Helaine Becker

"In this fun and funny celebration of literacy, kids of all ages will discover that the act of reading is a daring adventure that can take you anywhere! You can read at the playground, under the sea, at the opera and even in outer space! It turns out you can read everywhere! And when you do, you open yourself to a universe of adventure. Presented in light-hearted, rib-tickling verse that's perfect for reading aloud, You Can Read sings it loud and...

"When Emmy Noether is born in 1882, no one knows she's going to become a visionary mathematician. Back then, girls were expected to be gentle and quiet -- definitely not geniuses. But Emmy is a genius! And she's much more interested in math than in learning to cook and sew. Though she faces sexism and anti-Semitism, she perseveres to earn her mathematics degree and teach at a university. And when Einstein's famous Theory of Relativity has a problem...

"Young Wendy had a rare eye for unusual. She was always on the hunt for anything and everything -- gnarly rocks, buds and burrs, the brilliant blue of a jay's feather. When a class trip takes her to Alberta's amazing bonebed, a place known for its dinosaur fossils, twelve-year-old Wendy makes her first major discovery: a piece of fossilized coral from 100 million years ago! From then on, Wendy spends her time among the windswept hoodoos, searching...

"A millipede the size of a basketball player? A pit-bull-sized scorpion? It's hard to believe, but such mega-critters once lived on our planet. In this peek into prehistory, award-winning science writer Helaine Becker introduces us to nine of these terrifying giants. You'll discover when and where they lived, how they grew to their mega-sizes and what (thankfully!) caused their extinction. On each spread, a highly realistic illustration shows us what...

"You've likely heard of the historic Apollo 13 [mission]. But do you know about the mathematical genius who made sure that Apollo 13 returned safely home? As a child, Katherine Johnson loved to count. She counted the steps on the road, the number of dishes and spoons she washed in the kitchen sink, everything! Boundless, curious, and excited by calculations, young Katherine longed to know as much as she could about math, about the universe. From Katherine's...

Introduces the solar system, sharing information on how scientists study space, how stars are born and die, and how astronauts train for space missions. --

Set in the Rocky Mountain borderlands, Trouble in the Hills is an action-packed adventure that pits an injured teen against the elements as he tries to elude kidnappers and drug runners. After a fight with his father, Cam takes to the hills that surround his small, mountain community, where an error in judgment leads to a serious mountain biking accident. As he slowly makes his way back to town over cold, inhospitable terrain, he encounters a trio...

When Darren Dirkowitz's evil stepbrother (code name Waldo) gets hold of Darren's tippity-top-secret spy journal, he threatens to expose it to the entire Preston Middle School student body. Unless, that is, Darren starts doing his dirty work for him. Now Darren's got to use the oh-so-cloak-and-daggery skills he's honed in his secret alternate life as Dirk Daring, Secret Agent to spy on kids at school. Naturally, he also sets up a separate, sneaky surveillance...

Darren Dirkowitz thought his life was over when his tippity-top-secret alter ego, Dirk Daring, Secret Agent, was outed to the entire Preston Middle School student body. If only he'd been so lucky. Now the Wolf Lords-a gang of teen thugs bent on wringing every last penny out of Preston students-are breathing down his neck. There's only one solution: Dirk Daring must embark on his most daring mission yet. A mission so audacious, so cunning, so doggone...

Science fiction comes to life in this riveting showcase of zoobots - robots inspired by animals. Detailed reports on machines that look and behave like creepy, crawly creatures such as geckos, jellyfish and bats will encourage budding scientists to imagine the next zoobot.