Search results for ""tilbury house,u.s.""

THE STORY I WANT TO TELL pairs the work of 20 aspiring young writers—including immigrants from war-ravaged countries—with original stories, essays, and poems from Richard Blanco, Richard Russo, Elizabeth Gilbert, Dave Eggers, Lily King, Jonathan Lethem, Bill Roorbach, Monica Wood, and other top writers in a call-and-response anthology.The book's supplemental materials make it a perfect tool for writers' groups and writing teachers.

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There she begins using her imagination for creative play, and in the end has a better time than her snowboarding friend while making some important discoveries about herself. Addresses the issue of economic diversity sensitively.

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Why do they mow their lawn with a push mower when a gas mower is much faster? But their homemade soup sure tastes good, and she likes picking cherry tomatoes and strawberries in their garden, and it's pretty cozy to sit around the woodstove in the winter. Are Sheila's neighbors really weird, or do they have some good ideas going on? Ruth Ann Smalley writes about green living, fair trade, and health for children and adults. Jennifer Emery has illustrated numerous children's books.

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Civilization rearranges nature for human convenience. Clothes and houses keep us warm; agriculture feeds us; medicine fights our diseases. It all works—most of the time. But key resources lie in the most hazardous places, so we choose to live on river flood plains, on the slopes of volcanoes, at the edge of the sea, above seismic faults. We pack ourselves into cities, Petri dishes for germs. Civilization thrives on the edge of disaster. And what happens when natural forces meet molasses holding tanks, insecticides, deepwater oil rigs, nuclear power plants? We learn the hard way how to avoid the last disaster—and maybe how to create the next one. What we don’t know can, indeed, hurt us. This book’s white-knuckled journey from antiquity to the present leads us to wonder at times how humankind has survived. And yet, as Author Gale Eaton makes clear, civilization has advanced not just in spite of disasters but in part because of them. Hats off to human resilience, ingenuity, and perseverance! They’ve carried us this far; may they continue to do so into our ever-hazardous future. The History in 50 series explores history by telling thematically linked stories. Each book includes 50 illustrated narrative accounts of people and events—some well-known, others often overlooked—that, together, build a rich connect the-dots mosaic and challenge conventional assumptions about how history unfolds. Dedicated to the premise that history is the greatest story ever told. Includes a mix of “greatest hits” with quirky, surprising, provocative accounts. Challenges readers to think and engage. Includes a glossary of technical terms; sources by chapter; teaching resources as jumping-off points for student research; and endnotes. Fountas & Pinnell Level Z+

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Everywhere we go in rural New England, the past surrounds us. In the woods and fields and along country roads, the traces are everywhere if we know what to look for and how to interpret what we see. A patch of neglected daylilies marks a long-abandoned homestead. A grown-over cellar hole with nearby stumps and remnants of stone wall and orchard shows us where a farm has been reclaimed by forest. And a piece of a stone dam and wooden sluice mark the site of a long-gone mill. Although slumping back into the landscape, these features speak to us if we can hear them and they can guide us to ancestral homesteads and famous sites. Lavishly illustrated with drawings and color photos.Provides the keys to interpret human artifacts in fields, woods, and roadsides and to reconstruct the past from surviving clues.Perfect to carry in a backpack or glove box.A unique and valuable resource for road trips, genealogical research, naturalists, and historians.

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An epic animal migration story in the tradition of March of the Penguins. The story follows a school of fish (river herring, or alewives) on a journey of hundreds of miles, escaping porpoises, seals, eagles, and herons. Swimming Home is also the moving story of a boy and his father who see the fish stopped just short of their goal by a new road, and transport them across the last hundred feet. The Tilbury House Nature Book series brings the natural world to life for young readers without anthropomorphizing animals. Each book aims for the highest standards of scientific accuracy and storytelling magic.

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When Ella finally makes her move, it gets everyone's attention. At first there is some confusion-could Ella just want a cell phone of her own? But Ella makes clear that what she really wants is her family back. Will they all agree that it's time to make some changes? And what word do you think Ella will use the next time she plays Hangman with her brother Carlos? This is a lively book about the issue of managing technology so that it can become more family friendly.

