prompt_front: Answer the question based on the given passages. Only give me the answer and do not output any other words.

Question: H-63 is a highway that runs near the county seat of what Michigan county?

The following are given passages.
Context 1: Passage 1:
Marginal Tietê
Marginal Tietê (officially SP-015) is a section of this highway that runs through the city of São Paulo, Brazil  The name of this section comes from the fact that each way of the expressway runs near a different waterfront of the Tietê River  It is a very important road of São Paulo, connecting the East, North and West portions of the city, and linking the Lapa neighbourhood and the Penha neighbourhood  It provides access to the Castelo Branco highway, the Bandeirantes highway, the Anhangüera highway, the Presidente Dutra highway, the Fernão Dias highway, the Ayrton Senna highway and the São Paulo International Airport  The Campo de Marte Airport, the Estádio Parque São Jorge and the Estádio do Canindé are located near the freeway 
It is the site where IRL São Paulo Indy 300 race takes place 
Passage 2:
Sault Ste  Marie, Michigan
Sault Ste  Marie ( SOO-saynt-mə-REE) is a city in the Upper Peninsula of the U S  state of Michigan  It is the county seat of Chippewa County and is the only city within the county  With a population of 13,337 at the 2020 census, it is the second-most populated city in the Upper Peninsula, behind Marquette  It is the primary city of the Sault Ste  Marie, MI Micropolitan Statistical Area, which encompasses all of Chippewa County and had a population of 36,785 at the 2020 census  Sault Ste  Marie was settled by Europeans in 1668, making it the oldest city in Michigan Sault Ste  Marie is located along the St  Marys River, which flows from Lake Superior to Lake Huron and forms part of the United States–Canada border  Across the river is the larger Sault Ste  Marie, Ontario, Canada; the two cities are connected by the Sault Ste  Marie International Bridge  Between the two cities are the Soo Locks, a set of locks allowing ship travel between Lake Superior and the Lower Great Lakes         
Sault Ste  Marie is home to Lake Superior State University 

History
For centuries, Oc̣eṭi Ṡakowiƞ (Dakota, Lakota, Nakoda), or Sioux, people lived in the area  Around the 1300s, the Anishinaabe (Ojibwe) began to move in from the East Coast, gradually pushing the Oc̣eṭi Ṡakowiƞ westward  They called the area Baawitigong ("at the cascading rapids"), after the rapids of St  Marys River  French colonists renamed the region Saulteaux ("rapids" in French)  The Oc̣eṭi Ṡakowiƞ came to call the Anishinaabe "Ḣaḣaṭuƞwaƞ", or "Dwellers of the Falls "
In 1668, French missionaries Claude Dablon and Jacques Marquette founded a Jesuit mission at this site  Sault Ste  Marie developed as one of oldest European city in the United States west of the Appalachian Mountains, and the oldest permanent European settlement in Michigan  On June 4, 1671, Simon-François Daumont de Saint-Lusson, a colonial agent, was dispatched from Quebec to the distant tribes, proposing a congress of Indian nations at the Falls of St  Mary between Lake Huron and Lake Superior  Trader Nicolas Perrot helped attract the principal chiefs, and representatives of 14 Indigenous nations were invited for the elaborate ceremony  The French officials proclaimed France's appropriation of the immense territory surrounding Lake Superior in the name of King Louis XIV In the 18th century, the settlement became an important center of the fur trade, when it was a post for the British-owned North West Company, based in Montreal  The fur trader John Johnston, a Scots-Irish immigrant from Belfast, was considered the first European settler in 1790  He married a high-ranking Ojibwe woman named Ozhaguscodaywayquay, the daughter of a prominent chief, Waubojeeg  She also became known as Susan Johnston  Their marriage was one of many alliances in the northern areas between high-ranking European traders and Ojibwe  The family was prominent among Native Americans, First Nations, and Europeans from both Canada and the United States  They had eight children who learned fluent Ojibwe, English and French  The Johnstons entertained a variety of trappers, explorers, traders, and government officials, especially during the years before the War of 1812 between Britain and the United States For more than 140 years, the settlement was a single community under French colonial, and later, British colonial rule  After the War of 1812, a US–UK Joint Boundary Commission finally fixed the border in 1817 between the Michigan Territory of the US and the British Province of Upper Canada to follow the river in this area  Whereas traders had formerly moved freely through the whole area, the United States forbade Canadian traders from operating in the United States, which reduced their trade and disrupted the area's economy  The American and Canadian communities of Sault Ste  Marie were each incorporated as independent municipalities toward the end of the 19th century As a result of the fur trade, the settlement attracted Ojibwe and Ottawa, Métis, and ethnic Europeans of various nationalities  It was a two-tiered society, with fur traders (who had capital) and their families and upper-class Ojibwe in the upper echelon  In the aftermath of the War of 1812, however, the community's society changed markedly The U S  built Fort Brady near the settlement, introducing new troops and settlers, mostly Anglo-American  The UK and the US settled on a new northern boundary in 1817, dividing the US and Canada along St  Mary's River  The US prohibited British fur traders from operating in the United States  After completion of the Erie Canal in New York State in 1825 (expanded in 1832), the number of settlers migrating to Ohio and Michigan increased dramatically from New York and New England, bringing with them the Yankee culture of the Northern Tier  Their numbers overwhelmed the cosmopolitan culture of the earlier settlers  They practiced more discrimination against Native Americans and Métis 
The falls proved a choke point for shipping between the Great Lakes  Early ships traveling to and from Lake Superior were portaged around the rapids in a lengthy process (much like moving a house) that could take weeks  Later, only the cargoes were unloaded, hauled around the rapids, and then loaded onto other ships waiting below the rapids  The first American lock, the State Lock, was built in 1855; it was instrumental in improving shipping  The lock has been expanded and improved over the years 
In 1900, Northwestern Leather Company opened a tannery in Sault Ste  Marie  The tannery was founded to process leather for the upper parts of shoes, which was finer than that for soles  After the factory closed in 1958, the property was sold to Filborn Limestone, a subsidiary of Algoma Steel Corporation In March 1938 during the Great Depression, Sophia Nolte Pullar bequeathed $70,000 for construction of the Pullar Community Building, which opened in 1939  This building held an indoor ice rink composed of artificial ice, then a revolutionary concept  The ice rink is still owned by the city 

Meaning of the name
The city name was derived from the French term for the nearby rapids, which were called Les Saults de Sainte Marie  Sainte Marie (Saint Mary) was the name of the river and Saults referred to the rapids 
(The archaic spelling Sault is a relic of the Middle French Period  Latin salta successively became Old French salte (c  800 – c  1340), Middle French sault, and Modern French saut, as in the verb sauter, to jump )
Whereas the modern saut means simply "(a) jump", sault in the 17th century was also applied to cataracts, waterfalls and rapids  This resulted in such place names as Grand Falls/Grand-Sault, and Sault-au-Récollet on the Island of Montreal in Canada; and Sault-Saint-Remy and Sault-Brénaz in France  In contemporary French, the word for "rapids" is rapides 
Sault Sainte-Marie in French means "the Rapids of Saint Mary" (for a more detailed discussion, refer to the Sault Ste  Marie, Ontario page)  The Saint Mary's River runs from Lake Superior to Lake Huron, between what are now the twin border cities on either side 
No hyphens are used in the English spelling, which is otherwise identical to the French, but the pronunciations differ  Anglophones say  and Francophones say [so sɛ̃t maʁi]  In French, the name can be written Sault-Sainte-Marie  On both sides of the border, the towns and the general vicinity are called The Sault (usually pronounced ), or The Soo 

Transportation
The city is home to the northern terminus of Interstate 75 (I-75), which connects with the Mackinac Bridge at St  Ignace approximately 50 miles (80 km) to the south, and continues south to near Miami  M-129 also has its northern terminus in the city  M-129 was at one time a part of the Dixie Highway system, which was intended to connect the northern industrial states with the southern agricultural states  Until 1984 the city was the eastern terminus of the western segment of US 2  County Highway H-63 (or Mackinac Trail) also has its northern terminus in the city and extends south to St  Ignace and follows a route very similar to I-75  The city is joined to its Canadian counterpart by the International Bridge, which connects I-75 in Sault Ste  Marie, Michigan, and Huron Street in Sault Ste  Marie, Ontario  
Commercial airline service is provided to the city by the Chippewa County International Airport in Kinross, about 20 miles (32 km) south of the city  Smaller general aviation aircraft also use the Sault Ste  Marie Municipal Airport about one 1 mile (1 6 km) southwest of downtown 
Sault Ste  Marie was the namesake of the Minneapolis, St  Paul and Sault Ste  Marie Railway, now the Soo Line Railroad, the U S  arm of the Canadian Pacific Railway  This railroad had a bridge parallel to the International Bridge crossing the St  Marys River  The Soo Line has since, through a series of acquisitions and mergers of portions of the system, been split between Canadian Pacific and Canadian National Railway (CN)  Canadian National operates the rail lines and the bridge in the Sault Ste  Marie area that were part of the Soo Line 
The Sugar Island Ferry provides automobile and passenger access between Sault Ste  Marie and Sugar Island, formerly a center of maple sugaring  The short route that the ferry travels crosses the shipping channel  Despite the high volume of freighter traffic through the locks, freighters typically do not dock in the Sault  However, the city hosts tugs, a tourist passenger ferry service, and a Coast Guard station along the shoreline on the lower (east) side of the Soo Locks  The United States Postal Service operates a "Marine Post Office", situated within the locks, to service ships as they pass through 
Shipping traffic in the Great Lakes system bypasses the rapids in the St  Marys River via the American Soo Locks  Locally, it is often claimed to be the world's busiest canal in terms of tonnage passing through it  The largest ships are 1,000 feet (300 m) long by 105 feet (32 m) wide  These are domestic carriers (called lakers)  Smaller recreational and tour boats use the Canadian Sault Ste  Marie Canal  The lakers, being too large to transit the Welland Canal that bypasses Niagara Falls, are therefore land-locked  Foreign ships (termed salties) are smaller and can exit the Great Lakes to the St  Lawrence River and the Atlantic Ocean 

Geography and climate
The city is located at 46°49'N 84°35'W 
According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has an area of 20 16 square miles (52 21 km2), of which 14 77 square miles (38 25 km2) is land and 5 39 square miles (13 96 km2) is water  The city's downtown is on an island, formed by the Sault Ste  Marie Power Canal to the south and the St  Mary's River and Soo Locks to the north 

Climate
Under the Köppen climate classification, Sault Ste  Marie has a humid continental climate (Dfb) with cold, snowy winters and warm summers  Sault Ste  Marie is one of the snowiest places in Michigan, receiving an average of 120 inches (3 0 m) of snow per winter season, with a record year when 209 inches (5 3 m) fell  62 inches (1 6 m) of snow fell in one five-day snowstorm, including 28 inches (71 cm) in 24 hours, in December 1995   During this time, the city proper experienced a far greater level of snowfall than the farmlands past the canal and riverfront due to lake-effect snow   This caused the 1437th MRBC National Guard local armory to be mobilized for disaster relief in order to remove hundreds of tons of snow which effectively blockaded people within their own homes  Precipitation measured as equivalent rainfall, Sault Ste  Marie receives an annual average of 33 inches (840 mm)  Its immediate region is the cloudiest in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, having over 200 cloudy days a year Temperatures in Sault Ste  Marie have varied between a record low of −36 °F (−38 °C) and a record high of 98 °F (37 °C)  Monthly average temperatures range from 13 °F (−11 °C) in January to 64 °F (18 °C) in July  On average, only two out of every five years reaches 90 °F (32 °C), while there are 85 5 days annually where the high remains at or below freezing and 26 5 nights with a low of 0 °F (−18 °C) or colder 
Average monthly precipitation is lowest in February, and highest in September and October  This autumn maximum in precipitation, unusual for humid continental climates, owes to this area's Great Lakes location  From May through July (usually the year's wettest months in most of the upper Midwestern United States, away from large bodies of water), the lake waters surrounding Sault Ste  Marie are cooler than nearby land areas  This tends to stabilize the atmosphere, suppressing precipitation (especially showers and thunderstorms) somewhat, in May, June and July  In autumn, the lakes are releasing their stored heat from the summer, making them warmer than the surrounding land, and increasingly frequent and strong polar and Arctic air outbreaks pick up warmth and moisture during their over-water passage, resulting in clouds and instability showers  In Sault Ste  Marie, this phenomenon peaks in September and October, making these the wettest months of the year  Also noteworthy is that in Sault Ste  Marie, the year's third wettest month, on average, is November, and not any summer month 

			
			
		
		
			
			
		
		
			
			
		

Notes

Demographics
2020 census
As of the census of 2020, the population was 13,337  The population density was 903 8 inhabitants per square mile (349 0/km2)  There were 6,234 housing units at an average density of 422 4 per square mile (163 1/km2)  The racial makeup of the city was 68 9% White, 17 8% Native American, 1 0% Black or African American, 0 9% Asian, 0 8% from other races, and 10 7% from two or more races  Ethnically, the population was 2 4% Hispanic or Latino of any race 

2010 census
As of the census of 2010, there were 14,144 people, 5,995 households, and 3,265 families residing in the city  The population density was 957 6 inhabitants per square mile (369 7/km2)  There were 6,534 housing units at an average density of 442 4 per square mile (170 8/km2)  The racial makeup of the city was 74 8% White, 0 7% African American, 17 7% Native American, 0 9% Asian, 0 1% Pacific Islander, 0 3% from other races, and 5 5% from two or more races  Hispanic or Latino of any race were 1 5% of the population 
There were 5,995 households, of which 28 1% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 35 0% were married couples living together, 14 5% had a female householder with no husband present, 5 0% had a male householder with no wife present, and 45 5% were non-families  35 7% of all households were made up of individuals, and 12 8% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older  The average household size was 2 22 and the average family size was 2 88 
The median age in the city was 33 8 years  21 3% of residents were under the age of 18; 17 1% were between the ages of 18 and 24; 23 8% were from 25 to 44; 23 8% were from 45 to 64; and 13 9% were 65 years of age or older  The gender makeup of the city was 48 5% male and 51 5% female 

2000 census
Note: After going through the Census 2000 Count Question Resolution Program, the population of the city in 2000 was revised to 14,324 because of the misallocation of some of a neighboring municipality's population to the city of Sault Ste  Marie As of the census of 2000, there were 16,542 people, 5,742 households, and 3,301 families living in the city  The population density was 1,116 3 inhabitants per square mile (431 0/km2)  There were 6,237 housing units at an average density of 420 9 per square mile (162 5/km2)  The racial makeup of the city was 73 99% White, 6 51% African American, 13 72% Native American, 0 65% Asian, 0 05% Pacific Islander, 0 47% from other races, and 4 61% from two or more races  Hispanic or Latino of any race were 1 86% of the population 
There were 5,742 households, out of which 28 8% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 39 9% were married couples living together, 13 2% had a female householder with no husband present, and 42 5% were non-families  33 8% of all households were made up of individuals, and 13 3% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older  The average household size was 2 28 and the average family size was 2 92 
In the city, the population was spread out, with 19 4% under the age of 18, 18 1% from 18 to 24, 31 9% from 25 to 44, 18 2% from 45 to 64, and 12 5% who were 65 years of age or older  The median age was 33 years  For every 100 females, there were 122 0 males  For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 128 3 males 
The median income for a household in the city was $29,652, and for a family was $40,333  Males had a median income of $29,656 versus $21,889 for females  The per capita income for the city was $14,460  About 12 7% of families and 17 5% of the population were below the poverty line, including 19 6% of those under age 18 and 12 5% of those age 65 or over 

Economy
Tourism is a major industry in the area  The Soo Locks and nearby Kewadin Casino, Hotel and Convention Center—which is owned by the Sault Tribe of Chippewa Indians—are the major draws, as well as the forests, inland lakes, and Lake Superior shoreline  Sault Ste  Marie is also a gateway to Lake Superior's scenic north shore through its twin city Sault Ste  Marie, Ontario  The two cities are connected by the Sault Ste  Marie International Bridge, a steel truss arch bridge with suspended deck passing over the St  Marys River 

Education
University
Sault Ste  Marie is home to Lake Superior State University (LSSU), founded in 1946 as an extension campus of Michigan College of Mining and Technology (now Michigan Technological University); the campus was originally Fort Brady  LSSU is home to the LSSU Lakers (D1 Hockey (CCHA), D2 all other sports (GLIAC)  LSSU has around 1500 students, making it Michigan's smallest public university 

Primary and secondary education
The area school district is Sault Ste  Marie Area Schools The Sault's primary public high school is Sault Area High School (SAHS)  "Sault High" is one of the few high schools in the state with attached career center  The school's mascot is the Blue Devil  "Sault High" houses a variety of successful varsity sports teams, such as hockey, wrestling, baseball, and basketball  Altogether, the school provides 24 competitive sports teams for both boys and girls at all levels  
 The school district also operates Malcolm High School as an alternative high school 
Sault Ste  Marie has two middle schools, one in the Sault Ste  Marie School System known as Sault Area Middle School  Before the 6th grade annex was added in the late 1980s, the school was referred to as Sault Area Junior High School  The Second Middle School is a part of Joseph K  Lumsden Bahweting School, a Native American-affiliated Public School Academy 
There are two elementary schools in Sault Ste  Marie, Lincoln Elementary and Washington Elementary  There is also a Public School Academy, Joseph K  Lumsden Bahweting School, and the St  Mary's Catholic School  Jefferson Elementary, McKinley Elementary, Bruce Township Elementary, and Soo Township Elementary (converted into an Alternative High School) have closed because of declining enrollment in the school system 
St  Mary's Catholic School serves students in grades K–8  It is affiliated with the Roman Catholic Diocese of Marquette There is a Bureau of Indian Education-affiliated tribal school, Joseph K  Lumsden Bahweting Anishnabe School  It was established in 1994 and received its current name in 1998 

Media
TV
All stations listed here are rebroadcasters of television stations based in Traverse City and Cadillac 

Channel 8: WGTQ, ABC (rebroadcasts WGTU); NBC on digital subchannel 8 2 (rebroadcasts WPBN-TV), Charge! on digital subchannel 8 3
Channel 10: WWUP, CBS (rebroadcasts WWTV); Fox on digital subchannel 10 2 (rebroadcasts WFQX-TV), MeTV on digital subchannel 10 3, Laff on digital subchannel 10 4, QVC on digital subchannel 10 5, and HSN on digital subchannel 10 6
Channel 28: W28DY-D, 3ABN (all programming via satellite)NBC and ABC are also served by WTOM channel 4 from Cheboygan, which repeats WPBN-TV and WGTU  The market can also receive select over the air channels from Sault Ste  Marie, Ontario, including Global Toronto on channel 12 1 at CIII-DT-12, and CTV Northern Ontario on analog channel 2 at CHBX  Channel 8 3 was previously the science fiction network Comet until being replaced by Charge!, which is also operated by the Sinclair Broadcast Group 
The area has no local PBS, The CW, or MyNetworkTV service over-the-air  The Spectrum cable system offers all three in their regional packages through Marquette's PBS affiliate WNMU-TV, Cadillac's CW affiliate WFQX-CW, and joint MyNetworkTV/Cozi TV affiliate WXII-LD out of Cedar  The next closest PBS station after WNMU is Cadillac satellite station WCMV 
None of these stations are seen on cable in Sault Ste  Marie, Ontario, as Shaw Cable chooses to largely air Detroit affiliates for over the air channels, while WUHF in Rochester, New York, WPIX in New York City, New York, and WSBK-TV in Boston, Massachusetts provide the closest Fox, CW, and MNTV affiliates carried by Shaw in the market 

Radio
1230 AM – WSOO (adult contemporary/news/sports)
1400 AM – WKNW (talk/sports)
91 5 FM – WJOH (Contemporary Christian) "Smile FM" (rebroadcasts WLGH from Lansing)
98 3 FM – WCMZ (NPR/jazz) (rebroadcasts WCMU-FM from Mount Pleasant)
99 5 FM – WYSS (contemporary hit radio)
101 3 FM – WSUE (active rock)
102 3 FM – WTHN (religious) (rebroadcasts WPHN-FM from Gaylord)
103 3 FM – W277AG (religious) (rebroadcasts WHWL-FM from Marquette)
The 46th Parallel Radio (college radio) (internet station broadcast from Lake Superior State University; previously on WLSO 90 1 FM)Other stations serving the Sault Ste  Marie, Michigan, market:

93 9 FM – WNBY (oldies) – Newberry, Michigan
95 1 FM – WUPN (classic hits) – Paradise, Michigan
97 9 FM – WIHC (Christian radio) – Newberry, Michigan
105 5 FM – WMKD (country music) – Pickford, Michigan

Print
The city's main daily paper is The Sault News, formerly the Sault Evening News 

Athletics
Spectator sports in Sault Ste  Marie include Lake Superior State University Athletics and the Soo Eagles of the Northern Ontario Junior Hockey League (NOJHL)  The Lakers participate in NCAA Division I Ice Hockey and Division II Women's and Men's Basketball, Women's and Men's Golf, Women's Volleyball, Women's and Men's Track and Field, Women's and Men's Tennis and Women's and Men's Cross Country   
Nicknamed the Lakers, LSSU's hockey program is celebrating its 50th season of intercollegiate competition  The team plays its home contests at Taffy Abel Arena (4,000 seats) on LSSU's campus and is one of the most decorated in NCAA hockey history  The squad claimed two NAIA titles in the 1970s before a run of three NCAA division one championships (1988, 1992, 1994) and one finalist appearance (1993) in the late 1980s and early 90s  They compete in the Western Collegiate Hockey Association (WCHA) 
The rest of the athletic teams play in the Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (GLIAC)  The basketball programs at LSSU have seen their share of success  The Men's program won overall GLIAC regular season titles in 2014–15, 2013–14, 1995-1996 (Tournament Champion) and also claimed the north division crown in 2008–09  LSSU's women's program won GLIAC gold from 2001 to 2002 through 2004–05  They also captured GLIAC tournament titles in 2002-03 and 2003–04  Both Men's and Women's squads play their home games in the Bud Cooper Gymnasium within the Norris Center 
Sault Ste  Marie is the home of the International 500 Snowmobile Race (commonly called the I-500), which takes place annually and draws participants and spectators from all over the U S  and Canada  The race, which was inspired by the Indianapolis 500, originated in 1969 and has been growing ever since 

