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Frisky, industrious black squirrels are a familiar sight on the Kent State University campus and the inspiration for Black Squirrel Books®, a trade imprint of The Kent State University Press.

Blanton’s Browns

| Filed under: Black Squirrel Books, Regional Interest, Sports
Blanton's Browns by Roger Gordon. Kent State University Press

Two very exciting games in Cleveland Browns history—their upset of the Baltimore Colts in 1964 and the Monday Night Football game on September 21, 1970, when they beat Joe Namath and the New York Jets—bookend this in-depth look at a highly successful era in the franchise’s history. During the five years from 1965–69, the Browns qualified for the postseason four times, played in three NFL championship games, and twice came within a game of the Super Bowl.

 


Classic Reds

and | Filed under: Black Squirrel Books, Classic Sports, Recent Releases, Sports
Classic Reds by Joe and Jack Heffron. Kent State University Press.

Choosing the 50 greatest games is hard to do; ranking them is even harder. Now every Reds fan can relive memories of baseball before and after the Big Red Machine, debate about these choices, or make a list of their own.

 


Classic ’Burgh

| Filed under: Black Squirrel Books, Classic Sports, Recent Releases, Regional Interest, Sports
Classic 'Burgh: The 50 Greatest Collegiate Games in Pittsburgh Sports History by David Finoli. Kent State University Press.

In the 1940s and 1950s, Duquesne University basketball was not only the most revered team in the city but also won the area’s only Division I national championship ever in a tournament. Carnegie Mellon University, considered one of the premiere academic institutions in the country today, was still called Carnegie Tech in 1926 when its football team defeated the great Knute Rockne and Notre Dame in one of the most incredible upsets the sport has ever seen.

 


Classic Bengals

and | Filed under: Black Squirrel Books, Classic Sports, Recent Releases, Regional Interest, Sports
Classic Bengals by Steve Watkins and Dick Maloney. Kent State University Press

In Classic Bengals, authors Steve Watkins and Dick Maloney tell the stories of the 50 greatest games in Bengals history — along with the stories behind the games. Their choices are sure to spark much interest, and argument, among the legions of loyal Bengals fans.

They set the stage for each game, detail the big plays, stunning comebacks, and fantastic finishes and paint a picture that makes fans feel as though they’re at the game. They include comments from players and coaches while also listing the scoring details and statistics of each game.

 


The Complete Funky Winkerbean Volume 8, 1993–1995

| Filed under: Art, Black Squirrel Books, Comics, Humor, Recent Releases
Funky 8-Tom Batiuk

In this eighth volume, Funky Winkerbean continues to move forward in real time, tackling issues of relevance and substance with characters whose lives are increasingly fateful and destined. Funky has placed Batiuk at the forefront of a new genre in comic art history as the strip pursues stories ahead of their time: guns in schools and teen suicide. The humor in Funky continues to grow as it evolves from sitcom gags to a deeper and more engaging behavioral style of humor.

 


Speak a Powerful Magic

| Filed under: Art, Black Squirrel Books, Poetry, Recent Releases
Speak a Powerful Magic by Wick Poetry Center. Kent State University Press

Speak a Powerful Magic features poems by schoolchildren, immigrants and refugees, patients and caregivers, and veterans, alongside the work of well-known contemporary American poets, and it demonstrates that poetry is truly of the people. We turn to poetry to give voice to what is troubling us, to honor what we love, to make sense of our lives, to remember our past, and to commemorate what we’ve lost. Here, it becomes clear that poetry, especially when coupled with the visual arts, has the potential to broaden our understanding and bring people together in ways that more traditional communications simply cannot.

 


Redemption in ’64

| Filed under: Black Squirrel Books, Recent Releases, Sports
Redemption in '64: The Champion Cleveland Browns. By John Harris. KSU Press

Redemption in ’64 entertains readers with the growing excitement of the Browns’ turnaround seasons. It concludes with play-by-play action of Cleveland’s thrilling victory over Johnny Unitas’s Baltimore Colts in the 1964 NFL championship contest, still one of the greatest professional football upsets of all time.

 


America’s Football Factory, 2nd Edition

| Filed under: Black Squirrel Books, Sports
Stewart Cover

A small area of western Pennsylvania around Pittsburgh has produced almost 25 percent of the modern era quarter­backs enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. That percentage is wildly disproportionate to the number of superstar quarterbacks any one state might claim, let alone a mere sliver of a state—an area representing just one-fifth of one percent of the total country.

 


The Complete Funky Winkerbean, Volume 7, 1990–1992

| Filed under: Black Squirrel Books, Comics, Humor
Batiuk Funky 7

In this seventh volume, we see the changes in tone that now characterize Funky WinkerbeanFunky becomes more of a reality-based comic strip that depicts contemporary issues in a thought-provoking and sensitive manner. In 1992 Tom Batiuk did something even more radical: he rebooted and restructured the strip, establishing that the characters had graduated from high school. From then on the series progresses in real time.

 


Lisa’s Legacy Trilogy

| Filed under: Art, Black Squirrel Books, Books
Lisa's Legacy Trilogy Slipcase

Slip-cased Lisa’s Legacy Trilogy containing all three cloth editions.

Prelude is a collection of the early comic strips that bring Lisa and Les together and takes fans from the early days of their deep friendship through the birth of Lisa’s baby and the baby’s adoption.

To be published simultaneously with Prelude, The Last Leaf is the sequel after Lisa’s death from breast cancer in Lisa’s Story: The Other Shoe. The Last Leaf recounts how Les and family cope with Lisa’s death and continue their lives. Creator Tom Batiuk brings Lisa back in Les’s imagination, and she helps him work out difficulties and decisions in his life and in the life of their daughter Summer. Fans will recognize Batiuk’s gentle mix of humor and more serious real-life themes that heighten the reader s interest.