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Eva Murray moved to Matinicus in 1987 to teach in its one-room school. She married an island man and stayed to raise their family there. Over the years she's written a number of lively columns and articles for mainland publications. But, as she says, she doesn't do lobster wars:"If you're looking for a rabid, swashbuckling tell-all account of maritime outlaws or cut-throat lobstermen, you won't be very impressed. Yes, a rough side of this community exists, but in order to live here happily, I avoid cultivating fear. The same boys who might sprinkle roofing nails in a man's driveway, if they get mad enough, will rush to the same fellow's aid when he's in real danger, and that's the truth. Likewise, if you hope to relive an idyllic summer vacation or read an escape-to-Maine fantasy with the call of the loon and long walks on the beach, you might feel a bit short-changed. Astonishing natural beauty certainly exists on Matinicus Island, but I'm not working too hard to promote this place to visitors. The rare treat of an outer-island sunrise is a privilege for the deserving, which means for those who have endured the six months of gales or the six weeks of fog or the six days of waiting for the weather to break so the airplane can fly and they can get here. In the twenty-three years I have lived here, it's true there have been bullets. One, I think, flew right over my head a few years back. There has been vandalism, drunk driving, sabotage, theft, abuse of power, and people just acting like general-purpose jerks. Those things happen everywhere. There have also been heroic rescues, valiant searches for lost mariners, hospice care, fires fought, electricity restored, boats rescued, spontaneous celebrations and heartfelt acts of support, and graves dug by hand. In those things, we may be different from most places, and here's why: It is not strictly the certified professionals who fight the fires or care for the sick or save the drowning. It's just us."These are the stories of that unique community, of an interdependence that is all too rare these days but necessary for this island's survival. Murray writes with a keen eye and sharp wit, sharing stories that are sometimes poignant, sometimes mind-boggling, and often hilarious. She lives in a place where, "You love it, absolutely love it here, 51 percent of the time. That is enough to make you stay."

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It is also the story of the valley's rogue river, Wild River; of a raging wildfire and the disappearance of an entire village community; of both land abuse and land stewardship; of ecological disaster and renewal; of nature's vulnerability and resiliency; and of people who experienced tragedy and good fortune. Amazingly, through the centuries a single mighty hemlock tree survived to be a living witness to it all. Dean Bennett, who has spent a lifetime exploring the natural world and its human connections, brings to life this surprising story of the power of nature to renew. Illustrated with photographs and maps and Bennett's beautiful illustrations, Nature and Renewal has a message for everyone.

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When she confides her troubles to her grandfather, he tells her about his own childhood experiences with teasing. As the story unfolds, the grandfather shares a traditional Seneca story that helps Jeannie to find strength in her Native identity and a new appreciation for the different roles that animals play in nature. This is a quiet book that celebrates family and place and the teachings of Native people. Muskrat Will Be Swimming is based on a real incident in Cheryl Savageau's life. Muskrat Will Be Swimming will help inspire classroom conversations about: Teasing and bullying Storytelling traditions and customs in Native and non-Native families The Seneca creation story and creation stories in general Traditions of the Sky Woman in Native stories Contemporary Native American families and building connections to tribal identity Native identity and mixed-blood ancestry Significance of dreams in Native culture The role of animals as teachers in Abenaki culture Animals of the forest The Abenaki view towards the natural environment The value of experiences in the natural world for children's growth F&P Text Level R

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In the late 1800s the ninth generation of Vickerys expanded the family network to the Montana and Wyoming borderlands, and their stories of pioneer ranching and mining mirror the entrepreneurial spirit of their colonial ancestors, Hawkes keeps a keen historian's eye on the facts while weaving a fascinating tale.