Notable people
Taffy Abel, former Olympic and NHL player
Cliff Barton, former NHL player
Bob Bemer, computer scientist
Jeff Blashill, assistant coach with the NHL's Tampa Bay Lightning and former head coach of the NHL's Detroit Red Wings; born in Detroit but grew up in Sault Ste  Marie, where his father was a professor at Lake Superior State University
Rosalynn Bliss, Mayor of Grand Rapids
Denton G  Burdick, Oregon state legislator
Vic Desjardins, former NHL player
John Johnston (1762–1828), married to Ozhaguscodaywayquay (also known as Susan), daughter of Waubojeeg, an Ojibwe chief; together they built a prosperous fur trading business; among upper class in Euro-American and Ojibwe communities of region during late-18th and early-19th centuries
Lloyd H  Kincaid, former Wisconsin State Senator
Bruce Martyn, radio and TV play-by-play announcer of the Detroit Red Wings from 1964 to 1995; graduated from Lake Superior State University and began his radio career at WSOO
Bun LaPrairie, former NHL player
William McPherson, author and Washington Post writer, was born in Sault Ste  Marie
Tip O'Neill, former NFL player
Terry O'Quinn, best known for playing John Locke from the ABC show Lost, was born in Sault Ste  Marie
Chase S  Osborn, Michigan's only Governor from the Upper Peninsula
Henry Rowe Schoolcraft, ethnographer and U S  Indian agent who named many counties and places in Michigan in his official capacity; husband of Jane Johnston Schoolcraft
Jane Johnston Schoolcraft, daughter of John and Susan Johnston, recognized as the first Native American literary writer and poet, and inducted into Michigan Women's Hall of Fame in 2008
Joseph H  Steere, Chief Justice of the Michigan Supreme Court
Reed Timmer, American meteorologist and extreme storm chaser
Kim A  Wilcox, Chancellor of UC Riverside

Notable landmarks
Pullar Stadium was constructed starting in 1937 and opened in 1939  It is used as an ice arena where the Soo Eagles play 
The Ramada Plaza Hotel Ojiway opened on December 31, 1927  The first owners were Beatrice and Leon Daglman  The building is 95 years old  The 27th Governor of Michigan Chase S  Osborn donated the site and $50,000  It was his dream to build a nice elegant hotel  Overall, it cost $250,000 to build it  On the day of its opening it had 91 rooms, 33 of which included bath tubs, 13 with showers, 34 with toilet and washbowls, and 11 just had a washbowl  This hotel was made for all the tourist who came to the town  Governor Chase S  Osborn and his family lived on the sixth floor for a while and so did Beatrice and Leon Daglman  The hotel contains 100 guestrooms, dining room, checkroom, barbershop and beauty parlor  Its decorated as an Art Deco architectural design, décor, detailed amenities and exceptional service gained national interest and attracted many famous guests including Jack Dempsey, Joe Louis and more recently President George H W  Bush in 1992
The Soo Theatre has been a part of Sault Ste  Marie for over 80 years and has provided entertainment of live plays, movies, and musicals  The Theatre opened in March 1930 and for 40 years was used for films and live performances  In May 1974 the theater was divided into red and blue cinemas, where a cement wall divided the once open auditorium  The building was then closed in 1998 and was put up for sale  In March 2003 the Soo Theatre Project Inc  purchased it for $85,000  After that the theater began restoration so plays and other types of entertainment could be put on once again 
Holy Name of Mary Pro-Cathedral (Sault Ste  Marie, Michigan) was begun by Jesuits in 1668  There are only two other parishes, one in St  Augustine, Florida and the other in Santa Fe, New Mexico, that are older in the United States [3] On January 9, 1857 Pope Pius IX established the Diocese of Sault Ste  Marie[4] and St  Mary's was named the cathedral church for the new diocese  The present church, the fifth for the parish, was built in 1881  It was designed by Canadian architect Joseph Connolly in the Gothic Revival style  The church was extensively remodeled in three phases from the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s  In 1968 the parish built the Tower of History as a shrine to the Catholic missionaries who served the community [5] It was designed to be a part of a larger complex that was to include a community center and a new church  Parish priorities changed and the structure was sold to Sault Historic Sites in 1980, who continues to operate it  Proceeds from the Tower of History still benefit the church 
The Soo Locks are a set of parallel locks which enable ships to travel between Lake Superior and the lower Great Lakes  They are on the St  Marys River between Lake Superior and Lake Huron, between the Upper Peninsula of the U S  state of Michigan and the Canadian province of Ontario  They bypass the rapids of the river, where the water falls 21 feet (7 m)  The locks pass an average of 10,000 ships per year,[4] despite being closed during the winter from January through March, when ice shuts down shipping on the Great Lakes  The winter closure period is used to inspect and maintain the locks  The locks share a name (usually shortened and anglicized as Soo) with the two cities named Sault Ste  Marie, in Ontario and in Michigan, on either side of the St  Marys River  The Sault Ste  Marie International Bridge between the United States and Canada permits vehicular traffic to pass over the locks  A railroad bridge crosses the St  Marys River just upstream of the highway bridge 
Taffy Abel Arena is the home of Lake Superior State University's Division 1 hockey team  The 4,000-seat arena is part of the Norris Center athletic complex on LSSU's campus  It was renovated in 1995 and is named after Clarence "Taffy" Abel  Abel was the first American born player to become an NHL regular and was born in the Soo 
Lake Superior State University sits on the former site of U S  Army's Fort Brady  The university has converted most of the buildings to serve housing and administrative needs for its students, faculty, guests and employees  The 115-acre campus includes several buildings which are listed in the National Register of Historic Places  The university has an enrollment of around 2500 students 

Sister cities
Sault Ste  Marie, Ontario, Canada (also twin city)

See also
Media in Sault Ste  Marie, Ontario
Passage 3:
Saskatchewan Highway 316
Highway 316 is a highway in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan  It runs from Highway 16 near Clavet to Highway 5  Highway 316 is about 17 km (11 mi ) long   This area is an industrial commercial area along Highway #316 which extends from Clavet north to the PCS Patience Lake Mine which is just 10 miles from the city of Saskatoon   Highway 316 is a primary weight highway, and also runs near the Canadian National Railway line which goes from Saskatoon through Clavet  In 1941, the Canadian Pacific Railway ran from Saskatoon through Cheviot and on south eastward Highway 316 passes near the community of Cheviot and intersects Highway 394 

Communities along the route
Clavet is a village which can be found at  52°00′00″N 106°23′00″W or legal land description of Section 9 Township 35 Range 3 -West of the 3rd Meridian
Cheviot, Saskatchewan, a small unincorporated area was the childhood home of  Neil McArthur inducted into the Saskatchewan Agricultural Hall of Fame   This area is located at  52°02′00″N 106°22′00″W or legal land description of Section 28 - Township  35- Range 3 -West of the 3rd Meridian
Muskeg Lake First Nation Indian Reserve 102A

Rural municipalities along the route
Blucher No  343 is home to several industrial/commercial enterprises  Potash mining, anhydrous ammonia-bulk fertilizer distribution centres, canola crushing plant, as well as a large inland grain terminal 

Major attractions
Potash Corporation of Saskatchewan (PCS) Patience Lake Mine
Cheviot Lake is located at 52°02′00″N 106°20′00″W or legal land description of Township  35 - Range 3 -West of the 3rd Meridian which is just east of Cheviot The following lakes are all north of Highway 316:

Porter Lake   52°17′00″N 106°17′00″W or legal land description of Township 37- Ranges 2,3 - W of the 3rd Meridian
Patience Lake Is located at   52°07′00″N 106°20′00″W or legal land description of Township 36 - Range 3 -West of the 3rd Meridian
Burke Lake is located at 52°10′00″N 106°18′00″W or legal land description of Township 37- Range 3 -West of the 3rd Meridian
Passage 4:
H-63 (Michigan county highway)
H-63 is a county-designated highway (CDH) in the Upper Peninsula of the US state of Michigan  The highway parallels the Interstate 75 (I-75) corridor between St  Ignace and Sault Ste  Marie  The road is called Mackinac Trail after the Upper Peninsula branch of an Indian trail used before European settlers reached the area  Originally, the roadway was built as a section of US Highway 2 (US 2) before being added to the CDH system in the 1970s 
H-63 serves as a two-lane alternative to the I-75 freeway across the eastern end of the Upper Peninsula  Between the northern side of St  Ignace, the roadway has connections to two state highways before running concurrently with M-48 near Rudyard  H-63 ends on the south side of Sault Ste  Marie 

Route description
H-63 starts a winding trail at Business Loop I-75 (BL I-75) north of St  Ignace in rural Mackinac County  From there, the highway heads northward towards the Kewadin Casino  The road then passes within viewing distance of I-75 past the Horseshoe Bay Wilderness  As it continues, H-63 has a connection to the southern terminus of M-123 with access to I-75 via a connecting road to M-123  After crossing to the west side of I-75, H-63 has access to I-75 via a connecting road to the western terminus of M-134  The CDH runs to the north and into Chippewa County  As it does so, H-63 turns away from I-75 as the latter curves northeastward  South of Rudyard and into center of the community, H-63 runs concurrently with M-48 for about three miles (4 8 km) From Rudyard northward,  H-63 turns northeasterly toward, and runs parallel to, I-75  At Kinross, there is an interchange between I-75 and M-80; H-63 has a brief concurrency with M-80 so that the latter can connect to all of the ramps in the interchange  The trail then crosses to the eastern side of I-75  Near Dafter, the CDH intersects M-28  Along this section, H-63 is roughly a half mile (0 8 km) away from the I-75 freeway at any given point as it continues northward to the Sault Ste  Marie area  H-63 terminates at its intersection with  Business Spur I-75 (BS I-75) on the south side of the city 

History
The first transportation route in the area was the Mackinac Trail, used by Native Americans before the Europeans arrived in the area; the trail in the area was the Upper Peninsula branch of a longer route that also connected the modern-day Saginaw with Mackinaw City and the Straits of Mackinac  Until 1933, no roadway was built along the path of the Indian trail  After that year, US 2 was rerouted between St  Ignace and Sault Ste  Marie using the modern routing of H-63  This placed the Mackinac Trail on the state trunkline highway system for the first time  In 1962 and 1963, the state transferred the highway to county control when US 2 was rerouted to follow the completed I-75 freeway  With the transfer to local control, Mackinac Trail became a county road  Later, it was given the  H-63 designation after October 5, 1970, as part of the County-Designated Highway System  The designation on the 1971 state map follows the routing used today 

Major intersections
See also
Michigan Highways portal
Passage 5:
County Road 492 (Marquette County, Michigan)
County Road 492 (CR 492, Co  Rd  492) is a primary county road in Marquette County, Michigan  The road serves as an alternate route between Negaunee and Marquette  Several historic sites line the roadway as it runs south and parallel to the main highway, U S  Highway 41 (US 41) and M-28, through the Marquette Iron Range in Michigan's Upper Peninsula  The path of the road runs near tracks of the Lake Superior and Ishpeming Railroad (LS&I)  The locally created Iron Ore Heritage Trail will follow CR 492 through Eagle Mills and Morgan Meadows upon completion  The western terminus of the county road is on US 41/M-28 in Negaunee and the eastern end is in Marquette next to Lake Superior 
CR 492 was previously known as the Marquette–Negaunee Road before it was made a part of the State Trunkline Highway System  It was originally designated as a part of M-15 as early as 1917  The superintendent of the Marquette County Road Commission, Kenneth Ingalls Sawyer, painted the first rural highway centerline on the roadway on Dead Man's Curve  The highway was later a part of M-28 before being transferred back to county control  The highway assumed its current form by 2001  The eastern section along Brookton Road in Marquette Township was redesignated as a county secondary highway when a new connection to US 41/M-28 was opened, and the designation was extended along Wright Street on the west and north sides of Marquette 

Route description
In the city of Negaunee, CR 492 is a part of Maas Street, which runs east–west through town starting at Teal Lake  CR 492 begins at the intersection of Maas Street and US 41/M-28 in Negaunee next to Miners Park  From there, CR 492 passes some businesses near the highway before running through a residential area  East of Woodland Drive, the street runs downhill into a more rural section of town  In this area, the roadway runs through forested terrain parallel to tracks of the LS&I  The road then loops to the north away from the tracks, crossing the Carp River next to the Forge Road intersection  Through this area, the Iron Ore Heritage Trail, a multi-use trail system, was built to follow CR 492, and opened in 2013  Forge Road runs north to the Michigan Iron Industry Museum on the site of the Carp River Forge, the original iron ore forge in the region  Maas Street runs along the south side of the city cemetery  The cemetery main gate is located near the city limits, where Maas Street ends and CR 492 continues into Negaunee Township 

CR 492 intersects M-35 near Eagle Mills Location  M-35 approaches the county road from the north before it turns east to run concurrently with CR 492  The two roadway designations cross a rail track before M-35 separates and turns south; traffic along the state highway must yield the right-of-way to traffic on the county road in the process  Eagle Mills is the location of the main LS&I rail yard and the former Pioneer Pellet Plant, the first such iron ore pelletizing plant in the country  CR 492 curves away from this industrial area to the northeast  The roadway crosses Morgan Creek and enters the Morgan Heights area on the border of Negaunee Township and Marquette Township  This is the site of the first tuberculosis sanatorium in the Upper Peninsula built in 1911; the facility is said to have been haunted before the main buildings were torn down around 2002  The road continues east through forested lands in Marquette Township, rounding Dead Man's Curve and running downhill into the Morgan Meadows area  CR 492 passes a convent of the Sisters of St  Paul de Chartres before entering a residential area  The road curves north past these subdivisions, meeting the western end of CR 500 (Grove Street)  Further north, CR 492 intersects Brookton Road before the western segment terminates at US 41/M-28 in the middle of Marquette Township's commercial corridor 

The county road designation resumes to the west at a roundabout on US 41/M-28 about 1,300 feet (400 m) from the previous intersection  From this location, CR 492 runs northward between several businesses  North of this commercial development, the roadway curves to the northeast to round the northern side of the North Star Academy and merge onto Wright Street  The roadway leaves the commercial corridor and returns to woodland before the intersection with Forestville Road and Commerce Drive  Wright Street curves to the northeast and then the east crossing into the westernmost section of the City of Marquette  As Wright Street continues eastward, it runs through a residential section along part of the city line before completely crossing into Marquette  The roadway passes the Holy Cross Cemetery and the north side of the campus of Northern Michigan University (NMU)  The northern main entrance to campus is located at the intersection with CR 550 (Sugar Loaf Avenue) and Tracy Avenue  Wright Street passes through residential neighborhoods east of CR 550 before meeting Presque Isle Avenue  East of that intersection, CR 492 crosses onto the northern edge of NMU's campus immediately north of the Superior Dome  Wright Street ends as it curves around to the south into a junction with Lakeshore Boulevard at the shore of Lake Superior 

History
The first roadway along the route of the modern CR 492 was a plank road built by the Cleveland and Sharon Iron Companies in the 1850s  The roadway was originally named the Marquette–Negaunee Road, due to its endpoints  The road was included as a section of "Division 8" in the State Trunkline Highway System when that was created on May 13, 1913  In 1917, the first highway centerline in the nation was painted along a section of the road known as "Dead Man's Curve"  The centerline was painted by Kenneth Ingalls Sawyer, long-time superintendent of the county road commission  Traffic along the road was heavy for the era, and along the curves, drivers would follow the innermost side instead of keeping to their own lane  Sawyer added arrows to indicate travel direction and found that motorists used the appropriate travel lanes 

At this time, the road carried an unsigned designation of "Trunk Line 15" (T L  15) as designated by the Michigan State Highway Department (MSHD)  This designation was changed to M-15 by the time the state highway system was signed by MSHD in 1919  With the creation of the United States Highway System on November 11, 1926, M-15 in Michigan was redesignated as a part of the larger US 41  Between Negaunee and Marquette, US 41 was routed north of the Marquette–Negaunee Road, following a section of M-35 out of downtown Negaunee  At the same time, M-28 was extended eastward through the Upper Peninsula of Michigan  Between Negaunee and Marquette, M-28 followed the old routing of M-15  By 1936, M-28 was shifted to follow US 41 between Negaunee and Marquette, transferring the old Marquette–Negaunee Road to county control After this transfer, the roadway carried the CR 492 designation  In 1964, several abandoned underground mine shafts collapsed underneath M-35 in Negaunee, and M-35 was rerouted out of the city along its current roadway through Negaunee Township, connecting with CR 492  The eastern end of CR 492 was moved by 2001  Before this realignment, CR 492 followed Brookton Road, parallel to US 41/M-28 before turning to the previous terminus just west of the border between Marquette Township and the City of Marquette  After the change, CR 492 turned north to intersect the highway opposite of Wright Street  The CR 492 designation was extended along Wright Street at the same time  In 2006, the city of Marquette extended Wright Street to end at Lakeshore Boulevard In 2010, the county road commission built an extension to Commerce Drive across US 41/M-28  This extension was designed to connect the southern and northern segments of CR 492 severed by traffic flow changes along US 41/M-28  Traffic wishing to cross between the two segments needs to follow US 41/M-28 to a median turn around in a maneuver similar to a Michigan left  After the project was completed, motorists gained a second option to cross between the two segments of CR 492 following Brookton Road to the Commerce Drive extension and around the Westwood Mall to Wright Street  This newer connector is designed for 35-mile-per-hour (56 km/h) traffic  The stop light at the US 41/M-28 intersection was installed in early November to complete the project  In August 2010, the speed limits along Wright Street were increased  After the results of a speed study, the limits were increased from 25 and 35 mph (40 and 56 km/h) to 35, 40 and 45 mph (56, 64 and 72 km/h) In 2019, two intersections controlled by stoplights along US 41/M-28 in Marquette Township were rebuilt as roundabouts  The easternmost of the two is located at the southwestern end of the northeastern segment of CR 492 

Major intersections
The entire road is in Marquette County 

See also
Michigan Highways portal
Passage 6:
Manistee County, Michigan
Manistee County ( man-iss-TEE) is a county located in the U S  state of Michigan  As of the 2020 Census, the population was 25,032  The county seat is Manistee  The county is named for the Manistee River  Manistee County is part of Northern Michigan and has a shoreline on Lake Michigan 

History
Manistee County was set off in 1840 from Michilimackinac County as an unorganized county  In 1851, it was attached to Grand Traverse County for legal purposes  Manistee County was organized in its own right on February 13, 1855 

Etymology
The name "Manistee" is from an Ojibwe word first applied to the principal river of the county  The derivation is not certain, but it may be from ministigweyaa, "river with islands at its mouth" 

Historical markers
There are thirteen recognized Michigan historical markers in the county:
Harriet Quimby Childhood Home
John J  Makinen Bottle House
First Congregational Church, Manistee
Great Fire of 1871
Holy Trinity Episcopal Church
Holy Trinity Episcopal Church Rectory
Kaleva, Michigan
Manistee City Library
Manistee Fire Hall
Our Saviour's Lutheran Church
Ramsdell Theatre
Trinity Lutheran Church [Arcadia]
William Douglas House

Geography
According to the U S  Census Bureau, the county has a total area of 1,281 square miles (3,320 km2), of which 542 square miles (1,400 km2) is land and 738 square miles (1,910 km2) (58%) is water  Manistee County is considered to be part of Northern Michigan 

Adjacent counties
By land

Benzie County - north
Grand Traverse County - northeast
Wexford County - east
Lake County - southeast
Mason County - southBy water

Manitowoc County, Wisconsin - southwest
Kewaunee County, Wisconsin - west

Protected areas
Manistee National Forest (part)
Nordhouse Dunes Wilderness
Orchard Beach State Park

Transportation
Airport
Manistee County-Blacker Airport is approximately 3 miles (4 8 km) northeast of Manistee  It offers direct flights to Chicago O'Hare International Airport 

Major highways
US 31 runs through Manistee and Bear Lake, paralleling Lake Michigan further inland than M-22 
 M-22 begins five miles (8 0 km) north of Manistee and goes through Onekama and Arcadia, paralleling the Lake Michigan shoreline and offering a scenic route 
 M-55 begins two miles (3 2 km) north of Manistee and runs across the Lower Peninsula to Tawas City via Cadillac, Lake City, Houghton Lake, and West Branch 
 M-115 is a diagonal highway, running southeast–northwest across the northeast corner of the county  It enters Benzie County to the north and Wexford County to the east Previously, an additional highway, M-110, was designated to run from US 31 at Parkdale to Orchard Beach State Park  However, the highway was returned to local control in 2003 

Bicycle routes
USBR 35 comes from Mason County and goes through Manistee, Onekama, and Arcadia to proceed north to Benzie County with M-22

Demographics
As of the census of 2000, there were 24,527 people, 9,860 households, and 6,714 families residing in the county  The population density was 45 people per square mile (17 people/km2)  There were 14,272 housing units at an average density of 26 per square mile (10/km2)  The racial makeup of the county was 94 16% White, 1 63% Black or African American, 1 30% Native American, 0 32% Asian, 0 03% Pacific Islander, 1 01% from other races, and 1 55% from two or more races  2 61% of the population were Hispanic or Latino of any race  23 5% were of German, 16 9% Polish, 8 8% English, 8 8% American and 7 1% Irish ancestry  96 2% spoke English and 2 3% Spanish as their first language 
There were 9,860 households, out of which 27 40% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 55 10% were married couples living together, 9 10% had a female householder with no husband present, and 31 90% were non-families  27 30% of all households were made up of individuals, and 13 20% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older  The average household size was 2 37 and the average family size was 2 86 
In the county, the population was spread out, with 22 60% under the age of 18, 6 70% from 18 to 24, 26 30% from 25 to 44, 26 30% from 45 to 64, and 18 10% who were 65 years of age or older  The median age was 42 years  For every 100 females there were 103 40 males  For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 102 00 males 
The median income for a household in the county was $34,208, and the median income for a family was $41,664  Males had a median income of $33,211 versus $20,851 for females  The per capita income for the county was $17,204  About 6 90% of families and 10 30% of the population were below the poverty line, including 13 50% of those under age 18 and 7 90% of those age 65 or over 

