John Taylor Gatto

Manny's Vintage Mintage presents For Sale Here is.. The Adventures of Snider, The CIA Spiderby John Taylor Gattoillustrated throughout, and cover, by Anne Yvonne Gilbert. Published 2017 by Lost Tools Press, Elizabeth Hanson editorHardcover, 154 pages, 6.5 x 8.5", full color(ISBN 9780989280037) The Adventures of Snider, the CIA Spider is a fabulously funny long-form (epic) comic poem about a spider who is a big thinker with a fantastic plan for his life: becoming a CIA spy! Our spider, Snider, leaves his wife Wanda and their 26 children on the Irrawaddy River, while he sets out on a banana peel boat headed to Washington DC in pursuit of his dream.Follow Snider, as he becomes CIA agent Six-Six-Six and encounters figures like Rudolph the Russian, Peter the Big, and girls with pearls while working for the Central Intelligence Agency. Our quirky little fellow has lots of adventures, and he discovers a few truths, too. A cleverly composed story, The Adventures of Snider is bound to bring delight and laughter to adults and children of all ages. (Background: JOHN TAYLOR GATTO III (1935-2018) was a legendary educator who is considered the modern godfather of homeschooling. Go see Wikipedia's page on him! He started his professional career in advertising, and by his 30s was teaching literature and journalism to junior high-schoolers in Manhattan's Upper West Side. In the 70s he taught at the Teacher's College at the Queen's College Campus as well.He continued advocating for radical changes to the moribund way curriculums held/hold back children from advancing and kill their creative spirit, ultimately being granted the New York City Teacher Of The Year award in three consecutive years 1989, 1990, and 1991. He also was awarded New York State Teacher Of The Year in 1991. Having had enough of the hypocritical educational bureaucracies that fought against him for everything he did, while publicly lauding him, he told them where they could put those awards (hint: the sun doesn't shine there) by a de-facto resignation letter published as an Op-Ed piece in The Wall Street Journal entitled 'I Quit, I Think.'Since that time he wrote a series of much-read books on the problems with traditional educational curriculums, and became an advocate for home schooling) NOW ABOUT THIS BOOK: Circa 1966-67, Gatto was at a party with his fellow teachers, and took up the challenge to write a children's book on the spot, which he allegedly did on a series of napkins...MANY napkins.Typing it up, he ran off copies on the school's ditto machine, with a cover drawn by ZINA SAUNDERS (renowned artist/writer/animator daughter of illustrator Norman Saunders; see her page at Wikipedia), who at the time was a 13-14 year-old student in one of his 1966-67 classes. He gave these out to many of his students for several years. With each purchase of this book, I will INCLUDE a 'xerox' copy of Zina's original cover from my 1967 copy as signed on the cover by Gatto. Three years later, I (this here ebay seller), MannyLunch/Emanuel Maris (see 2nd photo of backcover with this listing) was in his 1969/70 class, and was given one of his last remaining copies of the hand-stapled ditto publication as a present for being one of the editors of the school yearbook under Gatto's editorship. Flash-forward 45 years, and I am visiting Gatto in 2013, now a bed-ridden stroke survivor in his last years, and it comes out that 'JTG the Three' doesn't have even one copy of this book! Well, I still had mine, and transcribed it into a Word document for him. ELIZABETH Y HANSON of Lost Tools Press, has heard about the book, and is sent it. Delighted by reading this wonderfully humorous childrens' book, she set about to formally publish it, and contacted ANNE YVONNE GILBERT, the well-known British book illustrator, and also famously the sleeve artist for the very first single by Frankie Goes To Hollywood, 'Relax', which as been described as "one of the most famous record sleeves of all time." The rest is history, and one of the most charming children's - and adult 'children' as well! - books of all time is finally presented to the public in 2017! (See the one-minute video trailer for the book at YouTube,keyword phrase 'The Adventures Of Snider The CIA Spider-John Taylor Gatto') Due to many requests, I have enrolled in eBay's GLOBAL SHIPPING PROGRAM (GSP) so that buyers OUTSIDE THE USA can have access to purchasing my items.IMPORTANT: if you wish to buy more than one of my items and have them ship together, WRITE TO ME FIRST before doing anything and tell me which items you want, and I will make a custom listing just for you that includes all of them for the agreed combined sale price.DON'T click the Buy It Now buttons on the various items first, because the GSP DOES NOT ALLOW COMBINED SHIPPING OF MULTIPLE SALES in the GSP cart!!! Assuming I have other items you also want at time of this purchase that are allowed to ship Media Mail, do the Buy It Now [BIN] on each of the items you want and PLEASE WAIT for Combined Shipping Invoice - I may be able to trim shipping downwards somewhat when items ship in the same package. ANY OTHER QUESTIONS? I will answer any other questions of concern/fact by looking at the actual item I am selling