"At the dawn of the 19th century, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark embarked on an unprecedented journey from St. Louis, Missouri to the Pacific Ocean and back again. Their assignment was to explore the newly acquired Louisiana Territory and record the geography, flora, fauna, and people they encountered along the way. The tale of their incredible journey, meticulously recorded in their journals, has become an American classic"--Publisher description....

Poet W. S. Merwin interweaves his own reminiscences with, "a chronicle of the lordly 12th-century bards who once ruled a world where kings were poets and poets kings."

Jack London built the 2-masted yacht Snark in 1906. After many delays, he set out with his wife Charmian on a prolonged voyage to the South Pacific. He taught himself celestial navigation on the trip and includes details in one of the chapters. After visiting Hawaii and the Solomon Islands, his trip was cut short by illness. This edition is complete with 120 original phoTographs showing island life frOm over 100 years ago. -- Back cover.

As most couples in China are limited to having only one child, the bias toward boys leaves many girl babies aborted or abandoned. Lisa Ling travels to China with some of the many American families who are adopting Chinese baby girls. In China, she examines the social pressures to have male children and the effects of the resulting gender imbalance.

Anna Quindlen first visited London from a chair in her suburban Philadelphia home--in one of her beloved childhood mystery novels. She has been back to London countless times since, through the pages of books and in person, and now, in Imagined London, she takes her own readers on a tour of this greatest of literary cities.

While New York, Paris, and Dublin are also vividly portrayed in fiction, it is London, Quindlen argues, that has always...

Take a totally tropical trip to the rain forest and meet spotted jaguars, colorful poison-arrow frogs, slow-moving sloths, and loud-mouthed howler monkeys

Presents facts, brief stories, photos, and illustrations showing that fact can be as weird as fiction

Describes what are meteorites, and where do they come from?

Learn about ugly animals and how their strange bodies help protect them.

Pounce! Follow a little kitten through its day to learn all about these young cats.Through text features such as the vocabulary tree and the wrap-up activity, kidswill be introduced to vocabulary in concept groups--helping them makeconnections between words and expand their understanding of the world.