Government
The county government operates the jail, maintains rural roads, operates the major local courts, keeps files of deeds and mortgages, maintains vital records, administers public health regulations, and participates with the state in the provision of welfare and other social services  The county board of commissioners controls the budget but has only limited authority to make laws or ordinances  In Michigan, most local government functions — police and fire, building and zoning, tax assessment, street maintenance, etc  — are the responsibility of individual cities and townships 
Manistee County was one of two counties in the United States in which James M  Cox and Charles Evans Hughes both won — the other being Polk County, North Carolina 

Elected officials
Prosecuting Attorney: Jason Haag
Sheriff: Brian Gutowski
County Clerk: Jill Nowak
County Treasurer: Rachel Nelson
Register of Deeds: Penny Pepera
Drain Commissioner: Ken Hilliard
County Surveyor: Patrick Bentley(information as of February 2012)

Fire departments and emergency medical services
County ambulance service
As of early 2021 North Flight EMS has since transferred the primary ambulance service to Mobile Medical Response 

Fire departments
Arcadia Township Fire Department
Bear Lake Township Fire Department
City of Manistee Fire Department
Cleon Township Fire Department
Dickson Township Fire Department
East Lake Township Fire Department
Filer Township Fire Department
Manistee Township Fire Department [1]
Maple Grove Township Fire Department
Norman Township Fire Department
Onekama Township Fire Department
Stronach Township Fire Department

Communities
City
Manistee (county seat)

Villages
Bear Lake
Copemish
Eastlake
Kaleva
Onekama

Census-designated places
Other unincorporated communities
Townships
Education
School districts include:
Bear Lake School District
Benzie County Central School
Kaleva Norman Dickson School District
Manistee Area Schools
Mason County Eastern District
Mesick Consolidated Schools
Onekama Consolidated Schools

See also
List of Michigan State Historic Sites in Manistee County, Michigan
National Register of Historic Places listings in Manistee County, Michigan
Passage 7:
Saginaw County, Michigan
Saginaw County, officially the County of Saginaw, is a county located in the U S  state of Michigan  As of the 2020 Census, the population was 190,124  The county seat is Saginaw  The county was created by September 10, 1822, and was fully organized on February 9, 1835  The etymology of the county's name is uncertain  It may be derived from Sace-nong or Sak-e-nong (English: Sauk land), as the Sauk (French: Sac) tribe is believed by some to have once lived there  A more likely possibility is that it comes from Ojibwe words meaning "place of the outlet" –sag (English: an opening) and ong (English: place of)  See List of Michigan county name etymologies 
Saginaw County comprises the Saginaw, MI Metropolitan Statistical Area and is included in the Saginaw-Midland-Bay City Combined Statistical Area, the 5th largest metropolitan area in Michigan 

Etymology
The name Saginaw is widely believed to mean "where the Sauk were" in Ojibwe, from Sace-nong or Sak-e-nong (Sauk Town), due to the belief that the Sauk once lived there  But it is more likely that the name means "place of the outlet", from the Ojibwe sag (opening) and ong (place of) When Natives told Samuel de Champlain that the Sauk nation was on the western shore of Lake Michigan, Champlain mistakenly placed them on the western shore of Lake Huron  This mistake was copied on subsequent maps, and future references identified this as the place of the Sauks  Champlain himself never visited what is now Michigan 

History
The area was inhabited from about 1000 B C  to 1000 A D  by the Native American Hopewell culture, followed by the Anishnabeg  Some historians believe that the Sauk at one time lived in the area and were driven out by Ojibwe (Chippewa), before the area was first visited by Europeans 
The Saginaw region includes an extensive network of many rivers and streams which converge into the Saginaw River and provided a means for easy travel for the Native American population among numerous settlements and hunting areas, as well as access to Lake Huron  Saginaw was also a frequent meeting location for councils of the Ojibwe, Pottawatomi, and Ottawa—the Three Fires of the Anishnabeg What is today Saginaw County was inhabited by the Ojibwe at the time of the arrival of Euro-Americans  The Ojibwe were still the dominant force in the area in the 1820s, and in 1827 they were attacked by a two groups of Winnebago people coming from Wisconsin  The Ojibwe prevailed in this fight with the aid of local Euro-American settlers In 1853 the Ojibwe and Ottawa both established large hunting camps along the Saginaw River, although Euro-American settlers were beginning to establish saw mills and farms in the area by that point 

Geography
According to the U S  Census Bureau, the county has a total area of 816 square miles (2,110 km2), of which 800 square miles (2,100 km2) is land and 16 square miles (41 km2) (1 9%) is water   It is part of the Flint/Tri-Cities region of Mid-Michigan  The median elevation in Saginaw County, Michigan is 620 feet (190 m) above sea level 

Primary rivers
Saginaw River
Shiawassee River
Cass River
Flint River
Bad River
Tittabawassee River

Wildlife refuge
Shiawassee National Wildlife Refuge

Adjacent counties
Bay County  (northeast)
Midland County  (northwest)
Tuscola County  (east)
Gratiot County  (west)
Genesee County  (southeast)
Shiawassee County  (south)
Clinton County  (southwest)

Demographics
The 2010 United States Census indicates Saginaw County had a 2010 population of 200,169  This is a decrease of -9,870 people from the 2000 United States Census  Overall, the county had a -4 7% growth rate during this ten-year period  In 2010 there were 79,011 households and 52,287 families in the county  The population density was 250 2 per square mile (96 6 per square kilometer)  There were 86,844 housing units at an average density of 108 5 per square mile (41 9 per square kilometer)  The racial and ethnic makeup of the county was 70 5% White, 18 6% Black or African American, 0 3% Native American, 1 0% Asian, 7 8% Hispanic or Latino, 0 1% from other races, and 1 6% from two or more races 
There were 79,011 households, out of which 30 5% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 45 4% were husband and wife families, 16 0% had a female householder with no husband present, 33 8% were non-families, and 28 2% were made up of individuals  The average household size was 2 44 and the average family size was 2 99 
In the county, 23 4% of the population was under the age of 18, 10 6% from 18 to 24, 22 9% from 25 to 44, 27 8% from 45 to 64, and 15 3% was 65 years of age or older  The median age was 40 years  For every 100 females there were 93 6 males  For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 90 4 males 
The 2010 American Community Survey 1-year estimate indicates the median income for a household in the county was $41,938 and the median income for a family was $52,243  Males had a median income of $27,691 versus $16,488 for females  The per capita income for the county was $21,025  About 12 4% of families and 16 9% of the population were below the poverty line, including 24 1% of those under the age 18 and 10 1% of those age 65 or over 

Religion
The Roman Catholic Diocese of Saginaw is the controlling regional body for the Catholic Church 

Government and politics
The county government operates the jail, maintains rural roads, operates the
major local courts, keeps files of deeds and mortgages, maintains vital records, administers
public health regulations, and participates with the state in the provision of welfare and
other social services  The county board of commissioners controls the
budget but has only limited authority to make laws or ordinances  In Michigan, most local
government functions — police and fire, building and zoning, tax assessment, street
maintenance, etc  — are the responsibility of individual cities and townships 
Starting in 1988, Saginaw County became a reliable Democratic stronghold at the Presidential level  However, in recent elections it has become increasingly competitive, with Donald Trump narrowly winning the county in 2016 while narrowly losing it in 2020 by about 300 votes 

Elected officials
Prosecuting Attorney: John McColgan Jr 
Sheriff: William Federspiel
County Clerk: Vanessa Guerra
County Treasurer: Timothy M  Novak
Register of Deeds: Katheryn A  Kelly
Public Works Commissioner: Brian WendlingAll countywide officers are elected for four-year terms  The next scheduled election for these offices is November of 2024 
(information as of April 2021)

Parks and Recreation Commission
Saginaw County Parks and Recreation Commission is a county-wide government organization founded by William H  Haithco Sr  in 1969  Haithco then served as chairman from 1972 to 1999  The organization operates six parks throughout the county - Imerman Memorial Park, Veterans Memorial Park, Ringwood Forest, Price Nature Center, William H  Haithco Recreation Area, and The Saginaw Valley Rail Trail  These parks comprise over 550 acres, including 18 miles of hiking trails, two boat launches, four fishing access sites, a swimming beach, picnic shelters, and recreation programs 

Economy
The largest employers in Saginaw County are:

Transportation
Saginaw County was the destination of a Sauk footpath that became one of the first roads in what is now Michigan, the Saginaw Trail  The trail, first authorized in 1819, was completed to Saginaw in 1841  Since then, Saginaw's access to the outside world has expanded with the development of maritime, rail, air, and freeway links to the major cities of Michigan and neighboring states and nations 

Airports
Scheduled airline service is available from MBS International Airport near Freeland, Michigan and  Bishop International Airport in Flint, Michigan   Harry Browne Airport in Buena Vista Charter Township also serves the region 

Highways
I-75, a major north–south freeway running from Sault Ste  Marie, Michigan to Miami-Dade County, Florida
 I-675, a business route freeway from Interstate 75 passing through downtown Saginaw
 US 23
 M-13 runs from I-69 through downtown Saginaw and north to Standish 
 M-15
 M-46 is a cross peninsular road, running across the mitten and the thumb—from Port Sanilac on the Lake Huron shore; through Saginaw near Saginaw Bay; and then on to Muskegon on the Lake Michigan shore   This east-west surface route nearly bisects the Lower Peninsula of Michigan latitudinally 
 M-47 passes through the western suburbs and provides a direct connection to MBS International Airport in Freeland before ending at US 10 in nearby Bay County 
 M-52 runs from the Ohio border through Adrian and Owosso before ending at M-46, in the western suburbs of Saginaw  M-52 also provides an alternate connection to Lansing, Michigan's state capitol 
 M-54
 M-57
 M-58 runs from M-47 to I-675 
 M-81 runs east from M-13 to Caro and Cass City and ends at M-53 in Sanilac County 
 M-83
 M-84 runs from M-25 in downtown Bay City to M-58 in Saginaw 

Maritime
The Saginaw River is maintained by the Corps of Engineers, and from time to time, dredged to maintain a shipping channel down the river to Bay City, and from there, to the Great Lakes 

Education
Primary and secondary education
Public schools
Most of Saginaw County is served by the Saginaw Intermediate School District (SISD), which coordinates the efforts of local boards of education, but has no operating authority over schools  Local school boards in Michigan retain great autonomy over day-to-day operations  A number of charter schools also operate in the county 
School districts in the county (including any with any territory, no matter how slight, even if the schools and/or administration are in other counties) include:

Former school districts include:
Buena Vista School District

Higher education
Saginaw Valley State University (SVSU) is a four-year state university located in eastern Kochville Township 
Delta College is a two-year community college that serves Saginaw County, but is located in neighboring Bay County, a few miles to the north of the SVSU campus 

Notable natives
George C  Hinkley (1892-1936), Wisconsin State Assemblyman and businessman, was born in Saginaw County 
Theodore Roethke (1908–1963) Pulitzer prize and National Book Award-winning poet was born and buried here 

Historical markers
There are twenty eight recognized historical markers in the county:  They are:

Bliss Park
Burt Opera House / Wellington R  Burt
Coal Mine No  8
The Cushway House / Benjamin Cushway and Adelaide Cushway
First Congregational Church [Saginaw]
Fowler Schoolhouse (Fremont Township)
Frankenmuth / Saint Lorenz Evangelical Lutheran Church
Frankenmuth Bavarian Inn
Freeland United Methodist Church
George Nason House
Hess School
Hoyt Library
Leamington Stewart House
Michigan's German Settlers
Morseville Bridge
Presbyterian Church of South Saginaw
Saginaw Club
Saginaw Oil Industry
Saginaw Post Office
Saginaw Valley Coal
Saginaw Valley Lumbering Era
St  Mary's Hospital
Saint Michael Catholic Parish
St  Paul's Episcopal Mission
Shroeder House
Theodore Roethke / Childhood Home

Communities
Cities
Frankenmuth
Saginaw (county seat)
Zilwaukee

Villages
Birch Run
Chesaning
Merrill
Oakley
Reese (partially)
St  Charles

Charter townships
Bridgeport Charter Township
Buena Vista Charter Township
Saginaw Charter Township

Civil townships
Census-designated places
Bridgeport
Buena Vista
Burt
Freeland
Hemlock
Robin Glen-Indiantown
Shields

Other unincorporated communities
See also
List of Michigan State Historic Sites in Saginaw County, Michigan
National Register of Historic Places listings in Saginaw County, Michigan
Saginaw Trail
Context 2: Passage 1:
Santa's Workshop (Colorado)
Santa's Workshop is an amusement park that opened on June 16, 1956 in Cascade, Colorado, located on U S  Route 24 just west of Colorado Springs at the entrance to the Pikes Peak Highway, at the Northern end of Pikes Peak  Modeled after the Santa's Workshop in Wilmington, New York, the park features a charming North Pole village complete with a variety of shops selling toys, candy, and Christmas decorations  The village is also home to Santa's Workshop itself, where children (and adults) can meet with Santa Claus and Mrs  Claus year round  Much of the staff is dressed in Christmas themed attire, especially those at work in stores and admissions 
In addition to the village, Santa's Workshop is a fully operational amusement park best suited for children ages 2 to 12  It is home to 28 rides, many of which are classified specifically as "kiddie" rides  Family highlights include a small roller coaster, the highest altitude Ferris wheel in North America, a Giant Slide (Helter skelter), as well as a North Pole made of permanent ice in the center of the park   Attractions also include a Tilt-A-Whirl, a Scrambler, a chairlift, a narrow gauge railroad, a magic show, and an arcade  In 2014, Santa's Sleigh, a 30 mph, 2-person zip line was added 
The park is generally open from mid-May through Christmas Eve, and is closed from January to May  As of 2018, admission is $24 00 per person for ages 3–59  Under 3 and 60 or older are free  Military and group rates are available  The park is still owned and operated by the Haggard family who opened it in 1956 

External links
Santa's Workshop (Colorado amusement park) at the Roller Coaster DataBase
Passage 2:
Larry Wilson (screenwriter)
Larry Wilson (born January 23, 1948) is an American film producer and screenwriter  He is best known for his screenwriting work on the films Beetlejuice (1988) and The Addams Family (1991)  He also co-wrote the films The Little Vampire (2000) and, for television, The Year Without a Santa Claus (2006)  He wrote and directed a number of episodes of the Tales from the Crypt television series from 1991 to 1996 
Passage 3:
Rankin/Bass Productions
Rankin/Bass Animated Entertainment (founded and formerly known as Videocraft International, Ltd  and Rankin/Bass Productions, Inc ) was an American production company located in New York City, and known for its seasonal television specials, usually done in stop motion animation  Rankin/Bass' stop-motion productions are recognizable by their visual style of doll-like characters with spheroid body parts and ubiquitous powdery snow using an animation technique called "Animagic" 
Nearly all of the studio's animation was outsourced to Japanese animation companies such as Toei Doga Entertainment, MOM Production, Mushi Productions and Topcraft  Rankin/Bass was one of the first western studios to outsource their low-budget animated television and film productions to animation studios in foreign countries; the others that already practiced animation outsourcing includes Total Television and King Features Syndicate TV in New York City; and Jay Ward Productions and Hanna-Barbera Productions in Los Angeles, California 

History
The company was founded in New York City by Arthur Rankin Jr  and Jules Bass on September 14, 1960, as Videocraft International, Ltd  The majority of Rankin/Bass' work, including all of their "Animagic" stop-motion productions (which they were well known for), were created in Tokyo, Japan  Throughout the 1960s, the Animagic productions were headed by Japanese stop-motion animator Tadahito Mochinaga at his studio, MOM Production  He was credited for his supervision as "Tad Mochinaga" 
Rankin/Bass' traditional animation output was done by several animation studios such as Toei Animation, Eiken (formerly known as TCJ, short for the Television Corporation of Japan), Mushi Production, and especially Topcraft, which was formed on February 1, 1972 by Toei animator Toru Hara (who was credited as an animation supervisor in some of Rankin/Bass' specials)  While several of Topcraft's staff, including Hara and industry legends such as Hayao Miyazaki, would go on to form Studio Ghibli in the wake of Topcraft's death, others formed another studio: Pacific Animation Corporation, which continued working on Rankin/Bass' titles until the latter company shut down 
In addition to the "name" talent that provided the narration for the specials, Rankin/Bass had its own company of voice actors  For the studio's early work, this group was based in Toronto, Ontario where recording was supervised by veteran CBC announcer Bernard Cowan  The Canadian group included actors such as Paul Soles, Larry D  Mann, and Carl Banas 
Maury Laws served as musical director for almost all of the animated films and television programs  Romeo Muller was another consistent contributor, serving as screenwriter for many of Rankin/Bass' best-known productions including Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (1964), The Little Drummer Boy (1968), and Frosty the Snowman (1969) 

Output
One of Videocraft's first projects was an independently produced television series in 1960, The New Adventures of Pinocchio, based on the Italian author Carlo Collodi's 1883 novel The Adventures of Pinocchio and featuring "Animagic", a stop motion animation process using figurines or puppets (a process already pioneered by George Pal's "Puppetoons" and Art Clokey's Gumby and Davey and Goliath), managed by Mochinaga and his MOM Production staffers for Videocraft with Dentsu  This was followed by another independently produced series in 1961, Tales of the Wizard of Oz, Videocraft's adaptation of the 1900 novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L  Frank Baum, as well as their first production to use traditional cel animation  Unlike many of Rankin/Bass' works, Tales of the Wizard of Oz was animated by Crawley Films in Ottawa, headed by F  R  Crawley 

Rudolph era
One of the mainstays of the business was holiday-themed animated specials for airing on American television  In 1964, the company produced a special for NBC and sponsor General Electric, later owner of NBC  It was a stop motion animated adaptation of Robert L  May's 1939 story "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" and the 1949 song it inspired, "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer", written by May's brother-in-law, Johnny Marks  Almost two decades earlier, in 1948, it had been made into a cartoon by Max Fleischer, brother and former partner of Dave Fleischer, as a traditional cel animated short for the Jam Handy Film Company   
With the American actor Burl Ives in the role of Sam the snowman, the narrator, Canadian actress Billie Mae Richards as the voice of the main title character, Rudolph, and an original orchestral score composed by Marks himself, Rudolph became one of the most popular, and longest-running Christmas specials in television history: it remained with NBC until around 1972 when it moved to CBS  In 2019, for its 55th anniversary, the special was also aired on Freeform as part of its "25 Days of Christmas" franchise, although it will continue to air on CBS under a separate license with Universal The special contained seven original songs  In 1965, a new song was filmed in "Animagic" to replace "We're a Couple of Misfits", titled "Fame and Fortune" 
The success of Rudolph led to numerous other Christmas specials  The first was The Cricket on the Hearth in 1967, with two live-action announcements by Danny Thomas, continuity and character designs by Don Duga and Paul Coker, and animation by Jiro Yanase's TCJ, followed by the 1968 Thanksgiving special The Mouse on the Mayflower, told by Tennessee Ernie Ford and animated by Kenzo Masaoka, Sanae Yamamoto, and Yasuji Murata's Toei Animation  Paul Coker Jr  would go on to design characters and production for more than 40 Rankin-Bass specials and episodes 

