Geography America

It is 1910 and Maia, tragically orphaned at 13, has been sent from England to start a new life with distant relatives in Manaus, hundreds of miles up the Amazon. She is accompanied by an eccentric and mysterious governess who has secret reasons of her own for making the journey. Both soon discover an exotic world bursting with new experiences in this highly colourful, joyous, and award-winning adventure.

Coke and Pepsi McDonald didn’t want to jump off a cliff. They didn't want to get hit by poisoned darts from blowguns either. And they certainly don't want to get locked in their burning school, thrown into a pit at the top of a sand dune, or drowned in a vat of liquefied Spam. But what are you supposed to do when you’re being chased across the country by your insane health teacher and two guys in bowler hats who are trying to kill you? One thing's for sure, it'll be a snap for Coke and Pep to write their essays on "How I Spent My Summer Vacation."

From Boston Globe-Horn Book Award winner Katherine Rundell comes an exciting new novel about a group of kids who must survive in the Amazon after their plane crashes. Fred, Con, Lila, and Max are on their way back to England from Manaus when the plane they're on crashes and the pilot dies upon landing. For days they survive alone, until Fred finds a map that leads them to a ruined city, and to a secret.

Coke and Pepsi McDonald never asked to be geniuses. They never asked to get lowered into a basket of boiling french fries, either. And they certainly never asked to be frozen in soft-serve ice cream, stampeded in a wild stadium riot, or kidnapped on a high-speed roller coaster. But that's what happens when a red-haired villain named Archie Clone is chasing you across America. This just might be the most dangerous road trip in history - and the most awesome!

In elegant and often hilarious prose, Kunstler depicts our nation's evolution from the Pilgrim settlements to the modern auto suburb in all its ghastliness. The Geography of Nowhere tallies up the huge economic, social, and spiritual costs that America is paying for its car-crazed lifestyle. It is also a wake-up call for citizens to reinvent the places where we live and work, to build communities that are once again worthy of our affection. Kunstler proposes that by reviving civic art and civic life, we will rediscover public virtue and a new vision of the common good.

Just when they think they are safe, theMcDonald twins are chased by an evil Elvis impersonator, trapped in a pool of flesh-eating soda pop, nearly pulverized in a giant shredder, and crushed in a turbo-charged carnival ride. Worst of all, no one believes them! Will they make it out alive? Will they ever find out who's really after them? All bets are off in this explosive third book in the Genius Files series.

The wackiest road trip in history continues in book four of the New York Times best-selling Genius Files series, following twins Coke and Pepsi as they dodge villains and visit weird-but-true landmarks from Texas all the way to Roswell, New Mexico. With the real-kid humor that has earned him millions of fans around the world, and featuring all-new weird-but-true locations around America, From Texas with Love is absolutely batty!

North America was settled by people with distinct religious, political, and ethnographic characteristics, creating regional cultures that have been at odds with one another ever since. Subsequent immigrants didn't confront or assimilate into an "American" or "Canadian" culture, but rather into one of the 11 distinct regional ones that spread over the continent each staking out mutually exclusive territory. In American Nations, Colin Woodard leads us on a journey through the history of our fractured continent....

When eight-year-old Agnes is signed up for SPEARS (the Society for the Protection of Endangered and Awesomely Rare Species), she has no idea of the adventures that lie ahead with her elephant-shrew mentor Attie (short for 'Attenborough'). Operation Honeyhunt sends them to the Brazilian rain forest, on a mission to save an endangered, dance-loving bee named Elton. Will Agnes pass the test and become a full SPEARS Agent? Species in danger? Girl and shrew to the rescue!

As a boy, Robert D. Kaplan listened to his truck-driver father's evocative stories about traveling across America as a young man, travels in which he learned to understand the country from a ground-level perspective. In Earning the Rockies, Kaplan undertakes his own cross-country journey to recapture an appreciation and understanding of American geography that is often lost in the jet age.

Corinne La Mer isn't afraid of anything. Not scorpions, not the boys who tease her, and certainly not jumbies. They're just tricksters parents make up to frighten their children. Then one night Corinne chases an agouti all the way into the forbidden forest. Those shining, yellow eyes that followed her to the edge of the trees, they couldn't belong to a jumbie. Or could they?

Otto and Sheed are the local sleuths in their zany Virginia town, masters of unraveling mischief using their unmatched powers of deduction. And as the summer winds down and the first day of school looms, the boys are craving just a little bit more time for fun, even as they bicker over what kind of fun they want to have. That is, until a mysterious man appears with a camera that literally freezes time.

In 2014, Flint, Michigan, was a cash-strapped city that had been built up, then abandoned by General Motors. As part of a plan to save money, government officials decided that Flint would temporarily switch its water supply from Lake Huron to the Flint River. Within months, many residents broke out in rashes.

A young boy wakes up to the sound of the sea, visits his grandfather's grave after lunch, and comes home to a simple family dinner, but all the while his mind strays to his father digging for coal deep down under the sea. With curriculum connections to communities and the history of mining, this beautifully understated and haunting story brings a piece of history to life. The ever-present ocean and inevitable pattern of life in a maritime mining town will enthrall children and move adult listeners.

Native Americans have a long tradition of storytelling. Now, you can easily introduce your children to these rich cultures with a compilation of powerful tales from multiple tribes like the Cheyenne and the Lenape.

This the story of the unplanned adoption of an eleven-year-old girl orphan by an elderly brother and sister farm couple: Matthew and Marilla Cuthbert. They had requested a young boy orphan to help with farm chores, so the girl was unwanted at first. However, she was very intelligent, imaginative and quite a chatterbox. She gradually made her way into the unexpected adoption that brought love and respect, creating a warm and wonderful association. This delightful classic takes place in the Canadian province of Prince Edward Island.

Will the twins make it back home to California in one piece, or will they fall off the top of the Golden Gate Bridge? It's all coming to an end with this fifth book in the Genius Files series. You'll have to listen to believe it!

Corinne LaMer defeated the wicked Jumbie Severine months ago, but things haven't exactly gone back to normal in her Caribbean island home. Everyone knows Corinne is half Jumbie, and when local children begin to go missing, suspicious eyes turn to Corinne. To rescue the missing children and clear her own name, Corinne goes deep into the ocean to find Mama D'Leau, the dangerous Jumbie who rules the sea. But Mama D'Leau's help comes with a price....

Set in Mississippi at the height of the Depression, this is the story of one family's struggle to maintain their integrity, pride, and independence in the face of racism and social injustice. And it is also Cassie's story - Cassie Logan, an independent girl who discovers over the course of an important year why having land of their own is so crucial to the Logan family, even as she learns to draw strength from her own sense of dignity and self-respect.

The haunting of the Bell family at their home in Tennessee started out harmless enough with knocking and scratching noises. But soon, members of the family were scratched, kicked, and slapped by a spirit who identifies herself as a witch named Kate Batts. Centuries later, this legendary ghost story continues to haunt all who hear it.