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What is the fastest animal in the world? What can dive as deep as a whale or make a submarine disappear in the ocean? The answer is zooplankton! The ocean is teeming with these small, drifting animals that come in all shapes ands sizes, from tiny zippy copepods to large, brilliantly colored jellyfish (that you don't want to bump into). There are some very strange zooplankton, like the arrow worm -- you can see what it had for lunch inside its stomach! Some zooplankton give off a ghostly underwater glow, and others are poisonous, like the sea wasp, a jellyfish that has killed more swimmers of Queensland in northern Australia than the great white shark. Some zooplankton are "temporary" zooplankton, drifting along on ocean currents when they are young, but turning into fish or crustaceans when they grow up and swim on their own. Other zooplankton and zooplankton all their lives -- or until they get eaten! Zooplankton are an important meal in the ocean food web. A single blue whale may devour up to eight tons of shrimp-like krill a day. That's a big serving of sea soup! Bill Curtsinger's extraordinary photography brings us right into the watery world of zooplankton, while Mary Cerullo's lively text answers our questions about these fascinating ocean creatures.

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Bunting has a knack for spotting the unusual in a photograph, or some minor detail that, in fact, tells a major story about the how and why. From granite quarry operations to an itinerant cobbler in a sailing scow to hootchie-kootchie dancers at the state fair to deepwater ships, his page-long captions place these images in social and economic context--but this is not dry history. His research has uncovered a wealth of fascinating, often quirky detail (did you know that mummy wrappings were imported from Egypt for Maine papermaking?), and he makes frequent forays into the Maine storytelling tradition.

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From the award-winning team behind Magnificent Homespun Brown, Samara Cole Doyon and Coretta Scott King Award Honoree Kaylani Juanita, comes a song of gratitude for those who see the world in a different way

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From the author-illustrator of The Eye of the Whale (Tilbury House, 2013), this nonfiction picture book tells the story of Lawrence Anthony and the deep bond he forged with the matriarch of the herd he saved at his animal reserve in South Africa. When Lawrence died, the matriarch led all the elephants from remote parts of the reserve in a procession to his home, where they gathered to mourn him. They returned on the same day at the same time for the next two years -- because elephants remember. This moving story of human-elephant mutual love and respect will inspire readers of all ages.

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Big lies are told by governments, politicians, and corporations to avoid responsibility, cast blame on the innocent, win elections, disguise intent, create chaos, and gain power and wealth. Big lies are as old as civilization. They corrupt public understanding and discourse, turn science upside down, and reinvent history. They prevent humanity from addressing critical challenges. They perpetuate injustices. They destabilize the world. The modern age has provided ever-more-effective ways of spreading lies, but it has also given us the scientific method, which is the most effective tool for finding what is true. In the book’s final chapter, Kurlansky reveals ways to deconstruct an allegation. A scientific theory has to be testable, and so does an allegation. BIG LIES soars across history: alighting on the “noble lies” of Socrates and Plato; Nero blaming Christians for the burning of Rome; the great injustices of the Middle Ages; the big lies of Stalin and Hitler and their terrible consequences; the reckless lies of contemporary demagogues, which are amplified through social media; lies against women and Jews are two examples in the long history of “othering” the vulnerable for personal gain; up to the equal-opportunity spotlight in America. “Belief is a choice,” Kurlansky writes, “and honesty begins in each of us. A lack of caring what is true or false is the undoing of democracy. The alternative to truth is a corrupt state in which the loudest voices and most seductive lies confer power and wealth on grifters and oligarchs. We cannot achieve a healthy planet for all the world’s people if we do not keep asking what is true.”

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Alya and Atik are stars. Their job is to twinkle in the night sky over Earth and for billions of years they do it well. Plants stretch towards them. Animals look up at them. And, eventually, humans gaze up at them and marvel. But then humans invent powerplants, factories and cars, and smog pours into Earth’s atmosphere. It becomes harder and harder for Alya and Atik to do their jobs until, finally, the stars yell at Earth and Earth feels sick and begins to shake and things look pretty dire. The clueless king’s response is to command Earth to stop shaking. But a little girl named Axiom tells the king to hush then tells humans what they must do to make the Earth feel better. When the Earth Shook provides a mythical framing for kids to understand that it will be their job to help save the Earth. Bravo, Axiom! Keep using that huge megaphone until the earth no longer shakes! Axiom’s list of instructions to humans; some well-known and others new but critically important appears in the back of the book.

