Teen Books, Nonfiction
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Bomb: The Race to Build and Steal the World's Most Dangerous Weapon
In December of 1938, a chemist in a German laboratory made a shocking discovery: When placed next to radioactive material, a Uranium atom split in two. That simple discovery launched a scientific race that spanned 3 continents. In Great Britain and the United States, Soviet spies worked their way into the scientific community; in Norway, a commando force slipped behind enemy lines to attack German heavy-water manufacturing; and deep in the desert, one brilliant group of scientists was hidden away at a remote site at Los Alamos. This is the story of the plotting, the risk-taking, the deceit, and genius that created the world's most formidable weapon. This is the story of the atomic bomb.
Also available as an audiobook.
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Charles and Emma
Charles Darwin published The Origin of Species , his revolutionary tract on evolution and the fundamental ideas involved, in 1859. Nearly 150 years later, the theory of evolution continues to create tension between the scientific and religious communities. Challenges about teaching the theory of evolution in schools occur annually all over the country. This same debate raged within Darwin himself, and played an important part in his marriage: his wife, Emma, was quite religious, and her faith gave Charles alot to think about as he worked on a theory that continues to spark intense debates.
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Dear Bully: Seventy Authors Tell Their Stories
You are not alone.
Discover how Lauren Kate transformed the feeling of that one mean girl getting under her skin into her first novel, how Lauren Oliver learned to celebrate ambiguity in her classmates and in herself, and how R.L. Stine turned being the “funny guy” into the best defense against the bullies in his class.
Today's top authors for teens come together to share their stories about bullying-as silent observers on the sidelines of high school, as victims, and as perpetrators-in a collection at turns moving and self-effacing, but always deeply personal.
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Dear Teen Me: Authors Write Letters to Their Teen Selves
In 2010, writers Anderson and Kenneally launched a blog where authors posted letters written to themselves as teenagers; more than 70 of those entries are gathered in this book, from Tom Angleberger, Ellen Hopkins, Mitali Perkins, Dave Roman, Sara Zarr, and more. The letters are self-deprecating ("Let's just start by ripping off the Band-Aid," says Robin Benway. "You need to let your bangs grow out"), encouraging ("Go ahead and embrace life on the social fringes," advises Beth Fantaskey), and revealing ("Even though you don't drink, a certain very cruel, very callous guy is drinking-and there's nothing I can do now to stop that thing from happening," writes Carrie Jones). The breadth of emotion and experience the entries cover guarantee that almost any reader will identify with some of the situations and anxieties expressed. - Publishers Weekly Review
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Moonbird: A Year on the Wind with the Great Survivor B95
B95 can feel it: a stirring in his bones and feathers. It's time. Today is the day he will once again cast himself into the air, spiral upward into the clouds, and bank into the wind.He wears a black band on his lower right leg and an orange flag on his upper left, bearing the laser inscription B95. Scientists call him the Moonbird because, in the course of his astoundingly long lifetime, this gritty, four-ounce marathoner has flown the distance to the moon-and halfway back! B95 is a robin-sized shorebird, a red knot of the subspecies rufa.Each February he joins a flock that lifts off from Tierra del Fuego, headed for breeding grounds in the Canadian Arctic, nine thousand miles away. Late in the summer, he begins the return journey.B95 can fly for days without eating or sleeping, but eventually he must descend to refuel and rest. However, recent changes at ancient refueling stations along his migratory circuit-changes caused mostly by human activity-have reduced the food available and made it harder for the birds to reach. And so, since 1995, when B95 was first captured and banded, the worldwide rufa population has collapsed by nearly 80 percent. Most perish somewhere along the great hemispheric circuit, but the Moonbird wings on. He has been seen as recently as November 2011, which makes him nearly twenty years old. Shaking their heads, scientists ask themselves: How can this one bird make it year after year when so many others fall? National Book Award-winning author Phillip Hoose takes us around the hemisphere with the world's most celebrated shorebird, showing the obstacles rufa red knots face, introducing a worldwide team of scientists and conservationists trying to save them, and offering insights about what we can do to help shorebirds before it's too late. With inspiring prose, thorough research, and stirring images, Hoose explores the tragedy of extinction through the triumph of a single bird.