Other holiday specials
Many of their other specials, like Rudolph, were based on popular Christmas songs  In 1968, the British-American actress Greer Garson provided dramatic narration for The Little Drummer Boy, based on the traditional song and set during the birth of the baby Jesus Christ, and starring the Puerto Rican actor José Ferrer as the voice of Ben Haramed  During that year, Videocraft International, Ltd  (whose logo dominated the Rankin/Bass logo in the closing credit sequences) changed its name to Rankin/Bass Productions, Inc , and adopted a new logo, retaining a Videocraft byline in their closing credits until 1971 when Tomorrow Entertainment, a unit of the General Electric Company, acquired the production company  The "Animagic" process for The Little Drummer Boy took place at MOM Production, which was renamed Video Tokyo Production after Tadahito Mochinaga left Japan for his return trip to China following the completion of the animation for Mad Monster Party?, thus ending his collaboration with Rankin/Bass  Takeo Nakamura, the director of Sanrio's 1979 stop motion feature Nutcracker Fantasy, was among the "Animagic" team, but he was never credited as a supervisor 
The following year, in 1969, Jimmy Durante sang and told the story of Frosty the Snowman, with Jackie Vernon voicing Frosty  It was based on Steve Nelson and Jack Rollins' 1950 song of the same name, and also introduced Billy De Wolfe as the voice of Professor Hinkle, a greedy magician who tries to steal away the magic hat that brought Frosty to life to become a billionaire  Mushi Production, an animation studio founded in 1961 and formerly led by the manga artist Osamu Tezuka (creator of Astro Boy, Kimba the White Lion and Ambassador Magma), handled the animation for the special with supervision by Yusaku "Steve" Nakagawa, a layout artist and character designer from Hanna-Barbera Productions in Los Angeles, California 
The year 1970 brought another Christmas special, Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town  Rankin/Bass enlisted Fred Astaire as narrator S D  (Special Delivery) Kluger, a mailman answering children's questions about Santa Claus and telling his origin story  The story involved young Kris Kringle, voiced by Mickey Rooney, and the villainous Burgermeister Meisterburger, voiced by Paul Frees  Kringle later marries the town's schoolteacher, Miss Jessica, voiced by Robie Lester  Kizo Nagashima, the associate director of Rankin/Bass' previous productions, was credited as a production supervisor 
In 1971, Rankin/Bass produced their first Easter television special, Here Comes Peter Cottontail, with the voices of Danny Kaye as the narrator Seymour S  Sassafrass, Vincent Price as the evil rabbit January Q  Irontail, and Casey Kasem from Hanna-Barbera's Scooby-Doo franchise as the title character Peter Cottontail  It was not based upon the title song by Steve Nelson and Jack Rollins, but on a 1957 novel by Priscilla and Otto Friedrich titled The Easter Bunny That Overslept  This was the second and final "Animagic" production to be supervised by Kizo Nagashima  Steve Nakagawa was also involved in this special as a continuity designer  In 1977, Fred Astaire returned as S  D  Kluger in The Easter Bunny Is Comin' to Town, telling the tale of the Easter Bunny's origins  From there, Rankin/Bass used Masaki Iizuka as an associate producer, and Akikazu Kono as an "Animagic" supervisor  Back in 1973, Iizuka was the production assistant of Marco—a live-action musical film based on the biography of Italian merchant, explorer, and writer Marco Polo, filmed at Toho Company in Tokyo and on location throughout East Asia, and featuring Kono's "Animagic" sequence of the Tree People  Previously, he was met by Rankin during the animation production of the Halloween television special Mad, Mad, Mad Monsters at Mushi Production in 1972, and became an integral part of Rankin/Bass for many years 
In 1974, Rankin/Bass Productions was relaunched once again as an independent production company and produced another Christmas special for television, The Year Without a Santa Claus, featuring Shirley Booth, voicing narrator Mrs  Claus; Mickey Rooney, returning as the voice of Santa Claus; and supporting characters Snow Miser (voiced by Dick Shawn) and Heat Miser (voiced by George S  Irving)  It was the first Rankin/Bass "Animagic" production on which Akikazu Kono and puppet maker Ichiro Komuro share in the production supervision  It was remade as a poorly received live-action/special effects TV movie shown on NBC in 2006 starring Delta Burke and John Goodman as Mrs  Claus and Santa Throughout the 1970s, Rankin/Bass, with Video Tokyo and the former Toei Animation employee Toru Hara's Topcraft, continued to produce animated sequels to its classic specials, including the teaming of Rudolph and Frosty in 1979's Rudolph and Frosty's Christmas in July, with the voice of Ethel Merman as Lilly Loraine, the ringmistress of a seaside circus, and Rooney again returning as Santa  The special features cameos by characters from several other Rankin/Bass holiday specials, including Big Ben the Clockwork Whale from Rudolph's Shiny New Year and Jack Frost from Frosty's Winter Wonderland  Later that year, Jack appeared in his own special, Jack Frost  Narrated by Buddy Hackett, it tells the story of the winter sprite's love for a mortal woman menaced by the evil Cossack king, Kubla Kraus (Paul Frees, in addition to Kubla, voiced Jack Frost's overlord, Father Winter)  In this special, Jack's voice was performed by Robert Morse, who previously voiced Stuffy in 1976's The First Easter Rabbit (loosely based on Margery Williams' The Velveteen Rabbit), and young Ebenezer Scrooge in 1978's The Stingiest Man in Town (based on Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol) 
Among Rankin/Bass' original specials was 1975's The First Christmas: The Story of the First Christmas Snow, featuring the voice of Angela Lansbury (who also starred in the 1982 adaptation of The Last Unicorn) as the narrating and singing nun, Sister Theresa, and Irving Berlin's Christmas classic "White Christmas" 
Their final stop-motion style Christmas story was The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus, taken from the L  Frank Baum story of the same name and released in 1985  In this story, the Great Ak (voiced by Alfred Drake) summons a council of the Immortals to bestow upon a dying Claus (voiced by Earl Hammond, with J D  Roth voicing the young Claus) the Mantle of Immortality  To make his case, the Great Ak tells Claus's life story, from his discovery as a foundling in the magical forest and his raising by Immortals, through his education by the Great Ak in the harsh realities of the human world, and his acceptance of his destiny to struggle to bring joy to children  This special has recently been released as part of Warner Bros  Home Entertainment's Warner Archive Collection, on a double-feature disc that also contains Nestor, the Long-Eared Christmas Donkey which is often paired with The First Christmas on holiday broadcasts 
Many of these specials are still shown seasonally on American television, and some have been released on VHS, Betamax, LaserDisc, DVD, Blu-ray, and Digital 

Non-holiday output
Throughout the 1960s, Videocraft produced other stop motion and traditional animation specials and films, some of which were non-holiday stories  1965 saw the production of Rankin/Bass' first theatrical film, Willy McBean and His Magic Machine, another joint venture between Videocraft and Dentsu  1966 brought The Daydreamer, the first of three films to be produced in association with executive producer Joseph E  Levine's Embassy Pictures in Los Angeles, California, and the film adaptation of the stories and characters by the Danish author Hans Christian Andersen, which combines live-action, special effects and "Animagic"; and The Ballad of Smokey the Bear, the story of the famous forest fire-fighting bear seen in numerous public service announcements, narrated by James Cagney The theatrical feature film Mad Monster Party? saw theatrical release in the spring of 1967, featuring one of the last performances by the British actor Boris Karloff  The film features affectionate send-ups of classic movie monsters and their locales, adding "Beatle"-wigged skeletons as a send-up of the era's pop bands, and a writing staff borrowed from Mad magazine, including the cartoonist Jack Davis, who designed the characters of this film  It is also the last "Animagic" project that Tadahito Mochinaga supervised 
In 1972 and 1973, Rankin/Bass produced four animated TV movies for The ABC Saturday Superstar Movie series: Mad Mad Mad Monsters (with the animation by Mushi), Willie Mays and the Say-Hey Kid, The Red Baron, and That Girl in Wonderland (all featuring the animation by Topcraft) 
In 1977, Rankin/Bass produced an animated version of J  R  R  Tolkien's The Hobbit  It was followed in 1980 by an animated version of The Return of the King (the animation rights to the first two volumes were held by Saul Zaentz, producer of Ralph Bakshi's animated adaptation The Lord of the Rings)  Other books adapted include The Last Unicorn by Peter S  Beagle, a rare theatrical release that was co-produced with ITC Entertainment in London, England, Peter Dickinson's The Flight of Dragons and Kenneth Grahame's The Wind in the Willows which was animated by the second overseas animation unit of Hanna-Barbera, James Wang's Cuckoo's Nest Studios (now Wang Film Productions) in Taipei, Taiwan 
In addition to their prime time specials, Rankin/Bass produced several regular television shows in traditional animation, including The King Kong Show in 1966, co-produced with Toei Animation, The Tomfoolery Show in 1970, The Jackson 5ive in 1971 (the latter co-produced with Motown Productions), and Kid Power and The Osmonds in 1972  The most successful of these was Ted Wolf's ThunderCats in 1985, an action-adventure series based on his related line of toys  It was followed by two similar TV shows about humanoid animals, SilverHawks in 1986, and TigerSharks, as part of the series The Comic Strip in 1987  Each of those four series was mainly animated by former Topcraft employees' Pacific Animation Corporation, with production management by Masaki Iizuka, just before the studio was bought by Disney and renamed Walt Disney Animation Japan in 1988  Neither one enjoyed the same commercial success as ThunderCats did, however 
Rankin/Bass also attempted live-action productions, such as 1967's King Kong Escapes, a co-production with Toho; 1976's The Last Dinosaur; 1978's The Bermuda Depths; 1980's The Ivory Ape (all co-produced with Tsuburaya Productions, the creators of the Ultra Series); and 1983's The Sins of Dorian Gray  With the exception of King Kong Escapes, all were made-for-television films 

Demise
After its last series output, Rankin/Bass shut down its production company on March 4, 1987 
Arthur Rankin Jr  would split his time between New York City, where the company still has its offices, and his home in Bermuda  Rankin died at Harrington Sound, Bermuda on January 30, 2014, at the age of 89  Bass became a vegetarian; a decade later, he wrote Herb, the Vegetarian Dragon, the first children's book character developed specifically to explore moral issues related to vegetarianism  The original story and a follow-up cookbook became bestsellers for independent publishing house Barefoot Books  Bass died on October 25, 2022 at the age of 87 In 1999, Rankin/Bass joined forces with James G  Robinson's Morgan Creek Productions and Nest Family Entertainment (creators of The Swan Princess franchise) for the first and only animated adaptation of Rodgers and Hammerstein's musical The King and I, based on a treatment by Rankin  Distributed by Warner Bros  Pictures with its Warner Bros  Family Entertainment division, the film flopped at the American box office  Stephen Hunter, among several American film critics, criticized the film's depictions of "offensive ethnic stereotyping "In 2001, Fox aired the first new original Christmas special to be produced by both Rankin and Bass in 16 years, Santa, Baby!, which like most of their production company's other specials was based on a popular, similarly-titled Christmas song  Santa, Baby! stood out from its predecessors due to its use of African-American characters and voice performers, such as Patti LaBelle (the narrator), Eartha Kitt, Gregory Hines, Vanessa L  Williams and Tom Joyner  Although Pacific Animation Corporation was responsible for the overseas animation production of the special with the background art provided by Atelier BWCA and the See Throu Studio, some of the animation services were done at Steven Hahn's Hanho Heung-Up in Seoul, South Korea  Santa, Baby! turned out to be the final Rankin/Bass-produced special; the Rankin/Bass partnership was officially dissolved shortly after, with most of its remaining assets acquired by Warner Bros  Entertainment 
Currently, the pre-September 1974 Rankin/Bass library (including works from Videocraft International) is owned by NBCUniversal's Universal Pictures via DreamWorks Animation's DreamWorks Classics subsidiary, while Warner Bros  Discovery through Warner Bros  unit owns the rights to the post-September 1974 library via Telepictures  NBCUniversal also retained the rights to King Kong Escapes and also currently holds the rights to Willy McBean and his Magic Machine, again, via DreamWorks Classics  StudioCanal holds the rights to the films from Rankin/Bass that Embassy Pictures distributed, while ITV Studios currently holds the rights to The Last Unicorn  The rights to the 1999 animated film adaptation of The King and I are currently held by Morgan Creek Entertainment 

Legacy
For over 20 years, most of Rankin/Bass' films were shown on the Family Channel and Freeform during their December "25 Days of Christmas" seasonal period  Starting in 2018, the post-1974 specials moved to AMC and air during their "Best Christmas Ever" seasonal period, with Freeform retaining the pre-1974 specials' cable rights  The original Rudolph and Frosty specials currently air on CBS under a separate contract with Rankin/Bass and its successors-in-interest, with Santa Claus Is Comin' To Town airing on ABC 
The specials of Rankin/Bass have been parodied by the likes of TV series from Saturday Night Live to South Park, while non-holiday works like The Last Unicorn maintained a cult following  The look and style of the Christmas specials heavily influences more modern holiday classics such as Elf (2003) Beginning in 2013, and for several years thereafter, the animation studio ShadowMachine was hired by the SoCal Honda Dealers group (via Secret Weapon Marketing) to create stop-motion animated commercials in the style of Rankin/Bass's Christmas specials RiffTrax, consisted of former Mystery Science Theater 3000 alumni Kevin Murphy, Bill Corbett and Michael J  Nelson, spoofed Nestor the Long-Eared Christmas Donkey on December 17, 2006 (this time with just Nelson himself riffing) In 2022, an agreement between Warner Bros  and NBCUniversal (which co-owned Studio Distribution Services, LLC) was made to release The Complete Rankin-Bass Christmas Collection as a nine-disc DVD box set with a 24-page booklet and special features  The box set features eighteen specials, comprising every stand-alone, Rankin-Bass produced Christmas special aside from Santa, Baby! 

Filmography
Franchises
Overseas animation studios used by Rankin/Bass
Japanese studios
MOM Production, Tokyo, Japan
Toei Animation, Tokyo, Japan
TCJ (Television Corporation of Japan) (now Eiken), Tokyo, Japan
Mushi Production, Tokyo, Japan
Topcraft, Tokyo, Japan
Pacific Animation Corporation, Tokyo, Japan
The Anime International Company, Tokyo, Japan
Anime R, Osaka, Japan
Mook Animation, Tokyo, Japan
Atelier BWCA (background studio), Tokyo, Japan
See Throu Studio (background studio), Tokyo, Japan

Other studios
Crawley Films, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
Halas and Batchelor, London and Stroud, England, United Kingdom
Estudios Moro, Barcelona, Spain
Cuckoo's Nest Studios (Wang Film Productions), Taipei, Taiwan
Hong Ying Animation, Taipei, Taiwan
Hanho Heung-Up, Seoul, South Korea
Passage 4:
Santa Claus: The Movie
Santa Claus: The Movie is a 1985 Christmas film starring Dudley Moore, John Lithgow, and David Huddleston  It depicts the origin of Santa Claus (played by Huddleston), and his modern-day adventure to save one of his elves (Moore) who has been manipulated by an unscrupulous toy company executive (Lithgow)  It was directed by Jeannot Szwarc and was the last major fantasy film produced by the Paris-based father-and-son production team of Alexander and Ilya Salkind 
Released in North America by TriStar Pictures on November 27, 1985, Santa Claus: The Movie was a box office bomb and received mostly negative reviews from critics 

Plot
In the Middle Ages, a woodcutter named Claus delivers hand-carved toys to the children of his village each Christmas, accompanied by his wife Anya and their reindeer Donner and Blitzen  Caught in a blizzard, they are saved by elves and taken to their magical workshop at the North Pole  Lead elf Dooley explains that their coming was prophesied; that it is Claus' destiny to deliver the toys made by the elves to the children of the world; and that they, like the elves, will live forever  The following Christmas Eve, the oldest elf dubs Claus "Santa Claus" and explains that the night will last as long as it takes for him to deliver toys to every child on Earth  Donner and Blitzen join six other reindeer and are fed hay sprinkled with magical powder that enables them to fly, pulling Santa's sleigh through the air  As the centuries pass, much of the mythology and traditions surrounding Santa Claus develop 
By the late 20th century Santa is exhausted by his ever-growing workload, and Anya suggests that he enlist an assistant  Two elves compete for the position: Puffy, who follows traditional toymaking methods, and Patch, who has many ideas for modernization  Patch wins by designing a machine to increase production through automation, but unbeknownst to him it begins to malfunction and produce shoddy toys  In New York City Santa befriends homeless orphan boy Joe and takes him for a ride in his sleigh  They unsuccessfully attempt the "Super Duper Looper", a vertical loop maneuver which always fails due to Donner's acrophobia  They also meet wealthy orphan girl Cornelia, who befriends Joe 
When the toys produced by Patch's machine fall apart on Christmas Day, he resigns in disgrace and leaves the North Pole, winding up in New York City  Meanwhile, the B Z  Toy Company, run by Cornelia's unscrupulous step-uncle B Z , is facing shutdown by the government for producing unsafe toys  Seeing the company's toys being pulled from a storefront, Patch mistakenly thinks they are very popular and approaches B Z  about a job  Hoping to redeem himself in Santa's eyes, he creates lollipops laced with the magic powder that allows the reindeer to fly, and a flying car which he uses to deliver them to the world's children on Christmas Eve  The lollipops allow people to fly, making them an instant sensation and leaving Santa feeling obsolete and disheartened  B Z  convinces Patch to strengthen the formula and put it in candy canes, planning to launch his own holiday called "Christmas 2" in late March 
Cornelia and Joe overhear B Z  plotting to oust Santa as the figurehead of Christmas, and Joe is captured  Cornelia further overhears B Z 's assistant, Towzer, share his discovery that the candy canes explode when exposed to heat  B Z  plans to take Towzer and their money and flee to Brazil, letting Patch take the fall for their dangerous product  Cornelia writes to Santa, who rushes to help despite two of his reindeer being sidelined by illness  Patch finds Joe tied up in the toy factory and frees him  Seeing a wood carving resembling Patch that Santa made for Joe, Patch realizes that Santa misses him  He and Joe take off for the North Pole in his flying car with the candy canes loaded in the trunk, unaware that they are becoming unstable  Santa and Cornelia pursue in Santa's sleigh; as the car explodes, they successfully perform the Super Duper Looper, saving Joe and Patch  The police, alerted by Cornelia, attempt to arrest B Z , but he eats several of the magic candy canes and jumps out a window, only to float upward uncontrollably 
Santa agrees to let Joe and Cornelia stay at his workshop until next Christmas  As they celebrate with the elves, B Z  floats off into space 

Cast
Dudley Moore as Patch
John Lithgow as B Z 
David Huddleston as Claus/Santa Claus
Burgess Meredith as the Ancient Elf
Judy Cornwell as Anya
Jeffrey Kramer as Towzer
Christian L Fitzpatrick as Joe
Carrie Kei Heim as Cornelia
John Barrard as Dooley
Anthony O'Donnell as Puffy
Aimee Delamain as a storyteller in Claus' village
Dorothea Phillips as Miss Tucker, Cornelia's nanny
John Hallam as Grizzard, B Z 's chauffeur
Judith Morse as Miss Abruzzi, who works for B Z 
Jerry Harte as a Senate Chairman
Ian Wise as Salvation Army Bandsman (Central Park Scene)Additional elves were played by Melvyn Hayes, Don Estelle, Tim Stern, Peter O'Farrell, and Christopher Ryan as Goober, Groot, Boog, Honka, Vout, and Goobler, respectively  Other minor roles were played by Paul Aspland, Sally Granfield, and Michael Drew as reporters; Walter Goodman as a street corner Santa; John Cassady as a wino; and Ronald Fernee and Michael Ross as policemen 

Production
Development
Conceived by Ilya Salkind in the wake of the apparently waning critical and U S  box office success of 1983's Superman III and its immediate follow-up, 1984's Supergirl, Santa Claus: The Movie was directed by Supergirl director Jeannot Szwarc, from a story by David and Leslie Newman (though David Newman took sole screenplay credit)  Pierre Spengler, Ilya's longtime partner and a longtime collaborator of the Salkinds', joined Ilya as the project's producer 
John Carpenter was originally offered the chance to direct, but also wanted a say in the writing, musical score, and final cut of the film  Carpenter's original choice for the role of Santa was Brian Dennehy  Szwarc, however, felt that he needed an actor with more warmth than Dennehy  Lewis Gilbert was another early choice for director but, despite initial interest, he could not agree with the Salkinds over certain aspects of the script  Robert Wise was also offered the chance to direct, but had a different approach to the story  Guy Hamilton, who'd had to withdraw from directing Superman: The Movie in 1976, lobbied hard for the chance to direct the film, but only on the condition that it be shot either in Los Angeles, Vancouver, or Rome  Ultimately, the Salkinds chose Szwarc because of their excellent working relationship on Supergirl 

Casting
Dudley Moore was the Salkinds' top choice to play the lead elf in the film, Ilya Salkind having remembered a scene in Arthur in which Liza Minnelli's character asks Moore if he is Santa's Little Helper  Moore was attached to the project early on, and had a say in both scripting and choice of director  David Newman's first script draft named Moore's character Ollie, but Moore decided that the name should be changed to Patch, which was the nickname of his young son, Patrick  Moore had briefly been considered to play the role of Mister Mxyzptlk in the Salkinds' aborted original script for Superman III, and for the role of Nigel in Supergirl  He turned down that role, but suggested his longtime friend and comic partner Peter Cook for the part 
Ilya Salkind wanted an American actor to portray Santa Claus because he felt that the film focused on a primary piece of Americana in much the same way that Superman: The Movie had  Szwarc screen-tested such actors as David White (who, being in his late 60s, was considered too old for the role) and Moore's Arthur co-star Barney Martin  For a while, Ilya Salkind actively pursued Carroll O'Connor for the role before Szwarc showed him David Huddleston's screen-test, which won Salkind over 
For the role of B Z , the producers wanted a star with a similar stature to Gene Hackman when he had played Lex Luthor in Superman: The Movie  To this end, they offered the role to Harrison Ford who turned them down  They made offers to Dustin Hoffman, Burt Reynolds and Johnny Carson, each of whom also turned the part down  Eventually, John Lithgow was settled on after Ilya Salkind watched Terms of Endearment and realized that he had a Grinch-type look to him 
The role of the Ancient Elf was written with James Cagney in mind  Though he liked the film's overall idea, Cagney, at 84, turned the role down due to being too weakened by age to perform it  Fred Astaire was considered, but when this eventually came to nothing Dudley Moore suggested his friend Burgess Meredith for the role, which he in the end won  At the time of the film's announcement in mid-1983, the British Press carried reports that diminutive actors such as David Jason, Patrick Troughton and Norman Wisdom would be cast alongside Moore as fellow elves, but none of them were 

Filming
Santa Claus: The Movie was filmed in Buckinghamshire, England at Pinewood Studios, between August and November 1984  The film was photographed by Arthur Ibbetson, whose credits included Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971)  Santa Claus: The Movie was his final feature film  Serving as film editor was Peter Hollywood  The production was designed by Anthony Pratt, with costume design concepts by Bob Ringwood  The visual effects unit, as well as several of the production staff, were Salkind stalwarts from the Superman films: Derek Meddings, director of visual and miniature effects; Roy Field, optical visual effects supervisor; and David Lane, flying and second unit director 

Reception
Santa Claus: The Movie received negative reviews upon release, with a rating of 20% on Rotten Tomatoes, from the 20 reviews counted  Box Office Mojo lists the film's total United States box office gross as $23,717,291, less than its $30–50 million production budget  It was very popular in the UK, grossing £5,073,000 Chicago Sun-Times critic Roger Ebert noted some positive points to the film, writing that the film "does an interesting job of visualizing Santa's workshop" and Santa's elves  He also praised the film's special effects, particularly the New York City fly-over sequence involving Santa  Ebert also had some praise for Lithgow's "nice, hateful performance", but wrote that "the villain is not drawn big enough " He ceded that young children would probably like most of the film, but that older children and adults are "likely to find a lot of it a little thin "Vincent Canby of The New York Times was less positive than Ebert, calling the production "elaborate and tacky"  He described the film as having "the manner of a listless musical without any production numbers"  Unlike Ebert, he offered little praise for the film's production design  Canby quipped that "Santa's workshop must be the world's largest purchaser of low-grade plywood" and that the flyover sequences with Santa "aren't great " The only praise he had for the film's acting was for John Lithgow, who Canby wrote "(gave) the film's only remotely stylish performance " A more recent review by William Mager for the BBC echoed Canby and Ebert's comments



ground_truth: Chippewa County

prompt_front: Answer the question based on the given passages. Only give me the answer and do not output any other words.