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Smoke speaks in mesmerising riddles: “I lack a mouth, but I can speak… I lack hands, but I can push out unwanted guests… I’m gentler than a feather, but I can cause harm…” This rhythmically powerful narration is complemented by illustrations in which swirling smoke was captured on art paper held over smoky candle flames, and the dancing smoke textures were then deepened and elaborated with watercolours and Photoshop finishes. With this unique method, Mercè López “let the smoke decide how the idea I had in mind would dance with it, giving freedom to the images”. The resulting illustrations are astounding, and they resonate with the otherworldly text.

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Edward Hopper’s monster lurks outside the nighthawks’ diner. James Whistler’s monster rocks in her chair. Monsters invade masterpieces by Dorthea Tanning, Paul Cezanne, M.C. Escher, Jean Michel Basquiat, Giuseppe Archimboldo, Rene Magritte, Henri Rousseau, Franz Kline, Frida Kahlo, Bob Thompson, Henri Toulouse-Lautrec, Thomas Hart Benton and Helen Frankenthaler. The monster emerging from Claude Monet’s waterlilies is unforgettable. Our guide for this romp through re-imagined masterpieces is an engaging hamster. Thumbnail biographies of the artists identify their iconic works.

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So begins this lyrical tribute to the bugs, bees, and birds that make the garden such a busy place. With each turned page, more visitors appear, and all the while the “surprise”—a chrysalis—changes unnoticed until, on the last page, a butterfly emerges and flies away across the garden’s well-tended borders. Back-of-book notes about the natural histories of the garden’s denizens complete this lovely and lively portrait of backyard nature, which is also a gentle meditation on the rewards of paying attention. A chipmunk hides on every page to divert and engage young readers. Fountas & Pinnell Level O

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When a downcast Sergio gets home from a bad day at school, his wise mother listens sympathetically to his tale of woe and then suggests an experiment. Placing a bowl of marbles next to Grandfather’s old balance scale, she asks him to go back to the beginning of his day and remember each good and bad thing that happened. For each bad thing, he places a marble on the right-hand pan of the scale; for each good thing he places a marble on the left-hand pan. Sergio is amazed to discover that even on a day that felt awful, the good outweighed the bad.

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While Joey’s mother explains the context of numbers in vivid ways, Joey’s imagination transforms their ordinary car ride into a magical odyssey through a land of make-believe.

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Buddy Benches were introduced in Germany in 2014. When a child sits on the bench, it signals to other children to ask him or her to play. Patty Brozo’s children bring a playground to raucous life while Mike Deas’s illustrations invest their games with images of planes, dragons and elephants. The children match their imaginations with empathy, identifying and swooping up the lonely.

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Ms. Snowden and her class practice sending kind thoughts to the people they love, and they launch a class Kindness Project. There is only one problem: Henry can’t think of one kind thing he has done. Declaring that kindness is stupid, he stomps to the classroom door on the verge of tears, but his classmates save the day by reminding him of the kind things he has done for each of them.

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Ms. Snowden and her class practice sending kind thoughts to the people they love, and they launch a class Kindness Project. There is only one problem: Henry can’t think of one kind thing he has done. Declaring that kindness is stupid, he stomps to the classroom door on the verge of tears, but his classmates save the day by reminding him of the kind things he has done for each of them.

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Zombies, monsters, and dragons stalk this book’s pages. Cries of despair echo through them. Prisons and dungeons lie in wait. Is this a nightmare? Is it an apocalypse? Well, yes—because it’s the day before our narrator’s first day of school, and all entreaties to his mother are falling on deaf ears. Why should he go to school when he already knows two letters, “N” and “O,” and he knows they spell NO!, which is exactly the word this occasion demands? Why aren’t these magic letters working anymore? Lexile Level 490; F&P Level L

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More than two centuries before Einstein, using a crude telescope and a mechanical timepiece, Danish astronomer Ole Romer measured the speed of light with astounding accuracy. How was he able to do this when most scientists didn’t even believe that light traveled? Like many paradigm-shattering discoveries, Romer’s was accidental. Night after night he was timing the disappearance and reappearance of Jupiter’s moon Io behind the huge, distant planet. Eventually he realized that the discrepancies in his measurements could have only one explanation: Light had a speed, and it took longer to reach Earth when Earth was farther from Jupiter. All he needed then to calculate light’s speed was some fancy geometry.

