable, the Boy Next Door." Never mind that George has spent his entire life in Greenwich Village, which is not exactly where you'd find your typical boy next door. As Woody says, it's the image that counts. Of course, there are a few problems to be ironed out. His pop isn't too hot on the idea and is packing George off to stay with his uncle and creepy cousin Sinclair in upstate New York, while he spends a month in Paris. And Woody's bosses at the record company still have to buy the idea. There's this strange, bug-eyed guy everyone calls Superman who has to give the go-ahead.

The Further Adventures of George Stable

Rich and Famous

Life at Deacon Smith's Home for Waifs would be completely dreary if it weren't for Possum's best friend, Billy, who "thinks up lies faster than he can talk" and provides plenty of excitement for the other boys. When Billy hears that gold is hidden in the mountains—"Great big chunks of it, some of 'em big as your fist"—he plans to escape, taking Possum with him. The two runaways embark on a journey in search of their dream—the gold that will lead to a better life. To earn enough money for their adventure, they join Professor Alberto Santini, "savant of the healing arts," and his road show. The professor teaches the boys how "spieling" can make a buck, but it's only the professor who seems to be earning any money. Just as Possum and Billy realize that they've been conned, they get tangled up in a murder. The boys try to keep ahead of the law as they continue their search for gold, but their friendship becomes strained as Possum begins to feel more and more different from Billy. Is the boys' friendship strong enough to carry them through to the end of their journey?

Me and Billy

Twelve-year-old George Stable wants to be a rock star someday, but he gets horrible stage fright-unless he has his old teddy bear with him. Hiding the teddy in his guitar seems like a brilliant idea. Then George discovers that someone has hidden stolen jewels in the stuffing of his beloved bear. George's embarrassing "teddy bear habit" becomes the center of a life-and-death chase through Manhattan. Can George survive long enough to make his first television appearance?

A Novel

The Teddy Bear Habit

Young Daniel Arabus and his mother are slaves in the house of Captain Ivers of Stratford, Connecticut. By law they should be free, since Daniel's father fought in the Revolutionary army and earned enough in soldiers' notes to buy his family's freedom. But now Daniel's father is dead, and Mrs. Ivers has taken the notes from his mother. When Daniel bravely steals the notes back, a furious Captain Ivers forces him aboard a ship bound for the West Indies--and certain slavery. Even if Daniel can manage to jump ship in New York, will he be able to travel the long and dangerous road to freedom?

Thirteen-year-old Nick, whose parents died in the 1918 flu epidemic, must find out why his mirror-image is causing mischief around their New England town and making sure Nick gets the blame.

The Empty Mirror

Praised by the Washington Post as a "tough, unblinkered critic," James Lincoln Collier is probably the most controversial writer on jazz today. His acclaimed biographies of Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, and Benny Goodman continue to spark debate in jazz circles, and his iconoclastic articles on jazz over the past 30 years have attracted even more attention. With the publication of Jazz: The American Theme Song, Collier does nothing to soften his reputation for hard-hitting, incisive commentary. Questioning everything we think we know about jazz--its origins, its innovative geniuses, the importance of improvisation and spontaneous inspiration in a performance--and the jazz world, these ten provocative essays on the music and its place in American culture overturn tired assumptions and will alternately enrage, enlighten, and entertain. Jazz: The American Theme Song offers music lovers razor-sharp analysis of musical trends and styles, and fearless explorations of the most potentially explosive issues in jazz today. In "Black, White, and Blue," Collier traces African and European influences on the evolution of jazz in a free-ranging discussion that takes him from the French colony of Saint Domingue (now Haiti) to the orderly classrooms where most music students study jazz today. He argues that although jazz was originally devised by blacks from black folk music, jazz has long been a part of the cultural heritage of musicians and audiences of all races and classes, and is not black music per se. In another essay, Collier provides a penetrating analysis of the evolution of jazz criticism, and casts a skeptical eye on the credibility of the emerging "jazz canon" of critical writing and popular history. "The problem is that even the best jazz scholars keep reverting to the fan mentality, suddenly bursting out of the confines of rigorous analysis into sentimental encomiums in which Hot Lips Smithers is presented as some combination of Santa Claus and the Virgin Mary," he maintains. "It is a simple truth that there are thousands of high school music students around the country who know more music theory than our leading jazz critics." Other, less inflammatory but no less intriguing, essays include explorations of jazz as an intrinsic and fundamental source of inspiration for American dance music, rock, and pop; the influence of show business on jazz, and vice versa; and the link between the rise of the jazz soloist and the new emphasis on individuality in the 1920s. Impeccably researched and informed by Collier's wide-ranging intellect, Jazz: The American Theme Song is an important look at jazz's past, its present, and its uncertain future. It is a book everyone who cares about the music will want to read.

The American Theme Song

Jazz

Life for indentured servants in pioneer Virginia is hard. It is doubly hard for Richard Ayre, a London orphan who had been scooped off the streets as a child and sent to the Jamestown Colony. But a chance encounter with an Indian boy his own age gives him a friend, the first real friend he has had in years—until his master's plan to raid an Indian village for corn turns Richard's world upside down. Soon their friendship and loyalties will be put to the test.

A Story of the Jamestown Settlement

The Corn Raid

Louis Armstrong. "Satchmo." To millions of fans, he was just a great entertainer. But to jazz aficionados, he was one of the most important musicians of our times--not only a key figure in the history of jazz but a formative influence on all of 20th-century popular music. Set against the backdrop of New Orleans, Chicago, and New York during the "jazz age", Collier re-creates the saga of an old-fashioned black man making it in a white world. He chronicles Armstrong's rise as a musician, his scrapes with the law, his relationships with four wives, and his frequent feuds with fellow musicians Earl Hines and Zutty Singleton. He also sheds new light on Armstrong's endless need for approval, his streak of jealousy, and perhaps most important, what some consider his betrayal of his gift as he opted for commercial success and stardom. A unique biography, knowledgeable, insightful, and packed with information, it ends with Armstrong's death in 1971 as one of the best-known figures in American entertainment.

James Lincoln Collier

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