Question: For what type of work is the production company for The Year Without a Santa Claus best known?

The following are given passages.
Context 2: In his book Have Yourself a Movie Little Christmas, critic Alonso Duralde lists Santa Claus: The Movie in his chapter of worst Christmas films ever  His reasons include weak plot, garish production design, blatant product placement (particularly for McDonald's, though Coke and Pabst Blue Ribbon are also prominent), and scenery-chewing overacting on the part of Lithgow  Duralde ultimately concludes that the film is "a train-wreck of a Christmas film that's so very wrong that you won't be able to tear yourself away from it "John Lithgow, in a 2019 interview, said, "It's just one of the tackiest movies I've ever been in  It seemed cheesy and it certainly never stuck   except in England  It is huge over there  I wish I had a nickel for every Englishman who's told me [it's their favorite film]  In England, that's half of what I'm known for "

Soundtrack
The soundtrack score was composed and conducted by Henry Mancini, composer of the themes from The Pink Panther and Peter Gunn, with veteran lyricist and screenwriter Leslie Bricusse contributing five original songs  The song "It's Christmas (All Over the World)" was written by Bill House and John Hobbs with Freddie Mercury in mind  While it is known that Mercury recorded a demo for the House/Hobbs song at Pinewood Studios, he was never to make a full commitment to the project, as he and his Queen bandmates had already committed themselves to the Highlander soundtrack  In the end, Mercury turned down the project, stating that he felt that Queen had become overcrowded with requests to work on film soundtracks; as a result, Sheena Easton was ultimately chosen to record the tune  As mentioned on the DVD commentary of the film by Jeannot Szwarc, Paul McCartney was asked to compose songs for the film  It is unknown why he did not do so in the end 

Track listing"Main Title: Every Christmas Eve 1 and Santa's Theme (Giving)" (Mancini/Bricusse)
"Arrival of the Elves" (Mancini)
"Making Toys" (Mancini/Bricusse)2
"Christmas Rhapsody: Deck the Halls/Joy to the World/Hark! The Herald Angels Sing/12 Days of Christmas/O Tannenbaum/The First Noel/Silent Night"
"It's Christmas Again" (Mancini/Bricusse)2
"March of the Elves" (Mancini)
"Patch, Natch!" (Mancini/Bricusse) 3
"It's Christmas (All Over The World)" (Bill House, John Hobbs)5
"Shouldn't Do That" (Nick Beggs, Stuart Croxford, Neal Askew, Steve Askew) 4
"Sleigh Ride over Manhattan" (Mancini)
"Sad Patch" (Mancini)
"Patch Versus Santa" (Mancini)
"Thank You, Santa" (Mancini/Bricusse) 21Sung by Aled Jones2Performed by the Ambrosian Children's Choir  3Performed by the Ambrosian Singers4Produced by Ken Scott and performed by Kaja5Produced by Keith Olsen for Pogologo Corporation, and performed by Sheena Easton 
The soundtrack was originally released on record and cassette by EMI America Records in 1985  Soon after, it went out of print and remained unavailable until 2009 when it was released on CD as a limited run of 1000 copies which sold out immediately upon release  This production suffered from several issues, most notably a master which had been subjected to heavy noise reduction resulting in a loss of sound quality  Additionally, the left & right channels had been erroneously flipped, a superficial re-edit had been performed on "It's Christmas (All Over the World)", and the song "Shouldn't Do That" by Kaja (Kajagoogoo) had been omitted due to licensing issues  In 2012 a deluxe three-disc set, including remastered tracks, outtakes and alternate versions and a 32-page booklet, was released 

Comic book adaptation
Marvel Comics published a comic book adaptation of the film by writer Sid Jacobson and artist Frank Springer in Marvel Super Special #39 

See also
Santa Claus in film
List of Christmas films
Passage 5:
Jonathan Meath
Jonathan Meath (born September 16, 1955) is an American television producer and director  He was senior producer of the television game show Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? He also was a producer of The Wubbulous World of Dr  Seuss and the 1990s' remake of Zoom  In addition, he is notable for having a dual career as a professional Santa Claus  He made numerous appearances in various media as Santa, including on Good Morning America, at Radio City Music Hall with The Rockettes, on the cover of Boston Magazine, and on a Delta Air Lines' pre-flight safety demonstration  He was described by National Public Radio and Time as a "top Santa" 

Television career
Meath attended Phillips Academy and graduated in 1974 with the school's first co–educational class  He graduated from New York University in 1979  During the 1980s Meath worked at CBS, Business Times, The Creative Establishment, MTV Networks and Greenwood Productions in various capacities  During 1996–1998, he produced shows for the Jim Henson Company called The Wubbulous World of Dr  Seuss  He produced for PBS 295 half-hour episodes of Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?, as well as 80 episodes of Zoom 

Career
Meath, whose beard and hair went white early in life, noticed that children sometimes called him "Santa"  He is slightly overweight – he has described himself as an "organic Santa" – and his wife bought him a red suit  He attended schools to learn the craft of being a Santa  He appeared in parades  He is a professional vocalist  In 2012, he appeared as Santa at Radio City Music Hall for the Christmas Spectacular show in New York City  Meath uses his real beard but conditions it with a "shimmer-like shampoo known as Cowboy Magic, and uses hair gel for his mustache  His role as Santa was described in numerous publications  In 2009, he appeared in a thirty-second television commercial spot for the Boston Red Sox baseball team 

Personal life
Meath has one child and lives in Newburyport, Massachusetts  His mother was activist and historian Mary Stewart Hewitt  He is the great great grandson of businessman and sportsman John Malcolm Forbes and the great great great grandson of railroad industrialist John Murray Forbes  Through this, Meath is distantly related to John Kerry  Meath's daughter, Amelia Randall Meath, is a member of the bands Mountain Man and Sylvan Esso 

Awards
Passage 6:
Santa Claus Is a Black Man
"Santa Claus Is a Black Man" is a Christmas song by record producer and songwriter Teddy Vann, performed by his daughter Akim Vann (billed as Akim) and his Teddy Vann Production Company for a 1973 single  The song, described as "Vann's take on 'I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus'", has been called a cult classic, and continues to receive Christmas airplay The elder Vann wrote the song as a Christmas gift for Akim, then five years old, who performs vocals on the recording  A soul song, the lyrics describe Akim happening upon her mother and Santa Claus dancing, noting Santa's curious resemblance to her father  The elder Vann was active in mentoring children, and intended the song to provide positive imagery and empowerment for young African-Americans; the song also makes reference to the Kwanzaa holiday, which the elder Vann was active in promoting in his native Brooklyn Vann would later become better known for co-writing "Power of Love/Love Power" with Luther Vandross in 1991, for which he won a Grammy Award Film director John Waters included the song on his 2004 Christmas music collection, A John Waters Christmas, despite the wishes of the elder Vann, who rejected Waters's request because the auteur "is not considered mainstream"  Vann filed suit against Waters for using the song without permission 
Passage 7:
Santa Claus in film
Motion pictures featuring Santa Claus constitute their own subgenre of the Christmas film genre  Early films of Santa revolve around similar simple plots of Santa's Christmas Eve visit to children  In 1897, in a short film called Santa Claus Filling Stockings, Santa Claus is simply filling stockings from his pack of toys  Another film called Santa Claus and the Children was made in 1898  A year later, a film directed by George Albert Smith titled Santa Claus (or The Visit from Santa Claus in the United Kingdom) was created  In this picture, Santa Claus enters the room from the fireplace and proceeds to trim the tree  He then fills the stockings that were previously hung on the mantle by the children  After walking backward and surveying his work, he suddenly darts at the fireplace and disappears up the chimney  
Santa Claus' Visit in 1900 featured a scene with two little children kneeling at the feet of their mother and saying their prayers  The mother tucks the children snugly in bed and leaves the room  Santa Claus suddenly appears on the roof, just outside the children's bedroom window, and proceeds to enter the chimney, taking with him his bag of presents and a little hand sled for one of the children  He goes down the chimney and suddenly appears in the children's room through the fireplace  He distributes the presents and mysteriously causes the appearance of a Christmas tree laden with gifts  The scene closes with the children waking up and running to the fireplace just too late to catch him by the legs  A 1909 film by D  W  Griffith titled A Trap for Santa Claus shows children setting a trap to capture Santa Claus as he descends the chimney, but instead capture their father who abandoned them and their mother but tries to burglarize the house after he discovers that she inherited a fortune  A 29-minute 1925 silent film production titled Santa Claus, by explorer/documentarian Frank E  Kleinschmidt, filmed partly in northern Alaska, feature Santa in his workshop, visiting his Eskimo neighbors, and tending his reindeer  A year later, another movie titled Santa Claus was produced with sound on De Forest Phonofilm Over the years, various actors have donned the red suit (aside from those discussed below), including Leedham Bantock in Santa Claus (1912), Monty Woolley in Life Begins at Eight-thirty (1942), Alberto Rabagliati in The Christmas That Almost Wasn't (1966), Dan Aykroyd in Trading Places (1983), Jan Rubes in One Magic Christmas (1985), David Huddleston in Santa Claus: The Movie (1985), Jonathan Taylor Thomas in I'll Be Home for Christmas (1998), and Ed Asner in The Story of Santa Claus (1996), Olive, the Other Reindeer (1999), Ellen's First Christmas (2001), Elf (2003), Regular Show: The Christmas Special (2012), Elf: Buddy's Musical Christmas (2014), Santa Stole Our Dog: A Merry Doggone Christmas!, and A StoryBots Christmas (both 2017) 

Santa's origins
Some films about Santa Claus seek to explore his origins  They explain how his reindeer can fly, where the elves come from, and other questions that children have generally asked about Santa  Two Rankin/Bass stop motion animation television specials addressed this issue: the first, Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town (1970), with Mickey Rooney as the voice of Kris Kringle, reveals how Santa delivered toys to children despite the fact that the evil Burgermeister Meisterburger had forbidden children to play with them; and the second, The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus (1985), based on L  Frank Baum's 1902 children's book of the same name, follows Santa being reared by a collection of mythical creatures who finally grant him immortality  Another animated version of Baum's book was made by Glen Hill in 2000, and the book also served as the basis for an anime series, Shounen Santa no Daibôken (Young Santa's Adventures) in 1994 and The Oz Kids video, Who Stole Santa? (1996)  None of these films focus on Santa Claus's saintly origins 
The 1985 feature film Santa Claus: The Movie, inspired by the 1978 Superman: The Movie, stars David Huddleston as Santa Claus and British actress Judy Cornwell as his wife Anya, shows how Santa and Anya are discovered by a clan of elves called the Vendequm  Dudley Moore portrays Patch, the central character and main focus of the story; Burgess Meredith portrays their wise leader, the Ancient One, who reveals that Claus represents the fulfillment of an ancient prophecy, whereby he has been designated as "the Chosen One", whose mission it will be to deliver the elves' toys to children all over the world  The film's prologue features Claus and Anya performing Santa-like duties in their home village, and strongly suggests Santa's saintly origins 
The 2019 animated Netflix Christmas comedy Klaus, also features its own telling of the origin of Santa  Where Jesper Johansen, the pampered spoiled son of a postmaster general (played by Jason Schwartzman) is sent to the secluded town of Smeerensburg, as their latest postman  There Jesper learns that due to a local family feud, the town’s people hardly have time for anything else, let alone writing or exchanging letters  There he reluctantly teams up with the titular Santa Claus (played by J  K Simmons) who is portrayed as gruff hermit, with a sad past and a skilled hand for woodcarving and toy making  Together, they not only help end the feud in Smeerensburg, but also create one of the most beloved holiday traditions 

Questioning and believing
Another genre of Santa Claus films seeks to dispel doubts about his existence 

One of the first films of this nature was titled A Little Girl Who Did Not Believe in Santa Claus (1907) and involves a well-to-do boy trying to convince his poorer friend that Santa Claus is real  She doubts because Santa has never visited her family because of their poverty 
Miracle on 34th Street (1947), starring Natalie Wood as Susan Walker, revolves around the disbelief of young Susan, whose mother (Maureen O'Hara) employs a kind old man (Edmund Gwenn, who won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor) to play Santa Claus at Macy's; he later convinces Susan that he really is Santa 
One Magic Christmas (1985) depicts Santa as the Dutch Sinterklaas, in charge of Christmas angels (deceased people) in lieu of elves, whom he assigns to restore individuals' Christmas spirit  He assigns Gideon (Harry Dean Stanton) to a woman (Mary Steenburgen) who worries too much about the practical side of life and shows little charity  Gideon shows her a potential Christmas in which her husband is killed by a desperate bank robber whom she has neglected to help, and takes her little girl to Santa, who gives her the last letter her mother sent him as a child and tells her to give it to her  This works to restore her spirit and gives her a do-over of Christmas with her husband and the desperate man, and she greets Santa putting presents under her tree 
The Polar Express (2004), based on the children's book of the same name, also deals with issues and questions of belief as a magical train conducted by Tom Hanks transports a doubting boy to the North Pole to visit Santa Claus 
Yes, Virginia (2009) is an animated holiday TV special based on the true story of a young girl, Virginia O'Hanlon, who writes a letter to the editor of the New York Sun in 1897 after her friends tell her that there is no Santa  The newspaper editor tells her that indeed there is a Santa: "He lives, and he lives forever " Francis Pharcellus Church was the real-life editor played by Charles Bronson in the special 

Santa as a hero
Some science fiction B movies feature Santa Claus as a superhero-type figure, such as the 1959 film titled Santa Claus produced in Mexico with José Elías Moreno as Santa Claus  In this movie, Santa allies with Merlin the magician to battle the devil, who is attempting to trap Santa  In the Cold War-era film Santa Claus Conquers the Martians (1964), Santa Claus is captured by Martians and brought to Mars, and ultimately foils a plot to destroy him In the 1984 film The Night They Saved Christmas, starring Art Carney as Santa, likewise chronicles how Santa Claus and Claudia Baldwin (Jaclyn Smith), the wife of an oil explorer, have to save the North Pole from explosions while Baldwin's husband is searching for oil in the Arctic  Santa Claus: The Movie contains a subplot in which Santa Claus rescues Joe (Christian Fitzpatric) from his best friend Cornelia's (Carrie Kei Heim) evil step-uncle B  Z  (John Lithgow)  Santa is a hero in The Nightmare Before Christmas, held captive by Oogie Boogie, although he is spiteful and enraged at Jack when freed  The 2004 film Christmas With the Kranks, based on the 2001 John Grisham novel Skipping Christmas, has Austin Pendleton as Marty, a Santa-dressed umbrella salesman who turns out to be the real Santa, saving Luther Krank's (Tim Allen's) forced Christmas party by capturing a burglar unintentionally brought to the house by the police  After leaving the party, he rides through the sky in his Volkswagen Beetle, pulled by reindeer  In the 2005 film adaptation of The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Father Christmas (James Cosmo) supplies the Pevensie children with the weapons and tools they need to battle the White Witch (Tilda Swinton)  In the 2012 DreamWorks film Rise of the Guardians, which is based on the book series The Guardians of Childhood by William Joyce, Santa (Alec Baldwin) is shown as one of the main characters and leader of the Guardians, who are the heroes of the movie  The 2022 film Violent Night portrays a drunk and disillusioned Santa (played by David Harbour) caught up in a hostage situation and becoming an action hero, parodying the film Die Hard and its protagonist John McClane In the television show South Park, Santa is often depicted with firearms; in the episode "Red Sleigh Down", he battles Iraqis to try to bring Christmas to Iraq  In the episode "A Woodland Critter Christmas", he uses a combat shotgun to blast away Satanic animals who try to give birth to the AntiChrist  Santa (played by Nick Frost) made a brief appearance at the end of the Doctor Who episode, "Death in Heaven"  In the following episode, which served as the show's 2014 Christmas special, "Last Christmas", he plays a more prominent role  It is eventually revealed that the scenes with him are the characters experiencing a shared dream, and he is their subconscious trying to help them wake up before they are killed  At the episode's end, he successfully awakens the Doctor and Clara, reuniting the two 

Succession of Santas
One genre of movies suggests that Santa Claus is not historically a single individual but a succession of individuals 
In Ernest Saves Christmas (1988), Ernest P  Worrell (Jim Varney) joins the challenge of Santa Claus, alias Seth Applegate (Douglas Seale), to convince Florida kids' show host Joe Carruthers (Oliver Clark) to become the next Santa 
In The Santa Clause (1994), Tim Allen plays Scott Calvin, who accidentally causes Santa Claus to fall off the roof of his house  After he puts on Santa's suit, he finds himself contractually obligated to become the next Santa  Reluctant at first, his appearance changes over the next year from average to the legendary image: he grows fat, his hair whitens, and his beard grows uncontrollably by magic  He ultimately falls in love with his new role 
A 2001 television special, Call Me Claus, stars Whoopi Goldberg as Lucy Cullins, an African American woman destined to reluctantly become the next Santa Claus 
In The Hebrew Hammer (2003), the role of Santa Claus is traditionally passed down from father to son  The system is disrupted when the reigning Santa is murdered by his son, Damian, who then uses the position to attack the competing holidays of Hanukkah and Kwanzaa 
The 2011 animated film Arthur Christmas portrays being Santa Claus as a dynasty  The first "Santa", Saint Nicholas, established the North Pole workshop and passed the title and responsibilities to his son after 70 Christmases, after which his son passed them on to his son, and so on  In the film, the current Santa initially refuses to retire, due to worry about what he will be if he is not Santa 

Impostor Santas
Several films have been created which explore the consequences should an impostor Santa take over 
One of the first films featuring a fake Santa Claus is the 1914 silent film, The Adventure of the Wrong Santa Claus, written by Frederic Arnold Kummer  In this film, a bogus Santa steals all the Christmas presents and amateur detective Octavius (played by Herbert Yost) tries to recover them  
The most notorious impostor appears in the 1966 cartoon based on Dr  Seuss's 1957 children's book, How the Grinch Stole Christmas!, wherein the Grinch, a hairy and mean-tempered creature, attempts to rob the Whos in Whoville of their Christmas by stealing their presents, food and decorations, but has a change of heart when he sees that he has not stopped them from celebrating after all  This animated feature was made into a live-action movie in 2000, directed by Ron Howard and starring Jim Carrey as the Grinch  A CGI feature film was made in 2018, starring Benedict Cumberbatch as the voice of the Grinch  
Another less-than-friendly impostor appears in A Christmas Story (1983) as a disgruntled mall Santa at Higbee's Department Store (a real store in downtown Cleveland, Ohio) in the fictional town of Holman, Indiana  Played by Jeff Gillen, Santa is depicted as a larger-than-life figure who terrifies, rather than amuses, children  Gillen's performance lends credence to the theory that the mall Santa is not quite genuine 
Another recent devious mall Santa was played by Billy Bob Thornton in Bad Santa (2003), a film which gained the normally family-friendly Disney "bad press" Tim Burton's stop-action animated musical film, The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993), depicts Jack Skellington, the Pumpkin King of Halloween Town, wanting to become Santa Claus after an accidental visit to Christmas Town  After the mostly well-meaning but totally clueless Halloween Town citizens capture Santa, they then try to take over Christmas with disastrous results; children are terrified by Jack's Halloween-themed gifts, and the real Santa is almost killed by Oogie Boogie  Santa is voiced here by Ed Ivory and in the video game spinoffs by Corey Burton 
In 2002's The Santa Clause 2: The Mrs  Clause, Scott Calvin (Tim Allen) must leave the North Pole to find a wife, so his number one elf turns a plastic toy Santa into a life-size robot clone of Calvin to cover for him  The robo-Santa interprets the rules of Christmas literally, convinces himself that all of the world's children are naughty, and dresses and runs the North Pole like a Latin American dictator, constructing an army of giant toy soldiers  When Calvin returns with his wife, he must defeat his clone to regain control of Christmas 
In 2006's The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause, Martin Short appears as Jack Frost, who is jealous of Santa Claus  He usurps the role from Scott Calvin, turns Christmas into "Frostmas" and the North Pole into a Disneyesque tourist resort, and addicts the worlds' children to toys which their parents must buy from him 
In 2007's Fred Claus, Vince Vaughn plays Santa's jealous older brother who grows up hating Santa and Christmas  He cons his brother (Paul Giamatti) into giving him a large sum of money for a business deal, in return for which he must come to the Pole and help prepare for Christmas  Fred ends up sabotaging his brother by placing all the world's naughty children on the nice list  Meanwhile, another Santa-hater (Kevin Spacey) is auditing Santa, looking for excuses to fire him and the elves  When Santa injures his back, Fred must deliver the gifts in order to save Christmas 
Other, darker impostors have appeared in slasher films such as the first three films of the five-film Silent Night, Deadly Night series, Santa Claws and Santa's Slay, and in the short "   And All Through the House", part of the horror anthology film Tales from the Crypt (1972) and later remade as episode 1 2 and directed by Robert Zemeckis for the HBO TV series of the same name  Both versions were inspired by the comic book Tales from the Crypt 