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Through color, shape,size, and other adaptations, city fish and country fish have evolved to survive in their particular habitats.In City Fish, Country Fish, Mary Cerullo uses this powerful analogy and Jeffrey Rotman’s vibrant underwater photos to captivate young readers with the wild variety of ocean life. The second edition of this popular book includes new information about the effects of climate change on fish and their habitats and about great white sharks, who are among the few species who roam back and forth between cold and tropical waters. Fountas & Pinnell Level T

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When Laura—a.k.a. Masterpiece Robot—heads into the backyard with her little sister Molly—a.k.a. Sidekick—her active imagination places them instead on patrol around the perimeter of a dystopian city, guarding against super villains. Then older sister Amber—a.k.a. Valerie Knick-Knack—throws handfuls of fallen leaves at them, unknowingly initiating a battle for the ages. The transitions back and forth from suburbia to dystopia in this story within a story are deftly rendered with contrasting palettes. The rollicking interactions of the sibling heroes and villains make Masterpiece Robot pure fun to read. Lexile Level 900 Fountas and Pinnell Level V

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At breakfast she learns she has been given a fresh start, and she decides to celebrate by doing things differently for the rest of the day. Melena chooses not to fight with her brother, and shares the money she has rather than demanding to be repaid by a less fortunate friend. This story introduces children to the concept of jubilee, which stresses the important principles of debt relief, generosity, and forgiveness. Aaron Boyd's mixed-media illustrations are as bright and vivid as a sun-washed day. Fountas & Pinnell Level M

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What followed was a rare and remarkable demonstration of animal behavior. This celebrated story, beautifully depicted in Jennifer O’Connell’s mesmerizing paintings, will make you wonder about animal emotions and the unique connections we can have with animals—even whales. Fountas & Pinnell Level M

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The villagers had tried expanding the school, but the money ran out before the project was finished. No money meant no materials, and that meant no more room for the students. Then one person got a wonderful, crazy idea: Why not use soda bottles, which were readily available, to form the cores of the walls? Sometimes thinking outside the box—or inside the bottle—leads to the perfect solution. Fountas & Pinnell Level Q

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When he runs off to the market instead of sticking around for a reading lesson, he encounters a much-admired older boy secretly reading at a book stall, and then Amadi becomes intrigued by a storybook with pictures of a strange white creature that has a carrot for a nose. Unable to shake his questions about the snowman, Amadi discovers the vast world reading can open up—especially for an Igbo boy of Nigeria.

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This lively board book unfolds accordian-style in a floor-standing arc, encouraging babies to lift their head while they are lying on their tummy, while toddlers will love the photos of diverse babies.

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That night, Kanzi wraps herself in the beautiful Arabic quilt her teita (grandma) in Cairo gave her and writes a poem in Arabic about the quilt. Next day her teacher sees the poem and gets the entire class excited about creating a “quilt” (a paper collage) of student names in Arabic. In the end, Kanzi’s most treasured reminder of her old home provides a pathway for acceptance in her new one. This authentic story with beautiful illustrations includes a glossary of Arabic words and a presentation of Arabic letters with their phonetic English equivalents.

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A search for one’s place in the world provides the storyline: The narrator, a drum, feels like an outcast because he alone—unlike his family and friends—cannot play a melody. Like all kids growing up, he must find out where he fits. The narrator, a drum, wanders the streets of Coelho’s vividly realised city of musical instruments—where even the birds sprout miniature trumpets from their mouths—feeling like an outcast because he alone, among all his family and neighbours, can’t play a melody. He adores his violin brother, cello father and piano mother but feels he has nothing to offer to their music. "My father is Cello, and oh, what a fellow. The tone of his laugh is low, smooth and mellow. But me? My name’s Drum. BOOM-CLACK, RAT-A-TAT. My head is a snare and I wear a hi-hat. My stomach’s a bass drum, my arms are drumsticks and my only song is CLICK-CLACK, CLACK-CLICK". But one day a trio of saxophones ask him to join their band and what they tell him gives him an epiphany "So that’s what a drum does! I now understand. I don’t carry a tune; I carry a band". But he must still prove it to himself, and that takes all his courage. Loubriel’s story of bravery and identity, infused with Latin rhythms and joy, provides a fine vehicle for Coelho’s vibrant technique and palette. Coelho’s city of music bursts with exuberance. In backmatter, Loubriel, a lifelong drummer, explains how the drum kit lays a song’s foundation. The bass drum is the heartbeat; the hi hat is the dynamic metronome; the snare drum is the drum kit’s singer.