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Steve Jobs: Genius by Design
iMac, iTunes, iPod, iPhone, iPad, iCon! Steve Jobs and his inventions changed the world we live in. His extraordinary life story is brimming with passion, innovation and creative genius.Share his triumphs and failures, as we journey from his birth and his adoption, through the advent of the computer age and on into the digital age. Forced out of the company he created, his indomitable vision allowed him to change the world of computers, movies, music and telecommunications. Prepare to be inspired, by a man who dared to think differently...
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Stitches: A Memoir
The prize-winning children's author depicts a childhood from hell in this searing yet redemptive graphic memoir. One day David Small awoke from a supposedly harmless operation to discover that he had been transformed into a virtual mute. A vocal cord removed, his throat slashed and stitched together like a bloody boot, the fourteen-year-old boy had not been told that he had throat cancer and was expected to die. Small, a prize-winning children's author, re-creates a life story that might have been imagined by Kafka. Readers will be riveted by his journey from speechless victim, subjected to X-rays by his radiologist father and scolded by his withholding and tormented mother, to his decision to flee his home at sixteen with nothing more than dreams of becoming an artist. Recalling Running with Scissors with its ability to evoke the trauma of a childhood lost, Stitches will transform adolescent and adult readers alike with its deeply liberating vision.
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Superman Versus the Ku Klux Klan
Superman was created as a hero for every person and became a hero of every time. Superman vs. the Ku Klux Klan traces the evolution of America's most enduring superhero from his inception in the minds of two Jewish high schoolers in a Cleveland suburb in the early 1930s through his early success as a New Deal champion of the oppressed and a WWII battler against facism, to the climax of his activist career in a 1946 radio show that exposed the brutality of the Klu Klux Klan.
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The Unofficial Hunger Games Cookbook: From Lamb Stew to "Groosling" -- More than 150 Recipes Inspired by the Hunger Games Trilogy
"Here's some advice. Stay alive."--Haymitch Abernathy
When it comes to The Hunger Games, staying alive means finding food any way possible. Katniss and Gale hunt live game, Peeta's family survives on the bread they make, and the inhabitants of the Seam work twelve-hour days for a few handfuls of grain--all while the residents of the Capitol gorge themselves on delicacies and desserts to the heart's desire.
For the first time, you will be able to create delicious recipes from the humble District 12 to the extravagant Capital, including:
- French Bread from the Mellark Family Bakery
- Katniss's Favorite Lamb Stew with Dried Plums
- Rue's Roasted Parsnips
- Gale's Bone-Pickin' Big Game Soup
- Capitol-Grade Dark Chocolate Cake
If you're starving for more from Katniss, Peeta, and Gale, this cookbook is sure to whet your appetite!
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Titanic: Voices from the Disaster
EARLY MORNING ON APRIL 15, 1912, the RMS Titanic, on her glorious maiden voyage from Southampton to New York, sank after striking an iceberg in the North Atlantic. Thus the ship declared to be unsinkable was lost in one of the most infamous tragedies in history. Even now, a century later, the events surrounding theTitaniccontinue to haunt and intrigue us.
Critically acclaimed author Deborah Hopkinson weaves together the voices ofTitanic survivors and witnesses to the disaster to bring the horrors of that terrible night to life. There’s nine-year-old Frankie Goldsmith; Violet Jessop, a young stewardess; Jack Thayer, an American high school senior; Colonel Archibald Gracie, a well-to-do gentleman; William Murdoch, a brave seaman; Charlotte Collyer, a young mother on her way to start a new life; and many others. Their recollections are filled with heart-stopping action, devastating drama, and fascinating historical details.
Also available as an audiobook.