See also
Christmas elf#In films and television
Mrs  Claus#In popular media
List of Christmas films
Passage 8:
The Year Without a Santa Claus
The Year Without a Santa Claus is a 1974 stop motion animated Christmas television special produced by Rankin/Bass Productions  The story is based on Phyllis McGinley's 1956 book of the same name  It is narrated by Shirley Booth (her final acting credit before her retirement from acting) and starring the voices of Mickey Rooney, Dick Shawn, and George S  Irving  It was originally broadcast on December 10, 1974, on ABC 

Plot
Santa Claus wakes up with a cold sometime before Christmas in the early 20th century  His doctor, who thinks nobody cares about Santa anymore, advises him to make some changes to his routine, so Santa decides to take a holiday instead of delivering gifts  Mrs  Claus unsuccessfully tries to convince him otherwise, so she enlists two elves named Jingle and Jangle to find proof that people still believe in Santa 
Jingle and Jangle set out with Santa's youngest reindeer Vixen, but are shot down by crossfire between the conflicting Miser Brothers: Snow Miser, who controls the world's cold weather, and Heat Miser, who controls its warm weather  Vixen saves her guardian elves from falling to their doom and they continue on their uncertain path 
Jingle, Jangle, and Vixen come upon Southtown, a small community in the southern United States  They ask a group of children, including a boy named Iggy, if they believe in Santa, but they are skeptical  To make matters worse, Vixen grows sick due to the warm weather and is sent to the local animal shelter after Jingle and Jangle disguise her as a dog  The town's police officer refers them to the town's mayor, who laughs at their story but agrees to free Vixen if they can prove they are elves by making it snow in Southtown on Christmas 
Jingle and Jangle call Mrs  Claus to pick them up  As she leaves, Santa discovers Vixen is missing and travels to Southtown himself to retrieve her while disguised as a civilian named "Klaus"  While there, he meets Iggy and his family  Klaus reveals his belief in Santa, and Iggy's father reveals that Santa personally visited him one Christmas, and he still believes as well  When Claus leaves to retrieve Vixen, Iggy realizes his true identity and resolves to help Jingle and Jangle 
Iggy joins Mrs  Claus when she arrives to pick up Jingle and Jangle, and together they visit the Miser Brothers  They ask Snow Miser to send snow to Southtown for a day; he is agreeable but says he cannot as it is part of Heat Miser's territory  They then ask Heat Miser, who says he will only comply if Snow Miser turns the North Pole over to him in exchange  When the brothers begin bickering again, Mrs  Claus goes over their heads and visits their mother, Mother Nature, who convinces her sons to compromise 
As Christmas approaches, the world's children send their own presents to Santa, setting off international headlines  Touched by the outpouring of generosity and appreciation, Santa decides to make his journey after all  On Christmas Eve, he makes a public stop in Southtown during a snowfall  The next day, the children, including Iggy, are delighted to receive their presents  As the special ends, Mrs  Claus narrates that somehow, "yearly, newly, faithfully and truly", Santa always comes  Santa is shown getting out of bed to prepare himself, his reindeer, and his gift-loaded sleigh, remarking he could never imagine "a year without a Santa Claus" 

Voice cast
Shirley Booth as Mrs  Claus
Mickey Rooney as Santa Claus
Dick Shawn as Snow Miser
George S  Irving as Heat Miser
Bob McFadden as Jingle Bells, Elf Doctor
Bradley Bolke as Jangle Bells, Police Officer
Rhoda Mann as Mother Nature, Mrs  Thistlewhite
Ron Marshall as Mr  Thistlewhite, Mayor of Southtown
Colin Duffy as Ignatius "Iggy" Thistlewhite
Noelle Magargle as the Blue Christmas Girl
The Wee Winter Singers as the Children Choir

Songs
"Sleigh Ride" (instrumental)
"The Year Without a Santa Claus"
"I Could Be Santa Claus"
"I Believe in Santa Claus"
"It's Gonna Snow Right Here in Dixie"
"The Snow Miser Song"
"The Heat Miser Song"
"Blue Christmas"
"Sleigh Ride" (instrumental)
"Here Comes Santa Claus"
"The Year Without a Santa Claus (reprise)"

Television rights
The special premiered in 1974 on ABC and aired annually on Freeform during its 25 Days of Christmas programming block until 2017  As of 2018, AMC: American Movie Classics currently airs the special uncut as part of the Best Christmas Ever block  Warner Bros  Entertainment currently distributes the special through their ownership of the post-1974 Rankin/Bass Productions library 

Home video
The special was first released on VHS by Vestron Video on September 5, 1991 as part of their Christmas Classics Series, which is distributed by Family Home Entertainment  Warner Home Video released the special on VHS on September 2, 1992, and re-released it on VHS on September 28, 1999  The special was then released on DVD on October 31, 2000, and re-released on the Deluxe Edition DVD on October 2, 2007  Warner Home Video released the special on Blu-ray on October 5, 2010, making it the first Rankin/Bass production to be released on that format 

DVD details
Release date: October 31, 2000 (Original DVD), January 17, 2004 (30th Anniversary Edition DVD), October 2, 2007 (Deluxe Edition DVD), October 5, 2010 (Blu-ray)
Full Screen
Region: 1
Aspect Ratios: 1 33:1
Audio tracks: English
Special Features:
Rudolph's Shiny New Year
Nestor, The Long-Eared Christmas Donkey
Stop Motion 101 (Deluxe Edition Exclusive)
We Are Santa's Elves: Profiling Arthur Rankin Jr  & Jules Bass (Deluxe Edition Exclusive)

Live-action remake
A live-action remake of The Year Without a Santa Claus premiered on NBC on December 11, 2006, and was released on DVD the following day  It follows largely the same plot as the original special 
Paul Mavis, for Drunk TV, wrote, "The Year Without a Santa Claus is a nauseating, angry, joyless little holiday confection sure to poison any child unlucky enough to chance upon it  This hate-filled stocking stuffer has nothing but contempt for its intended audience, promoting the worst possible beliefs about people, while cloaking itself, incredibly, in the fake guise of a meaningful lesson about the holidays: the gall that the cretinous makers of this film have is really quite audacious ”

Cast
John Goodman as Santa Claus
Delta Burke as Mrs  Claus
Michael McKean as Snow Miser
Harvey Fierstein as Heat Miser
Ethan Suplee as Jingle Bells
Eddie Griffin as Jangle Bells
Chris Kattan as Sparky
Dylan Minnette as Ignatius "Iggy" Thistlewhite
Billy Slaughter as Nerd ElfCarol Kane as Mother Nature
Carson Kressley as the elf costumer
Laura Schlessinger, "Dr  Laura", as herself
Jack LaLanne as Hercules

Sequel
A sequel, titled A Miser Brothers' Christmas, was produced in 2008 by Warner Bros  Animation and Cuppa Coffee Studios, and it also used stop-motion animation  Mickey Rooney, age 88, reprised his role as Santa Claus, and George S  Irving, age 86, reprised his role as Heat Miser  Juan Chioran and Catherine Disher replaced Dick Shawn and Shirley Booth as Snow Miser and Mrs  Claus, respectively, Shawn and Booth having died prior to the film's production 

See also
List of Christmas films
Santa Claus in film
List of animated feature films
List of stop-motion films
List of Rankin/Bass Productions films
Passage 9:
A Miser Brothers' Christmas
A Miser Brothers’ Christmas is a stop motion spin-off special based on some of the characters from the 1974 Rankin-Bass special The Year Without a Santa Claus  Distributed by Warner Bros  Animation under their Warner Premiere label (the rights holders of the post-1974 Rankin-Bass library) and Toronto-based Cuppa Coffee Studios, the one-hour special premiered on ABC Family on Saturday, December 13, 2008, during the network's annual The 25 Days of Christmas programming Mickey Rooney (at age 88) and George S  Irving (at age 86) reprised their respective roles as Santa Claus and Heat Miser  Snow Miser (originally portrayed by Dick Shawn who died in 1987) was voiced by Juan Chioran, while Mrs  Claus (voiced in the original by Shirley Booth who died in 1992) was portrayed by Catherine Disher  The movie aimed to emulate the Rankin/Bass animation style  This is the last Christmas special to feature Mickey Rooney as Santa Claus, as he died in 2014, as well as the last time George Irving voiced Heat Miser, as he died in 2016 

Plot
The feuding Miser Brothers (Heat and Snow) attend their family reunion with Mother Nature and their fellow siblings including the North Wind, Earthquake, Thunder and Lightning, and the Tides  North Wind passively asks Mother Nature what might happen if Santa would be unable to complete his duties on Christmas  She responds that North Wind would take control instead  Heat then begins to call out Snow for trying to "give global warming a bad name"  Snow responds by talking about Heat's attempts to scare people with reports of a second Ice Age  Heat then reprimands Snow for claiming Iceland as his own, which barely has any ice  Snow then calls out Heat for claiming Greenland as his own because it's full of ice  The brothers then fight each other  Mother Nature ends the fight 
Despite his dashing appearance and veneer of flattery and devotion toward Mother Nature, the North Wind is far more malevolent than either of his brothers  Self-absorbed and vain, the North Wind is fixated with the idea of replacing Santa Claus as a way to achieve personal glory  Beginning his machinations, He then sends two of his minions to crash Santa's Super-Sleigh designed by his mechanic Tinsel, causing Santa to injure his back after falling in the middle of a fight between the brothers as he unintentionally crosses into their domain 
Despite what she told the North Wind before and having been informed by Mrs  Claus about what happened to Santa, Mother Nature assigns the Miser Brothers the responsibility of running the toy factory  Their fighting continues as they move through several workshop stations  The North Wind hatches a new plan to keep them fighting so it would appear as if they ruined Christmas themselves, but Mrs  Claus convinces the Miser Brothers to put aside their differences and cooperate by showing them the Naughty/Nice list station  The brothers' history is revealed, showing they've always been on Santa's naughty list for mutual bickering  Upon learning the error of their ways, they begin working together and successfully get work back up to speed  However, the North Wind hatches a plan to destroy their truce and get them fighting again, leaving Santa to deliver the toys and giving North Wind the chance to finish him off 
On Christmas Eve, the North Wind's minions surreptitiously attach heating and cooling units to the sleigh, apparently capable of heating or cooling entire regions of the planet  The discovery causes the Miser Brothers to blame each other  With them fighting again, Santa has no choice but to drive the sleigh as North Wind planned  After Santa leaves, Tinsel discovers the super-sleigh has been sabotaged, which stops the Misers' fight as they realize that neither of them was responsible for injuring Santa  Upon finding one of North Wind's Christmas cards with him dressed as Santa, the Misers realize the truth about their brother and comprehend his plan  Meanwhile, the North Wind attacks Santa's sleigh in flight, whipping up a vortex to consume Santa, but the Miser Brothers, with the aid of Tinsel and a team of young reindeer, save Santa in the nick of time 
The North Wind's cover is blown and Mother Nature sentences him to do household chores for the next several thousand years as punishment for trying to finish off Santa and making his brothers fight  With North Wind thwarted, the brothers learn they've finally made the nice list  They deliver the presents for Santa and give gifts to each other in the process, making peace between them and ending their feud 

Cast
Mickey Rooney as Santa Claus
George S  Irving as Heat Miser
Juan Chioran as Snow Miser
Catherine Disher as Mrs  Claus, Reindeer Elf
Brad Adamson as North Wind
Patricia Hamilton as Mother Nature
Peter Oldring as Bob, Elf #1
Susan Roman as Tinsel, Dr  Noel

Reception
The movie had 3 7 million viewers in its first airing, as determined by Nielsen ratings  It received a nomination for "Best Animated Television Production Produced for Children" in the 36th Annual Annie Awards 

See also
Santa Claus in film
List of Christmas films
Context 3: Passage 1:
Noah's Compass
Noah's Compass is a novel by Anne Tyler first published in 2009 about a solitary 60-year-old man trying to come to terms with his own life  Critics agree that in this, Tyler's 18th novel, the author again treads familiar territory by setting her novel in Baltimore and by following the life of an inconspicuous man who has never realised his full potential 

Plot summary
On the surface, Liam Pennywell leads an ordered, decent life  Once widowed and once divorced, with three grown-up daughters, he has just been dismissed from his teaching job and, for lack of funds, has moved to a smaller apartment on the outskirts of Baltimore  Toying with the idea of retiring altogether rather than going job hunting at his age, Pennywell is assaulted by a burglar on the very first night he stays at his new place  When he wakes up in hospital with a bandaged head, he cannot remember a thing about the attack 
The loss of memory disturbs him more than the crime itself  In a neurologist's waiting room he observes 38-year-old Eunice accompanying an ageing entrepreneur to his doctor's appointment and finds out that she is working for him as a "rememberer" or, as she herself puts it later, the old man's "external hard drive " Intrigued by this occupation, Pennywell contrives a chance encounter with her, and eventually they strike up a relationship with each other 
Complications in their love affair arise when his youngest daughter, 17-year-old Kitty, decides to move in with him, obviously because she expects to be enjoying more freedom than if she stayed with her mother; and when his middle daughter Louise makes a habit of dumping his four-year-old grandson Jonah at Pennywell's apartment for him to babysit  On top of that, Eunice turns out to be a married woman who, after Pennywell has found out, still does not want to let go of him 
In the end the police arrest the burglar—a juvenile delinquent whose mother has the cheek to ask Pennywell to serve as a character witness at her son's forthcoming trial  By then, Pennywell has made up with his eldest daughter Xanthe, who was bearing an old grudge against her father, has got rid of Eunice, and has got settled in at his new apartment  Also, he has started working as a zayde for Jewish preschool children 

Title
The novel takes its title from a discussion Pennywell has with his grandson about whether Noah was steering his ark, or just bobbing up and down in the flood  "Noah didn't need to figure out directions, because the whole world was underwater and so it made no difference," he tells Jonah  “There wasn't anywhere to go  He was just trying to stay afloat "

Reviews
William Boot: "Do I Have to Read Noah's Compass?", www thedailybeast com (23 January 2010) 
Kathleen Byrne: "Families, They Suck You Up",  The Globe and Mail (29 January 2010) 
Elizabeth Day: "Anne Tyler's Noah's Compass, The Observer (16 August 2009) 
Kathryn Harrison: "The Memory Thief", The New York Times (3 January 2010) BR10 
Yvonne Zipp: "Noah's Compass", The Christian Science Monitor (5 January 2010) 
Links to more reviews at  www reviewsofbooks com 

See also
2009 in literature
Passage 2:
Stanley Elkin
Stanley Lawrence Elkin (May 11, 1930 – May 31, 1995) was an American novelist, short story writer, and essayist  His extravagant, satirical fiction revolves around American consumerism, popular culture, and male-female relationships 

Biography
Elkin was born to a Jewish family in Brooklyn, New York, and grew up in Chicago from age three onwards  He did both his undergraduate and graduate work at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, receiving a bachelor's degree in English in 1952 and a Ph D  in 1961 for his dissertation on William Faulkner  During this period he was drafted and served in the U S  Army from 1955 to 1957  In 1953 Elkin married Joan Marion Jacobson  He was a member of the English faculty at Washington University in St  Louis from 1960 until his death, and battled multiple sclerosis for most of his adult life  In 1968, he signed the "Writers and Editors War Tax Protest" pledge, vowing to refuse tax payments in protest against the Vietnam War During his career, Elkin published ten novels, two volumes of novellas, two books of short stories, a collection of essays, and one (unproduced) screenplay  Elkin's work revolves about American pop culture, which it portrays in innumerable darkly comic variations  Characters and especially prose style take full precedence over plot  His language is extravagant and exuberant, baroque and flowery, taking fantastic flight from his characters' endless patter  "He was like a jazz artist who would go off on riffs," said critic William Gass  In a review of George Mills, Ralph B  Sipper wrote, "Elkin's trademark is to tightrope his way from comedy to tragedy with hardly a slip " About the influence of ethnicity on his work Elkin said he admired most "the writers who are stylists, Jewish or not  Bellow is a stylist, and he is Jewish  William Gass is a stylist, and he is not Jewish  What I go for in my work is language "
Although living in the Midwest, Elkin spent his childhood and teenage summers in a bungalow colony called West Oakland, on the Ramapo River in northern New Jersey not far from Mahwah, the home of Joyce Kilmer  This was a refuge for a close-knit group of several score families, mostly Jewish, from the summer heat of New York City and urban New Jersey  Elkin's writings placed in New Jersey were informed by this experience Elkin won the National Book Critics Circle Award on two occasions: for George Mills in 1982 and for Mrs  Ted Bliss, his last novel, in 1995  The MacGuffin was a finalist for the 1991 National Book Award for Fiction  However, although he enjoyed high critical praise, his books have never enjoyed popular success  The 1976 Jack Lemmon film Alex & the Gypsy was based on Elkin's novella "The Bailbondsman" 
Elkin died May 31, 1995, of a heart attack, twenty days after his 65th birthday  His manuscripts and correspondence are archived in Olin Library at Washington University in St  Louis  Elkin's literary legacy is represented by the literary agency headed by Georges Borchardt 
He has a star on the St  Louis Walk of Fame 

Works
Novels
Boswell: A Modern Comedy (1964)
A Bad Man (1967)
The Dick Gibson Show (1971)
The Franchiser (1976)
The Living End (novella) (1979) ISBN 978-0525070207
George Mills (1982)
The Magic Kingdom (1985)
The Rabbi of Lud (1987)
The MacGuffin (1991) ISBN 978-0671673246
Mrs  Ted Bliss (1995)

Story collections
Criers and Kibitzers, Kibitzers and Criers (1966)
Early Elkin (1985)

Novella collections
Searches and Seizures (1973) (U K  title: Eligible Men (1974))
Van Gogh's Room at Arles (1993)

Other works
"A Prayer for Losers", from the Why Work Series (edited by Gordon Lish) (1966)
Stanley Elkin's Greatest Hits (anthology; foreword by Robert Coover) (1980)
The Six-Year-Old Man (screenplay) (1987)
Pieces of Soap (collected essays) (1992)

Limited editions
The First George Mills  (Part One of George Mills; 376 copies, all signed by Elkin and the illustrator, Jane E  Hughes) (1980)
Why I Live Where I Live (essay; 30 unnumbered copies) (1983)
The Coffee Room (radio play; 95 copies, all signed by Elkin and the illustrator, Michael McCurdy) (1987)

Audio
"A Poetics for Bullies", read by Jackson Beck, with comments by Elkin, in New Sounds in American Fiction, Program 10  (edited by Gordon Lish) (1969)

As editor
Stories From the Sixties (1971)
The Best American Short Stories 1980 (with Shannon Ravenel) (1980)

Awards
1995 – National Book Critics Circle Award for Mrs  Ted Bliss
1994 – PEN Faulkner Award finalist for Van Gogh's Room at Arles
1991 – National Book Award finalist for Fiction for The MacGuffin
1982 – National Book Critics Circle Award for George Mills
Passage 3:
Earthly Possessions (novel)
Earthly Possessions is a 1977 novel by Anne Tyler   This, Tyler's seventh novel, followed Celestial Navigation and Searching for Caleb and preceded her award-winning novels Morgan's Passing, Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant, The Accidental Tourist, and Breathing Lessons 

Plot
Thirty-five-year-old Charlotte Emory has felt trapped her whole life in Clarion, Maryland—first by her embarrassingly eccentric parents, then by her preacher-husband whom she married too young, and eventually by "his variously afflicted brothers, a daughter who won't answer to her own name, a house full of refugees, an impossible clutter "  She finally decides to run away from it all, rid herself of her "earthly possessions," and start over   When she goes to the bank to withdraw funds for her escape, she gets taken hostage during a holdup   Prison escapee Jake Simms forces Charlotte into a stolen car and they head for Florida 
"Earthly Possessions…contains a chilling portrait of a habitual criminal, Jake Simms, Jr , who blames every destructive and chaotic act of his own on someone else   He kidnaps our heroine, the surpassingly amiable Charlotte Emory because while he was robbing a bank a bystander happened to produce a gun   "I could be clean free," he tells his victim, "and you safe home with your kids by now if it wasn't for him   Guy like that ought to be locked up "  As the chase continues, and the kidnapping lengthens into a kind of marriage, he persuades himself, "it ain't me keeping you it's them   If they would quit hounding me then we could go our separate ways…"  This is perfect loser psychology, the mental technology of digging a bottomless pit; but Anne Tyler would have us believe that Jake is saved from falling in by the doll-like apparition of a wee seventeen-year-old girl he has impregnated, Mindy Callender "Jake Simms' mission—besides avoiding arrest—is to "rescue" Mindy from a "home for wayward girls" where she is preparing to have his child   If Mindy is the essence of pure innocence, then Charlotte Emory is the earthbound mooring for this homeless couple—at least for a time   One irony here is that, when she was taken hostage, Charlotte herself was in the process of withdrawing her savings to run away from her own family and home  This is not the first time Charlotte has intended to run away, with no real plan or expectations   Charlotte has escaped one trap to find herself in another, but perhaps this "adventure" will provide her a new perspective 

Reviews
In 1977, John Leonard wrote, "That part of Earthly Possessions spent on the road--gas stations and junk food--amounts to a Rabbit, Run without the Updike epiphanies  The rest is skillful flashback    I admit not being entirely sympathetic to the wry fatalism she proposes, to the notion that we travel enough in our heads to make leaving home almost redundant  Celestial Navigation (1974) and Searching for Caleb (1976) were more satisfying novels  But a taste of Anne Tyler, once acquired, is a splendid addiction "John Updike reviewed the novel in The New Yorker: "Anne Tyler, in her seventh novel, 'Earthly Possessions', continues to demonstrate a remarkable talent and, for a writer of her acuity, an unusual temperament    Small towns and pinched minds hold room enough for her; she is at peace in the semi-countrified, semi-plasticized northern-Southern America where she and her characters live   Out of this peace flow her unmistakable strengths—serene firm tone; her smoothly spun plots; her apparently inexhaustible access to the personalities of her imagining; her infectious delight in "the smell of beautiful, everyday life"; her lack of any trace of intellectual or political condescension—and her one possible weakness: a tendency to leave the reader just where she found him    Charlotte Emory   belongs to what is becoming a familiar class of Anne Tyler heroines: women admirably active in the details of living yet alarmingly passive in the large curve of their lives—riders on male-generated events, who nevertheless give those events a certain blessing, a certain feasibility "