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Henry is a lot of fun when he's not storming through the house, so Emma decides to teach him how to be still. By showing him how to sit, bow, and breathe, Emma is able to calm the hurricane within Henry. A perfect introduction to meditation for young readers, presented in a captivating story. The illustrations bring the story to life with delightful whimsy. Includes a back-of-book presentation of simple mindfulness techniques that can be shared at home and in the classroom. In Planting Seeds, Thich Nhat Hanh, a Vietnamese Buddhist monk, teaches that by sitting still and meditating, the mind can become clear. Like Hanh's apple juice story, when a glass of lemonade is stirred, the pulp swirls around. When it sits quietly, the pulp settles and the liquid becomes clear. In this way, a glass of lemonade is a metaphor for how meditation and mindfulness work. That is why this book is called The Lemonade Hurricane. Practicing mindfulness and meditation helps us tame the hurricane within. Fountas & Pinnell Level L

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When scientist Heather Lynch came across a satellite image of the remote Danger Islands of the Antarctic Peninsula showing an enormous pink swath of land, she knew exactly what she was looking at

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Discover the enormous world of some of the planet's tiniest creaturesand the giant job they do in our ecosystem

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The poetic story, combining lyricismwith natural history excellence, is augmented and enriched by informativesidebars and backmatter. Birds, mammals, amphibians, and insects peek out from the beautiful, scientifically accurate illustrations.

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One summer day, Luke and his friends decide to play their favorite game of war, using sticks for guns and pine cones for bombs. But Sameer, who is new to their neighborhood, doesn’t want to join in. When the kids learn that Sameer lost his family in a real war, they realize that war is not a game. The gracefulness of their response and the power of friendship are the real stories here.

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The narrator is a composite of people Pu Zhelong influenced in his work. With further context from Melanie Chan’s historically precise watercolors, this story will immerse young readers in Chinese culture, the natural history of insects, and the use of biological controls in farming. Backmatter provides context and background for this lovely, sophisticated picture book about nature, science, and Communist China. “The first time I saw a scientist in my village was also the first time I saw a wasp hatch out of a moth’s egg,” writes the narrator of this picture book about Chinese scientist Pu Zhelong. “In that moment I could not have said which was the more unexpected—or the more miraculous.” In the early 1960s, while Rachel Carson was writing and defending Silent Spring in the U.S., Pu Zhelong was teaching peasants in Mao Zedong’s Communist China how to forgo pesticides and instead use parasitic wasps to control the moths that were decimating crops and contributing to China’s widespread famine. This story told through the memories of a farm boy (a composite of people inspired by Pu Zhelong) will immerse young readers in Chinese culture, the natural history of insects, and sustainable agriculture. Backmatter provides historical context for this lovely, sophisticated picture book. The author, Sigrid Schmalzer, won the Joseph Levenson Post-1900 Book Prize for 2018 for her book Red Revolution, Green Revolution. This is the most prestigious prize for a book about Chinese history, and the book upon which Moth and Wasp, Soil and Ocean is based. Fountas & Pinnell Level U

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Is a melting snowman a sign of climate change? Can she reduce her carbon footprint? What is buoyancy? Paper airplanes, animal tracks, and a morning of sledding get her thinking about aerodynamics, winter survival, and friction. “Conduct an experiment,” her parents tell her whenever she has a new question. “Use the scientific method.” So Acadia does science. And so can you.

