The 130+ national monuments in the US include a 6-mile wide lake in a volcanic caldera; a riverbed with more than 750 types of fossils, some 44 million years old; homes of many of the nation’s heroes, and sites where historically significant events occurred. Cameron Walker describes them all in National Monuments of the U.S.A., a richly illustrated book for readers aged 6-10 & their families.
Baby animals help scientists explore important questions: How do genes influence health? Which environmental factors support—or obstruct—life? Learning how babies grow, Danna Staaf asserts In Nursery Earth: The Wondrous Lives of Baby Animals and the Extraordinary Ways They Shape Our World, will help us understand and treat nearly all health problems, and someday even mend damaged body parts.
Anna, a North Dakota homesteader in the early 1900s, left her family mineral rights to land with potential oil and gas reserves. Anna’s great-granddaughter Erika Bolstad worried about the land-grab behind those rights & their possible environmental impact. In "Windfall: The Prairie Woman Who Lost Her Way and the Great-Granddaughter Who Found Her," Bolstad explores family roots & devises a solution.
In 1938, botanists Elzada Clover and Lois Jotter became the 1st non-native women known to transverse the Grand Canyon by boat. In their 43-day, 600-mile trip down the perilous Colorado River, they collected diverse plant specimens and took notes that set botanical benchmarks, Melissa Sevigny reports in Brave the Wild River, The Untold Story of Two Women Who Mapped the Botany of the Grand Canyon.
Brain abnormalities make some dogs act in such unsafe ways distraught owners may be forced to end their pet’s life. In The Most Painful Choice: A Dog Owner’s Story of Behavioral Euthanasia, Beth Miller describes her futile 6-year struggle to help her beloved but aggressive and anxious rescue dog Champ. She also addresses treatment of canine behavioral disorders and offers advice on managing grief.
Jean-Henri Fabre likened a glowworm to “a spark fallen from the full moon.” He is one of 25 scientists from around the world who advanced knowledge of how living organisms interact with each other and their physical environments. In Ecology for Kids, Liz Heinecke introduces young readers to these pioneers and provides step-by-step photo-illustrated guides to home experiments based on their work.
A nun, Sister Fidelia, opened a 12-bed hospital in Tucson in 1880. Botanist Sara Plummer Lemmon identified and painted 100s of Southwest plants. In 1912, educator Louise Boehringer became the first woman elected to public office in Arizona; she also edited and published Arizona Teacher. They are among 17 pioneering women born before 1900 whom Wynne Brown portrays in Remarkable Arizona Women.
Yes, some chickens can fly! Some sing after laying eggs. Some purr when happy. Chickens make and keep friends, too, and grieve when pals die, Tove Danovich reports in Under the Henfluence: Inside the World of Backyard Chickens and the People Who Love Them. While industrial farms prompt concerns about animal welfare, 3500 years of chicken history, she asserts, offer much to crow about.
“All matter—everything around and within us—has an ultimate birthday: the day the universe was born,” Dan Levitt writes in What's Gotten Into You: The Story of Your Body's Atoms, from the Big Bang Through Last Night's Dinner. In reporting how we became who we are, Levitt illuminates the lives and struggles of the scientists who discovered how the past remains alive in the present.