Adaptation for TV
Earthly Possessions (TV) (1999) stars Susan Sarandon, Stephen Dorff, and Elisabeth Moss   "The eventual romance [between Jake and Charlotte is] an element invented for the movie  [It] doesn't disrupt the original sentiment of the story, but could easily have been left out without compromising the emotional development of the characters "
Passage 4:
Searching for Caleb
Searching for Caleb is Anne Tyler's sixth novel   It was originally published by Alfred A  Knopf in 1975 

Book Description
From The Boston Globe
Duncan Peck has a fascination for randomness and is always taking his family on the move  His wife, Justine, is a fortune teller who can't remember the past  Her grandfather, Daniel, longs to find the brother who walked out of his life in 1912, with nothing more than a fiddle in his hand  All three are taking journeys that lead back to the family's deepest roots   to a place where rebellion and acceptance have the haunting power to merge into one    

From the back of the April 1983 Berkley paperback edition
"Here is the heartbreaking and hilarious story of the Peck family - and a young woman's search for freedom, which leads her to the family's deepest roots   From the ragtime era at the end of the 19th century to the years of change in the mid-1970s, it is about growing up and breaking away, rebellion and acceptance   It is a haunting, human story that will live in your heart forever   "

From a 1976 review by Katha Pollitt in the New York Times
"When Duncan marries his cousin Justine, hitherto an ardent Peck, she begins to discover her own thirst for adventure   For years the two careen through the small towns of Maryland and Virginia as Duncan quits one makeshift job for another…  Justine is pulled both forward and back: an amateur teller of fortunes who advises her clients always to go along with change, she remains in thrall to her own childhood   And so, when Daniel decides to find his lost brother, Justine is the one who joins him   For the old man the quest is a way of recapturing the past, but for Justine it becomes a search for the self she has mislaid   The outcome is marvelously ironic, since the answers to her questions are themselves enigmatic   Yet she emerges triumphant, her own woman at last "

Reviews
In his 1976 review in The New Yorker, John Updike wrote, “Funny and lyric and true, exquisite in its details and ambitious in its design…This writer is not merely good, she is wickedly good ”Katha Pollitt praised: "Less perfectly realized than Celestial Navigation, her extraordinarily moving and beautiful last novel,Searching for Caleb is Tyler’s sunniest, most expansive book   While etching with a fine, sharp wit the narrow-mindedness and pettishness of the Pecks, she lavishes on them a tenderness that lifts them above satire… Reading “Searching for Caleb,” one is constantly being startled by…gestures, words, wrinkles of thought and feeling that are at once revelatory and exactly right   But at the center of Tyler’s characters is a private, mysterious core which is left, wisely, inviolate   Ultimately this wisdom is what makes Tyler more than a fine craftsman of realistic novels   Her complex, crotchety inventions surprise us, but one senses they surprise her too "
Passage 5:
Anne Tyler
Anne Tyler (born October 25, 1941) is an American novelist, short story writer, and literary critic   She has published twenty-four novels, including Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant (1982), The Accidental Tourist (1985), and Breathing Lessons (1988)   All three were finalists for the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, and Breathing Lessons won the prize in 1989   She has also won the Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize, the Ambassador Book Award, and the National Book Critics Circle Award   In 2012 she was awarded The Sunday Times Award for Literary Excellence   Tyler's twentieth novel, A Spool of Blue Thread, was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2015, and Redhead By the Side of the Road was longlisted for the same award in 2020  She is recognized for her fully developed characters, her "brilliantly imagined and absolutely accurate detail", her "rigorous and artful style", and her "astute and open language "Tyler has been compared to John Updike, Jane Austen, and Eudora Welty, among others 

Early life and education
Early childhood
The oldest of four children, she was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota  Her father, Lloyd Parry Tyler, was an industrial chemist and her mother, Phyllis Mahon Tyler, a social worker   Both her parents were Quakers who were very active with social causes in the Midwest and the South  Her family lived in a succession of Quaker communities in the South until they settled in 1948 in a Quaker commune in Celo, in the mountains of North Carolina near Burnsville  The Celo Community settlement was populated largely by conscientious objectors and members of the liberal Hicksite branch of the Society of Friends   Tyler lived there from age seven through eleven and helped her parents and others care for livestock and organic farming   While she did not attend formal public school in Celo, lessons were taught in art, carpentry, and cooking in homes and in other subjects in a tiny school house   Her early informal training was supplemented by correspondence school Her first memory of her own creative story-telling was of crawling under the bed covers at age three and "telling myself stories in order to get to sleep at night "  Her first book at age seven was a collection of drawings and stories about "lucky girls     who got to go west in covered wagons " Her favorite book as a child was The Little House by Virginia Lee Burton   Tyler acknowledges that this book, which she read many times during this period of limited access to books, had a profound influence on her, showing "how the years flowed by, people altered, and nothing could ever stay the same " This early perception of changes over time is a theme that reappears in many of her novels decades later, just as The Little House itself appears in her novel Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant   Tyler also describes reading Little Women 22 times as a child  When the Tyler family left Celo after four years to move to Raleigh, North Carolina, eleven-year-old Tyler had never attended public school and never used a telephone   This unorthodox upbringing enabled her to view "the normal world with a certain amount of distance and surprise "

Raleigh, North Carolina
Tyler felt herself to be an outsider in the public schools she attended in Raleigh, a feeling that has followed her most of her life   She believes that this sense of being an outsider has contributed to her becoming a writer: "I believe that any kind of setting-apart situation will do [to become a writer]   In my case, it was emerging from the commune     and trying to fit into the outside world " Despite her lack of public schooling prior to age eleven, Anne entered school academically well ahead of most of her classmates in Raleigh   With access now to libraries, she discovered Eudora Welty, Gabriel García Márquez, F  Scott Fitzgerald, and many others   Eudora Welty remains one of her favorite writers, and The Wide Net and Other Stories is one of her favorite books; she has called Welty "my crowning influence " She credits Welty with showing her that books could be about the everyday details of life, not just about major events   During her years at Needham B  Broughton High School in Raleigh, she was inspired and encouraged by a remarkable English teacher, Phyllis Peacock  "Mrs  Peacock" had previously taught the writer Reynolds Price, under whom Tyler would later study at Duke University   Peacock would also later teach the writer Armistead Maupin   Seven years after high school, Tyler would dedicate her first published novel to "Mrs  Peacock, for everything you've done "

Duke and Columbia Universities
When Tyler graduated from high school at age sixteen, she wanted to attend Swarthmore College, a school founded in 1860 by the Hicksite branch of the Society of Friends   However, she had won a full AB Duke scholarship to Duke University, and her parents pressured her to go to Duke because they needed to save money for the education of her three younger brothers   At Duke, Tyler enrolled in Reynolds Price's first creative writing class, which also included a future poet, Fred Chappell   Price was most impressed with the sixteen-year-old Tyler, describing her as "frighteningly mature for 16," "wide-eyed," and "an outsider " Years later Price would describe Tyler as "one of the best novelists alive in the world,     who was almost as good a writer at 16 as she is now " Tyler took an additional creative writing course with Price and also studied under William Blackburn, who also had taught William Styron, Josephine Humphreys, and James Applewhite at Duke, as well as Price and Chappell As a college student, Tyler had not yet determined she wanted to become a writer   She loved painting and the visual arts   She also was involved in the drama society in high school and at Duke, where she acted in a number of plays, playing Laura in The Glass Menagerie and Mrs  Gibbs in Our Town  She majored in Russian Literature at Duke—not English—and graduated in 1961, at age nineteen, having been inducted into Phi Beta Kappa   With her Russian Literature background she received a fellowship to graduate school in Slavic Studies at Columbia University Living in New York City was quite an adjustment for her   There she became somewhat addicted to riding trains and subways: "While I rode I often felt like I was     an enormous eye taking things in, turning them over and sorting them out     writing was the only way" [to express her observations]  Tyler left Columbia graduate school after a year, having completed course work but not her master's thesis   She returned to Duke, where she got a job in the library as a Russian bibliographer  It was there that she met Taghi Modarressi, a resident in child psychiatry in Duke Medical School and a writer himself, and they were married a year later (1963) 

Career
Early writing and first publications
While an undergraduate at Duke, Tyler published her short story "Laura" in the Duke literary journal Archive, for which she won the newly created Anne Flexner award for creative writing  In college and prior to her marriage, she wrote many short stories, one of which impressed Reynolds Price so that he later stated that it was the "most finished, most accomplished short story I have ever received from an undergraduate in my thirty years of teaching "  "The Saints in Caesar's Household" was published in Archive also and won her a second Anne Flexner award   This short story led to her meeting Diarmuid Russell, to whom Price had sent it with kudos   Russell, who was an agent for both Reynolds Price and for Tyler's "crowning influence" Eudora Welty, later became Tyler's agent While working at the Duke library—before and after marrying Modarressi—Tyler did continue to write short stories and started work on her first novel, If Morning Ever Comes   During this period her short stories appeared in The New Yorker, The Saturday Evening Post, and Harpers   After the couple moved to Montreal—Modarressi's U  S  visa had expired and they moved there so he could finish his residency—Tyler continued writing while looking for work   Her first novel was published in 1964 and The Tin Can Tree was published the next year   Years later she disowned both of these novels, as well as many of the short stories she wrote during this period   She has even written that she "would like to burn them "  She feels that most of this early work suffers from the lack of thorough character development and her failure to rework material repeatedly 

A hiatus from writing: having babies, raising children—1965 to 1970
In 1965 (age 24), Tyler had her first child, a daughter they named Tezh   Two years later a second daughter, Mitra, was born   About this time, the couple moved to Baltimore, MD as Taghi had finished his residency and obtained a position at the University of Maryland Medical School  With the moves, the changes in jobs, and the raising of two young children, Tyler had little time or energy for writing and published nothing between 1965 and 1970  She settled comfortably in the city of Baltimore where she has remained and where she has set most of her subsequent novels   Baltimore is generally considered to have a true mix of Southern and Northern culture  It also is an area of considerable Quaker presence, and Tyler eventually enrolled both her daughters in a local Friends school   During this period she began writing literary reviews for journals, newspapers, etc  to provide the family with additional income; she would continue this employment until the late 1980s, writing approximately 250 reviews in total   While this period was not productive for her writing career, Tyler does feel that this time enriched her spirit and her experience and in turn gave her subsequent writing greater depth, as she had "more of a self to speak from "

Growing recognition as a novelist—1970 to 1980
Tyler began writing again in 1970 and had published three more novels by 1974—A Slipping-Down Life, The Clock Winder, and Celestial Navigation   In her own opinion, her writing improved considerably during this period; with her children entering school, she was able to devote a great deal more focus to it than had been possible since she graduated from Duke   With Celestial Navigation, Tyler began to get national recognition: Gail Godwin gave it a very favorable review in the New York Times Review of Books  While she is not proud of her first four novels, Tyler considers this fifth novel one of her favorites   It was a difficult book to write she notes, since it required rewriting draft after draft to truly develop her understanding of the characters  John Updike gave a favorable review to her next novel, Searching for Caleb, writing: "Funny and lyric and true, exquisite in its details and ambitious in its design     This writer is not merely good, she is wickedly good " Afterwards he proceeded to take an interest in her work and reviewed her next four novels as well  Morgan's Passing (1980) won the Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize for Fiction and was nominated for both the American Book Awards and the National Book Critics Circle Award  Joyce Carol Oates gave it good review in Mademoiselle: "Fascinating     So unconventional a love story that it appears to take its protagonists themselves by surprise "

National recognition achieved
With her next novel, Tyler truly arrived as a recognized artist in the literary world  Tyler's ninth novel, Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant, which she considers her best work, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, PEN/Faulkner Award, and the American Book Award for Fiction in 1983   In his review in The New Yorker, John Updike wrote, "Her art needed only the darkening that would give her beautifully shaped sketches solidity     In her ninth novel, she has arrived at a new level of power " Her tenth novel, The Accidental Tourist, was awarded the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction in 1985, the Ambassador Book Award for Fiction in 1986, and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 1986  It was also made into a 1988 movie starring William Hurt and Geena Davis  The critical and commercial success of the film further increased the public awareness of her work   Her 11th novel, Breathing Lessons, received the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1989 and was Time magazine's "Book of the Year"   It was adapted into a 1994 TV movie, as eventually were four other of her novels Since her Pulitzer Prize with Breathing Lessons, Tyler has written 13 more novels; many have been Book of the Month Club Main Selections and have become New York Times Bestsellers  Ladder of Years was chosen by Time as one of the ten best books of 1995   A Patchwork Planet was a New York Times Notable Book (1999)   Saint Maybe (1991) and Back When We Were Grownups (2001) were adapted into TV movies in 1998 and 2004, respectively  In her 2006 novel Digging to America, she explored how an immigrant from Iran, who has lived in the U  S  for 35 years, deals with her "outsiderness," perspectives with which Tyler is familiar due to her marriage to Iranian psychiatrist Taghi Mohammad Modarressi 
In addition to her novels, Tyler has published short stories in The New Yorker, The Saturday Evening Post, Redbook, McCall's, and Harper's, but they have never been published as a collection   Her stories include "Average Waves in Unprotected Waters" (1977), "Holding Things Together" (1977), and "Teenage Wasteland" (1983)   Between 1983 and 1996, she edited three anthologies: The Best American Short Stories 1983, Best of the South, and Best of the South: The Best of the Second Decade 

Personal life
In 1963, Tyler married Iranian psychiatrist and novelist Taghi Mohammad Modarressi  Modarressi, 10 years her senior, had left Iran and his family as a political refugee at age 25  After a year and a half internship in Wichita, Kansas, he obtained a residency in child psychiatry at Duke University Medical School  There he met Tyler and discovered their common interest in literature  Modarressi had written two award-winning novels in Persian and so was quite an accomplished writer himself  He later wrote three more novels, two of which Tyler helped to translate to English (The Book of Absent People and The Pilgrim's Rules of Etiquette)  In the 1980s, Modarressi founded the Center for Infant Study in Baltimore and the Cold Spring Family Center Therapeutic Nursery in Pimlico, Maryland, which dealt with children who had experienced emotional trauma   Modarressi died in 1997 at the age of 65, from lymphoma 
Tyler and Modarressi had two daughters, Tezh and Mitra  Both share their mother's interest in, and talent for, painting  Tezh is a professional photographer, and an artist who works primarily in oils,  who painted the cover of her mother's novel, Ladder of Years  Mitra is a professional illustrator working primarily in watercolors  She has illustrated seven books, including two children's books co-authored with Tyler (Tumble Tower and Timothy Tugbottom Says No!) Tyler resides in the Roland Park neighborhood of Baltimore, Maryland, where most of her novels are set   Today tourists can even take an "Anne Tyler tour" of the area   For some time she was noteworthy among contemporary best-selling novelists, for she rarely granted face-to-face interviews nor did book tours nor made other public appearances   In 2012 she broke with this policy and gave her first face-to-face interview in almost 40 years; subsequently, Mark Lawson interviewed her on BBC Radio in 2013 about her approach to writing  In 2015, she discussed her 20th novel, A Spool of Blue Thread, in a live radio interview with Diane Rehm and callers on The Diane Rehm Show 

Writing style, influences, and philosophy
Tyler's novels have been reviewed and analyzed by numerous fellow authors, scholars and professional critics  The summary that follows of the nature of her work relies upon selected descriptions and insights by a limited number of the many distinguished literati who have reviewed her works   Also Tyler herself has revealed much about her own writing through interviews   Although she has refused to participate in face-to-face interviews until very recently, she has participated in numerous e-mail interviews over the years   These e-mail interviews have provided material for biographies, journal articles, reader's guides, and instructional materials 

Classification of her literature
Tyler has occasionally been classified as a "Southern author" or a "modern American author "  The Southern category apparently results from the fact that she grew up and went to college in the South   Also she admired and/or studied under well-known Southern authors Eudora Welty and Reynolds Price  In a rare interview with The New York Times, Tyler cited Eudora Welty as a major literary influence: "Reading Eudora Welty when I was growing up showed me that very small things are often really larger than the large things"



ground_truth: seasonal television specials, particularly its work in stop motion animation

prompt_front: Answer the question based on the given passages. Only give me the answer and do not output any other words.

Question: Are Stanley Elkin and Anne Tyler from the same country?

The following are given passages.
Context 3:   However, poet and author Katha Pollitt notes, "It is hard to classify Anne Tyler's novels   They are Southern in their sure sense of family and place but lack the taste for violence and the Gothic that often characterizes self-consciously southern literature   They are modern in their fictional techniques, yet utterly unconcerned with contemporary moment as a subject, so that, with only minor dislocations, her stories could just as well have taken place in twenties or thirties "It is also difficult to classify Tyler in terms of themes; as she herself notes, "I don't think of my work in terms of themes   I'm just trying to tell a story "  Tyler goes on to say, "Any large 'questions of life' that emerge in my novels are accidental—not a reason for writing the novel in the first place but either (1) questions that absorb my characters, quite apart from me, or (2) on occasion, questions that may be thematic to my own life at the moment, even if I'm not entirely aware of them  Answers, if they come, come from the characters' experiences, not from mine, and I often find myself viewing those answers with a sort of distant, bemused surprise "

Characters and detailed descriptions
In Tyler's works, the characters are the driving forces behind the stories and the starting point for her writing:  "I do make a point of writing down every imaginable facet of my characters before I begin a book, trying to get to know them so I can figure out how they'll react in any situation     My reason for writing now is to live lives other than my own, and I do that by burrowing deeper and deeper     till I reach the center of those lives "The magic of her novels starts with her ability to create those characters in the reader's mind through the use of remarkably realistic details   As early as 1976, Pollitt described her skill in this way: "Tyler [is] polishing brighter and brighter a craft many novelists no longer deem essential to their purpose: the unfolding of character through brilliantly imagined and absolutely accurate detail "  Twelve years later, Michiko Kakutani, in her review of Breathing Lessons, extolled "her ability to select details that reveal precisely how her characters feel and think" and her "gift for sympathy, for presenting each character's case with humor and compassion "  Kakutani later went on to note that "each character in Saint Maybe has been fully rendered, fleshed out with a palpable interior life, and each has been fit, like a hand-sawed jigsaw-puzzle piece, into the matrix of family life " Carol Shields, also writing about her characters, observes: "Tyler has always put her characters to work  Their often humble or eccentric occupations, carefully observed and threaded with humor, are tightly sewn to the other parts of their lives, offering them the mixed benefit of tedium and consolation, as well as a lighted stage for the unfolding of their dramatic selves  She also allows her men and women an opportunity for redemption "Tyler has clearly spelled out the importance of her characters to her stories:  "As far as I'm concerned, character is everything  I never did see why I have to throw in a plot, too "  In an earlier (1977) interview, she stated that "the real joy of writing is how people can surprise one  My people wander around my study until the novel is done  It's one reason I'm very careful not to write about people I don't like  If I find somebody creeping in that I'm not really fond of, I usually take him out "  Pollitt had even earlier noted how Tyler's characters seem to take on a life of their own that she doesn't seem to totally control: "Her complex, crotchety inventions surprise us, but one senses they surprise her too "

Realism through details
Just as Tyler is difficult to categorize as a novelist, it is also challenging to label her style  Novelist Cathleen Schine describes how her "style without a style" manages to pull the reader into the story: "So rigorous and artful is the style without a style, so measured and delicate is each observation, so complex is the structure and so astute and open the language, that the reader can relax, feel secure in the narrative and experience the work as something real and natural -- even inevitable "  The San Francisco Chronicle made a similar point: "One does not so much read a Tyler novel as visit it  Her ability to conduct several conversations at once while getting the food to the table turns the act of reading into a kind of transport "  Reviewer Tom Shone put it this way: "You're involved before you ever notice you were paying attention " Joyce Carol Oates, in her review of The Amateur Marriage, perhaps described the phenomenon best: "When the realistic novel works its magic, you won't simply have read about the experiences of fictitious characters, you will have seemed to have lived them; your knowledge of their lives transcends their own, for they can only live in chronological time  The experience of reading such fiction when it's carefully composed can be breathtaking, like being given the magical power of reliving passages of our own lives, indecipherable at the time of being lived "

Focus on family and marriage
While Tyler herself does not like to think of her novels in terms of themes, numerous reviewers and scholars have noted the importance of family and marriage relationships to her characters and stories  Liesl Schillinger summarized: "Taken together, the distinct but overlapping worlds of her novels have formed a Sensurround literary record of the 20th century American family—or, at least, of the proud but troubled archetypal families that     interested her most " New York Times critic Michiko Kakutani has been reviewing Tyler's novels for over 25 years  She has frequently noted Tyler's themes with regard to family and marriage  Reviewing Noah's Compass, Kakutani states that "the central concern of most of this author's characters has always been their need to define themselves in terms of family — the degree to which they see themselves as creatures shaped by genetics, childhood memories and parental and spousal expectations, and the degree to which they are driven to embrace independent identities of their own "  This is an example of where Anne Tyler got some of her characteristics from, being able to be independent and get to know herself through her writing 
Reviewing Saint Maybe, Jay Parini describes how Tyler's characters must deal with "Ms  Tyler's oddball families, which any self-respecting therapist would call 'dysfunctional'      An inexplicable centripetal force hurls these relatives upon one another, catches them in a dizzying inward spiral of obligation, affection and old-fashioned guilt—as well as an inexpressible longing for some perfect or "normal" family in a distant past that never really was   Almost every novel by Anne Tyler begins with a loss or absence that reactivates in the family some primordial sense of itself " Larry McMurtry wrote, "in book after book, siblings are drawn inexorably back home, as if their parents or (more often) grandparents had planted tiny magnets in them which can be activated once they have seen what the extrafamilial world is like      sooner or later a need to be with people who are really familiar – their brothers and sisters – overwhelms them "Novelist Julia Glass has similarly written about Tyler's characters' families: "What makes each story distinctive is the particular way its characters rebel against hereditary confines, cope with fateful crises or forge relationships with new acquaintances who rock their world "  In the same way, Glass mentions the frequent role of marriage struggles in her work: "Once again, Tyler exhibits her genius for the incisive, savory portrayal of marriage, of the countless perverse ways in which two individuals sustain a shared existence "  McMurtry puts it this way, "The fates of [Tyler's] families hinge on long struggles between semiattentive males and semiobsessed females  In her patient investigation of such struggles, Miss Tyler has produced a very satisfying body of fiction 