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Acadia Greene has done science in summer, autumn, and winter. In the fourth and final book of this series, she carries her search for answers into the spring, investigating meteors and mass extinctions; germination and pollinators; parasites, ticks, and Lyme disease; and pesticides and malaria. Finally, looking back through her notebooks, she puts together her scientific inquiries from all four seasons into a holistic understanding of the natural world. Acadia is curious, determined, bold, and bright—a wonderful STEAM ambassador! Lexile 750

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How did she navigate the world of venture capitalists and investment bankers to engineer the sale of her company and reap a personal fortune? And what does her subsequent odyssey to buy and donate a new national park in Maine's north woods—thus repaying what she regards as the “harmonic debt to the planet” she incurred by manufacturing beauty products—tell us about America and the American dream? Queen Bee is a fascinating biography of a fascinating woman, her game-changing skin-care company, and the quest to create a national park in the north woods. A richly textured portrait of the woman who built Burt's Bees from nothing and altered the global business of skin care. A tightly woven story of the paper-industry exodus, the giant clearance sale of the north woods, the downward spiral of paper-company towns, and the battle for a new national park. A tale of the American Dream in action— what it can do for the fortunate few who are in the right place at the right time with wits and determination, and what it can do to the unfortunate many who find themselves on the wrong side of “creative destruction.”

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Joe's photos capture moments of ephemeral grace and beauty in places that are forgotten or hiding in plain sight. Smelt Brook in Castine is not on any standard itinerary. Neither are South Addison, Merrymeeting Bay, the Scarborough Marsh, and many other places Joe has explored over the years. Even places that are familiar to many--West Quoddy Head, Old Orchard Beach, Monhegan Island, Pemaquid Point, Portland Harbor, Acadia National Park, and others--are revealed by Joe's camera in moments of other-worldly allure. There are surprises on every page, just as there are surprises around any bend of a Maine coastal road. Every photo in this book was taken from a public vantage point you can reach by car or ferry. An appendix offers directions to each place. Ken Textor's essays reveal hidden nuggets on every page: why the shade on a Castine street has a strange, nostalgic feel; what to think of a mauve lobster boat or a seemingly abandoned dory in the weeds; how a lighthouse surrounded by granite quarries came to be built of brick; which is the front and which is the back of a house built between Main Street and the harbor; how to enumerate the many services provided by a salt marsh; why the lobstering isn't better in upper Blue Hill Bay; why sea air makes us hungry; and how a wormdigger turns a mudflat into money. The great naturalist Louis Agassiz believed that the only way to discover the truth of a thing is through sustained attention. In THE HIDDEN COAST OF MAINE, Joe Devenney and Ken Textor share the results of three-and-a-half decades of attention to an amazing place.

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In E. B. White on Dogs, his granddaughter and manager of his literary estate, Martha White, has compiled the best and funniest of his essays, poems, letters, and sketches depicting over a dozen of White's various canine companions. Featured here are favorite essays such as 'Two Letters, Both Open,' where White takes on the Internal Revenue Service, and also 'Bedfellows,' with its 'fraudulent reports'; from White's ignoble old dachshund, Fred. ('I just saw an eagle go by. It was carrying a baby.') From The New Yorker's 'The Talk of the Town' are some little-known Notes and Comment pieces covering dog shows, sled dog races, and the trials and tribulations of city canines, chief among them a Scotty called Daisy who was kicked out of Schrafft's, arrested, and later run down by a Yellow Cab, prompting The New Yorker to run her 'Obituary.' Some previously unpublished photographs from the E. B. White Estate show the family dogs, from the first collie, to various labs, Scotties, dachshunds, half-breeds, and mutts, all well-loved.This is a book for readers and writers who recognize a good sentence and a masterful turn of a phrase; for E. B. White fans looking for more from their favorite author; and for dog lovers who may not have discovered the wit, style, and compassion of this most distinguished of American essayists.

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Most of these short, savvy essays have appeared in The Forecaster, in Ed's Universal Notebook column (named for the spiral-bound reporter's notebooks that he buys two dozen at a time), or in the Maine Times, where he was a staff writer for a number of years. He started reporting when he was a sophomore at Westbrook High, writing for the Westbrook American, and aside from a stint as a librarian at the Portland Public Library after college, he's been scribbling for a living in Maine for his working life. Opinionated, insightful, humorous, and sometimes controversial, Ed Beem enjoys his role as a local observer, and these essays will resonate with anyone tuned in to day-to-day life in backyard Maine.

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