Passage of time and the role of small, chance events
The role of the passage of time and its impact on Tyler's characters is always present   The stories in many of her novels span decades, if only by flashbacks   Joyce Carol Oates emphasized the role of time in this manner: "[Tyler's novels] move at times as if plotless in the meandering drift of actual life, it is time itself that constitutes "plot": meaning is revealed through a doubling-back upon time in flashes of accumulated memory, those heightened moments which James Joyce aptly called epiphanies  The minutiae of family life can yield a startling significance seen from the right perspective, as Tyler shows us "  With regard to those minutiae, Tyler herself comments: "As for huge events vs  small events: I believe they all count   They all reveal character, which is the factor that most concerns me     It does fascinate me, though, that small details can be so meaningful "Kakutani described Saint Maybe in a similar manner: "Moving back and forth among the points of view of various characters, Ms  Tyler traces two decades in the lives of the Bedloes, showing us the large and small events that shape family members' lives and the almost imperceptible ways in which feelings of familial love and obligation mutate over the years "  Again in her review of Breathing Lessons, Kakutani perceives that "she is able, with her usual grace and magnanimity, to chronicle the ever-shifting covenants made by parents and children, husbands and wives, and in doing so, to depict both the losses – and redemptions – wrought by the passage of time "
Tyler herself further weighs in upon how small events can impact relationships: "I love to think about chance -- about how one little overheard word, one pebble in a shoe, can change the universe     The real heroes to me in my books are first the ones who manage to endure "

Criticism
Tyler is not without her critics   The most common criticism is that her works are "sentimental," "sweet," and "charming and cosy "  John Blades, literary critic for the Chicago Tribune, skewered The Accidental Tourist (as well as all her earlier novels) as "artificially sweet" and "unrealistic "  The Observer's Adam Mars-Jones stated, in his review of The Amateur Marriage: "Tyler seems to be offering milk and cookies "  Kakutani has also occasionally bemoaned a "cloying cuteness," noting that "her novels—with their eccentric heroes, their homespun details, their improbable, often heartwarming plots—have often flirted with cuteness "In a 2012 interview, Tyler responded to such criticisms: "For one thing I think it is sort of true  I would say piss and vinegar for [Philip] Roth and for me milk and cookies  I can't deny it     [However] there's more edge under some of my soft language than people realize "  Because almost all of Tyler's work covers the same territory—family and marriage relationships—and are located in the same setting, she has come under criticism for being repetitive and formulaic   Reviewing The Patchwork Planet, Kakutani states: "Ms  Tyler's earlier characters tended to be situated within a thick matrix of finely nuanced familial relationships that helped define both their dreams and their limitations; the people in this novel, in contrast, seem much more like lone wolves, pulled this way and that by the author's puppet strings     Ms  Tyler's famous ability to limn the daily minutiae of life also feels weary and formulaic this time around     As for the little details Ms  Tyler sprinkles over her story     they, too, have a paint-by-numbers touch  They add up to a patchwork novel that feels hokey, mechanical     and yes, too cute Tyler has also been criticized for her male characters' "Sad Sack" nature and their "lack of testosterone "  Tyler has disagreed with this criticism: "Oh that always bothers me so much   I don't think they are wimps   People are always saying we understand you write about quirky characters, and I think, isn't everybody quirky? If you look very closely at anybody you'll find impediments, women and men both "

Work habits
Over the last couple of decades, Tyler has been quite forthcoming about her work habits—both in written articles and in interviews   She is very disciplined and consistent about her work schedule and environment   She starts work in the early morning and generally works until 2 pm   Since she moved to the Roland Park neighborhood of Baltimore, she has used a small, orderly corner room in her house, where the only distractions are the sounds of "children playing outside and birds "  She has noted that at the beginning of her day, taking the first step—that is, entering her corner room—can be difficult and daunting   She begins her writing by reviewing her previous days' work and then by sitting and staring off into space for a time   She describes this phase of writing as an "extension of daydreaming," and it focuses on her characters Over the years Tyler has kept files of note cards in which ideas and observations have been recorded   Characters, descriptions, and scenes often emerge from these notes   She says the act of putting words to paper for her is a "very mechanical process," involving a number of steps: (1) writing first in long hand on unlined paper, (2) revising long hand versions, (3) typing the entire manuscript, (4) re-writing in long hand, (5) reading into a tape-recorder while listening for "false notes," (6) playing back into a stenographer's machine using the pause button to enter changes   She can be quite organized, going so far as to map out floor plans of houses and to outline the chronology of all the characters in a given novel In 2013, Tyler gave the following advice to beginning writers: "They should run out and buy the works of Erving Goffman, the sociologist who studied the meaning of gesture in personal interactions   I have cause to think about Erving Goffman nearly every day of my life, every time I see people do something unconscious that reveals more than they'll ever know about their interiors   Aren't human beings intriguing? I could go on writing about them forever "

Bibliography
Novels
If Morning Ever Comes (1964)
The Tin Can Tree (1965)
A Slipping-Down Life (1970)
The Clock Winder (1972)
Celestial Navigation (1974)
Searching for Caleb (1975)
Earthly Possessions (1977)
Morgan's Passing (1980)
Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant (1982)
The Accidental Tourist (1985)
Breathing Lessons (1988)
Saint Maybe (1991)
Ladder of Years (1995)
A Patchwork Planet (1998)
Back When We Were Grownups (2001)
The Amateur Marriage (2004)
Digging to America (2006)
Noah's Compass (2009)
The Beginner's Goodbye (2012)
A Spool of Blue Thread (2015)
Vinegar Girl (2016)
Clock Dance (2018)
Redhead by the Side of the Road (2020)
French Braid (2022)

Other
Tumble Tower (1993) A children's book illustrated by her daughter Mitra Modarressi
Timothy Tugbottom Says No! (2005) A children's book illustrated by Mitra Modarressi

Uncollected stories
Although Tyler's short stories have been published in The New Yorker, The Saturday Evening Post, Redbook, McCall's, and Harper's, they have not been published as a collection  Her stories include:

"A Street of Bugles," The Saturday Evening Post, November 30, 1963
"Dry Water," The Southern Review, Spring 1965
"I'm Not Going to Ask You Again," Harper's, September 1965
"As the Earth Gets Old," The New Yorker, October 29, 1966
"The Genuine Fur Eyelashes," Mademoiselle, January 1967
"The Tea-Machine," The Southern Review, Winter 1967
"The Feather Behind the Rock," The New Yorker, August 12, 1967
"Who Would Want a Little Boy?" Ladies Home Journal, May 1968
"The Common Courtesies," McCall's, June 1968—and The O  Henry Prize Stories 1969
"With All Flags Flying," Redbook, June 1971—and The O  Henry Prize Stories 1972
"Spending," Shenandoah, Winter 1973
"The Base-Metal Egg," The Southern Review, Summer 1973
"Neutral Ground," Family Circle, November 1974
"Half-Truths and Semi-Miracles," Cosmopolitan, December 1974
"A Knack for Languages," The New Yorker, January 13, 1975
"The Artificial Family," The Southern Review, Summer 1975
"The Geologist's Maid," The New Yorker, July 28, 1975
"Some Sign That I Ever Made You Happy," McCall's, October 1975
"Your Place Is Empty," The New Yorker, November 22, 1976—and Best American Short Stories 1977
"Holding Things Together", The New Yorker, January 24, 1977
"Average Waves in Unprotected Waters," The New Yorker, February 28, 1977
"Foot-Footing On," Mademoiselle, November 1977
"Uncle Ahmad," Quest, November–December 1977
"Teenage Wasteland," Seventeen, (1983)

Film adaptations
The Accidental Tourist (1988)
Breathing Lessons (TV) (1994)
Saint Maybe (TV) (1998)
A Slipping-Down Life (1999)
Earthly Possessions (TV) (1999)
Back When We Were Grownups (TV) (2004)

Awards
Tyler has been a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters since 1983 for Morgan's Passing (1980):

Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize for Fiction
nominated, American Book Award for Fiction
nominated, National Book Critics Circle Award for Fictionfor Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant (1982):

Finalist, Pulitzer Prize for Fiction
Finalist, PEN/Faulkner Award
Finalist, American Book Award for Fictionfor The Accidental Tourist (1985):

1985 National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction
1986 Ambassador Book Award for Fiction
Finalist, Pulitzer Prize for Fictionfor Breathing Lessons (1988):

Pulitzer Prize for Fiction (1989)
Time's "Book of the Year"for Ladder of Years (1995):

Finalist, The Orange Prize for Fiction 1996for Digging to America (2006):

Finalist, The Orange Prize for Fiction 2007for A Spool of Blue Thread (2015):

Finalist, The Man Booker Prize 2015
Finalist, The Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction 2015for Redhead By the Side of the Road (2020):

Longlist, The Man Booker Prize 2020for Lifetime achievement:

Finalist, The Man Booker International Prize 2011
The Sunday Times Award for Literary Excellence 2012
Passage 6:
Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant
Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant is a 1982 novel by Anne Tyler, set in Baltimore, Maryland  It is Tyler's ninth novel  In 1983 it was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, and the PEN/Faulkner Award  Tyler considers it her best work 
The book follows the lives of three siblings: Cody, Ezra, and Jenny, and explores their experiences and recollections of growing up with their mother, Pearl, after the family is deserted by their father, Beck  The novel ends with Pearl's funeral, and a surprise occurrence 
The novel examines how siblings may share the same events yet experience them differently; e g  Cody remembers his childhood as a harsh time  He blames himself for his father abandoning him and considers himself left to the mercy of an angry mother who favors Ezra  Meanwhile, Ezra remembers his childhood fondly and creates a nostalgic family-themed restaurant 

Plot
Pearl Tull is a rigid perfectionist  She has three children with her husband, traveling salesman Beck, who abandons the family  After Beck leaves, Pearl struggles to maintain a front as if nothing is wrong at all  Cody, the oldest, is wild and adventurous, but is envious of his brother Ezra, who he believes is Pearl's favorite  As they grow up, this plays out in endless pranks  Ezra is passive, and never tries to get back at Cody  He is nurturing and sweet, traits that often interest Cody's girlfriends, furthering Cody's resentment  Ezra goes to work at a restaurant, which he later manages and ultimately inherits, while Cody becomes a wealthy and successful efficiency expert  When Ezra becomes engaged to Ruth, his star cook, Cody becomes obsessed with luring her away, and ultimately succeeds, but his marriage to Ruth is not easy  Ezra never recovers, and remains at home with Pearl; he is a caregiver, both for Pearl and his customers, but this is underlain by sadness 
Jenny is the third child and the most scholarly of the Tulls, but in college, she marries on an impulse with unhappy results  Only in her third marriage to a man with six children whose wife has abandoned him does she find stability in family life and in her successful, if harried, career as a pediatrician 
A recurring scene in the novel involves Ezra's unsuccessful attempts to bring the family together for a meal at his "Homesick Restaurant", reflecting his desire to unite and mend the family  At Pearl's funeral, Beck returns to the family for the first time  However, they  never seem to be able to get through a single dinner without conflict, this time with Cody facing down his father, causing Beck to leave in the middle of the dinner  Ultimately, the entire family searches the town to find Beck, eventually bringing him back to the restaurant to finish their meal together 

Reviews
Benjamin DeMott, wrote in his 1982 New York Times book review:  "Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant is a book to be settled into fully    Funny, heart-hammering, wise, it edges deep into truth that's simultaneously (and interdependently) psychological, moral and formal - deeper than many living novelists of serious reputation have penetrated, deeper than Miss Tyler herself has gone before  It is a border crossing    
"On its face Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant is a book about the costs of parental truancy  None of the three Tull children manages to cut loose from the family past; each is, to a degree, stunted; each turns for help to Pearl Tull in an hour of desperate adult need; and Pearl's conviction that something's wrong with each of them never recedes from the reader's consciousness  But no small measure of the book's subtlety derives from its exceptional - and exceptionally wise, the word bears repeating - clarity about the uselessness of cost accounting in human areas such as these    The behavior and feelings of all three are linked somehow with the terrible, never-explained rupture: their father's disappearance    But it's also the case that what is best in each of these people, as in their mother, has its roots in the experience of deprivation that they jointly despise   We arrive at an understanding that the important lessons taught by adversity never quite make themselves known to the consciousness of the learners - remain hidden, inexpressible 
"What one wants to do on finishing such a work as Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant is maintain balance, keep things intact for a stretch, stay under the spell as long as feasible    We're speaking, obviously, about an extremely beautiful book "John Updike, in his 1982 review in The New Yorker, wrote, “[Anne Tyler's] art needed only the darkening that would give her beautifully shaped sketches solidity    In her ninth novel, she has arrived at a new level of power ”Margaret Manning of The Boston Globe thought that Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant is "a book that should join those few that every literate person should read    You surface from this marvelous novel as if from the bends, lungs nearly bursting, tears rattling on the page "
Passage 7:
Steven Zwicker
Steven Nathan Zwicker (born June 4, 1943) is an American literary scholar and the Stanley Elkin Professor in the Humanities in Arts and Sciences at Washington University in St  Louis 

Biography
Zwicker is an expert on Restoration-era English literature and politics and is the author of Dryden's Political Poetry: The Typology of King and Nation (1972), Politics and Language in Dryden's Poetry: The Arts of Disguise (1984), and Lines of Authority: Politics and English Literary Culture, 1649-1689 (1993)  He has edited six volumes and published more than two dozen essays in journals and volumes in the United States and abroad 
Zwicker was born in San Diego, California  He received his BA from the University of California, Los Angeles (1965) and his MA (1966) and PhD (1969) from Brown University  He was a Woodrow Wilson Scholar at Brown University when he earned his PhD  He has been a member of the Washington University faculty since 1969 

Bibliography
Works
Dryden's Political Poetry: The Typology of King and Nation  Providence, RI: Brown University Press, 1972 
Politics and Language in Dryden's Poetry: The Arts of Disguise  Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1984 
Lines of Authority: Politics and English Literary Culture, 1649-1689  Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1993 

As editor or contributor
Politics of Discourse: The Literature and History of Seventeenth-Century England  Edited by Kevin Sharpe and Steven N  Zwicker  Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1987 
The Cambridge Companion to English Literature, 1650-1740  Edited by Steven N  Zwicker  Cambridge, UK; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998 
Refiguring Revolutions: Aesthetics and Politics from the English Revolution to the Romantic Revolution  Edited by Kevin Sharpe and Steven N  Zwicker  Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1998 
John Dryden: A Tercentenary Miscellany  Edited by Susan Green and Steven N  Zwicker  San Marino, CA: Huntington Library, 2001 
Reading, Society, and Politics in Early Modern England  Edited by Kevin Sharpe and Steven N  Zwicker  Cambridge, UK; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003 
The Cambridge Companion to John Dryden  Edited by Steven N  Zwicker  Cambridge, UK; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004 
Passage 8:
Gwyn Avenue–Bridge Street Historic District
Gwyn Avenue–Bridge Street Historic District is a national historic district located at Elkin, Surry County, North Carolina  The district encompasses 124 contributing buildings and 1 contributing site in a predominantly residential section of Elkin   They were primarily built between about 1891 and 1955 and include notable examples of Queen Anne, Colonial Revival, and Bungalow / American Craftsman architecture  Notable buildings include the Elkin Presbyterian Church (1937, 1944, 1950, 1955, 1961), First Baptist Church (1955, 1968), Alexander Martin Smith House (1893–1897) designed by George Franklin Barber, the Gwyn-Chatham-Gwyn House (c  1872, 1911, 1936), Richard Gwyn Smith House (c  1918), and Mason Lillard House (c  1910) It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2007 
Passage 9:
Mrs  Ted Bliss
Mrs  Ted Bliss is a 1995 novel by American author Stanley Elkin, published by Hyperion Books  It concerns the last eventful years in the life of an old widow  Elkin won the 1995 National Book Critics Circle Award in the fiction category for this work 

Plot
Mrs  Dorothy Bliss is an old woman in her early 80s living alone in a retirement community near Miami Beach, Florida, after her husband's death due to cancer  She was born in Russia and is Jewish  Her mother bribed an immigration officer and added three years to her age on legal documents in order that she could start working in Manhattan's Lower East Side after their immigration  Her husband, Ted Bliss, had a butcher shop in Chicago and together they had three kids  Her oldest son dies of cancer at a young age and after her husband's retirement, the couple moved to Florida  She is obsessed with cleaning and also keeps records of the gifts given to her grandchildren in order to keep track and stay impartial with everyone The single life of Mrs  Bliss is now filled with expectations of finding a romance or a partner but eventually she is disappointed and heartbroken  She gets involved with Alcibiades Chitral, a drug lord who operates in her neighborhood, and starts using her and her husband's car as a front for his activities  The story keeps introducing various new men in her life, such as Hector Camerando, a jai alai pro who helps Mrs  Bliss with some tips on dogs, and Tommy Auveristas, an imposter  Junior Yellin, a once upon a time lover with whom Mrs  Bliss had had a passionate encounter in her husband's butcher shop, also makes a re-entry into her life  She eventually dies when Hurricane Andrew hits Miami and brings massive destruction 

Publication
Following Elkin's death on 31 May 1995 at age 65, the novel was released posthumously on 7 September 1995  Elkin had published ten novels, five short-story collections, and various novellas and non-fiction articles in various magazines and papers during the course of his writing career, which began in the 1950s 

Review and reception
Kirkus Reviews writes that Elkin makes readers believe that the novel has a plot when drug dealers are introduced in it  However, "there isn't so much a plot as an accumulation of detail about Mrs  Bliss"  Elkin's "long poetic sentences about seemingly mundane minutiae" later bring substance to the character of Mrs  Bliss  Walter Goodman, a television critic for The New York Times, mentions in his review that "[the book] may not be Stanley Elkin's best, but it is a smart, generous, melancholy, funny, even elegiac work by a prodigious practitioner"  Publishers Weekly writes that "Elkin is at his best here, blessed with the gift of one-liner insight and a definite, if reluctantly exercised, ability to tug on a reader's heartstrings" 

Awards
Elkin won the 1995 National Book Critics Circle Award in the fiction category for the novel  The book was nominated along with Independence Day (by Richard Ford),  Galatea 2 2 (by Richard Powers), Moo (by Jane Smiley), and The Tent of Orange Mist (by Paul West)  Elkin had earlier won in the same category for his 1982 novel George Mills 
Passage 10:
George Mills (novel)
George Mills is a 1982 novel by American author Stanley Elkin, published by E  P  Dutton  The novel, set in five parts, tells the family history of succeeding generations of characters named George Mills  The story covers more than 1,000 years from the First Crusade in Europe to the Ottoman Empire to present-day America  Elkin won the 1982 National Book Critics Circle Award in the fiction category for the novel  Elkin mentioned George Mills as one of his favorite novels  The novel is considered Elkin's "longest and most complexly organized work" : 189

Plot
The first George Mills sets out on a journey with his lord on the First Crusade  But he eventually gets lost in the Netherlands and reaches a salt mine in Poland  His lord at the mines is Guillalume, who teaches him some life lessons  Mills becomes aware of what is written in his fate and this helps him understand the walks of life in this world in a better manner  Despite having the knowledge of what would happen in the future, his timidity and powerlessness does not bring out any situation-changing effects  
The novel covers the history of succeeding family members named George Mills and all of them are aware of their fates and equally feeble and ineffective in changing their circumstances  The 43rd Mills encounters King George IV and is assigned on a diplomatic mission to Constantinople, where he first joins the Janissaries but later ends up in the Ottoman Sultan's harem doing household chores  He escapes from there and reaches America  The present-day Mills in America is a caretaker of an old woman named Judith Glazer in St  Louis, who is in the final stages of terminal cancer  Mills accompanies Glazer to Mexico and upon her death participates in her funeral together with her family 

Publication
Elkin worked for over seven years writing George Mills and by the end of its completion, he felt exhausted and insisted this would be his last fictional work  But after watching a British news report of how terminally ill children had a memorable experience at Disneyland, he wrote his next novel, The Magic Kingdom (1985), and dedicated it to his son who had died young from a medical ailment after lengthy treatments George Mills was published on 25 October 1982  In 1989, Elkin mentioned that several sections of George Mills had been adapted from the 1936 novel Absalom, Absalom! by William Faulkner  He also mentioned that in writing the novel, he came to realise "that I was a novelist, that anything I say is a part of this novel is a part of this novel" : 194

Review and reception
Kirkus Reviews called the novel "a leaky collection of parts rather than one whole strong book" but said it was required reading for connoisseurs of comic fiction  The New York Times reviewer Leslie Epstein complimented "the novel's fine writing, flashes of humor and memorable heroine", but felt that the plot was "out of control"  Brad Owens of The Christian Science Monitor praised the novel for its "energetic entertainment" and said that it "sometimes overpowers its more serious intentions" 

Awards
Elkin won the 1982 National Book Critics Circle Award in the fiction category for the novel   The novel was nominated along with Levitation: Five Fictions (by Cynthia Ozick), Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant (by Anne Tyler),  The Color Purple (by Alice Walker), and Shiloh and Other Stories (by Bobbie Ann Mason)  Elkin also won the award in 1995 for his novel Mrs  Ted Bliss 



ground_truth: yes