Nonfiction World

Do you crack open a piñata on your birthday? Do you eat long noodles? Learn all about different birthday customs of children around the world.

Happiness does not come from revealing all your skin, going clubbing every weekend where you get so drunk you don't remember who you kissed, or maxing your credit cards just so you can buy the latest designer jeans. Happiness comes from living a life of character.

Though fashions may change, certain things never go out of style - like your favorite little black dress that can take you from a business meeting to a dinner party to a night on the town. But what makes it work is not the dress; it's how you present yourself while wearing it. A woman who is polite, well spoken, gracious, charming, and thoughtful is always welcome - though such women appear to be in short supply these days!

Balto has a quiet life as a sled dog - until tragedy strikes. Dozens of children in Nome become sick with diphtheria. Without antitoxin serum, they will perish - and the closest supply is 650 miles away! The only way to get the serum to Nome is by sled, but can the dogs deliver it in time? Heading bravely into a brutal blizzard, Balto leads the race for life.

How do an owl’s wings help it fly silently through the night to sneak up on prey? How fast does an eagle dive to catch fish? Each book in Raptor World highlights a different raptor, its hunting techniques, and the physical attributes that make it an expert bird of prey.

Spend twenty-four hours with the ancient Chinese. Travel back to AD 17, during the fourth year of the reign of Wang Mang of the Han dynasty, a vibrant and innovative era full of conflicts and contradictions. But as different as the Han culture might have been to other great ancient civilizations, the inhabitants of ancient China faced the same problems as people have for time immemorial: earning enough money, coping with workplace dramas, and keeping your home in order.

Historicizing the much-championed ideal of zero waste, Anne Berg shows that the management of waste was central to the politics of war and to the genesis of genocide in the Nazi Germany. Destruction and recycling were part of an overarching strategy to redress raw material shortages, procure lebensraum, and cleanse the continent of Jews and others considered undesirable. Resource extending schemes obscured the crucial political role played by virtually all German citizens to whom salvaging, scrapping, and recycling were promoted as inherently virtuous and orderly behaviors.

Have you ever thought about how you might make the world a better place? If you have, good for you! Did you know that kids with great ideas just like you are putting their ideas to work and helping people every day? In this book, you’ll hear the real life stories of 20 kids who found amazing ways to solve problems that grown-ups couldn’t. You’ll meet kids like Zachary Ebers, a 14-year-old who collected enough cereal so that kids at his school could have free breakfasts during summer vacation.

Kids today are presented with new challenges all the time. They face an uncertain future and are under constant pressure to thrive in an overwhelming and fast-paced world. You vs the World: The Bear Grylls Guide to Never Giving Up retells Bear Grylls' most extreme adventures in a kid-friendly way. He shares the life lessons he's learned along the way, and how the skills needed to survive in the wild can be used in everyday life. From finding confidence to bouncing back from failure, Bear gives children the tools they need to survive and thrive in their own lives.

Thomas B. Allen’s expertise in military history and strategy is combined with Roger MacBride Allen’s knowledge of technology to reveal a lesser-known yet fascinating side of the 16th president of the United States. Their authoritative narrative reveals Lincoln as our nation’s first hands-on commander in chief, whose appreciation for the power of technology plays a critical role in the North’s Civil War victory over the less-developed South.

Libby gives a tour of her neighborhood to a boy just about her age whose family is moving in next door. By highlighting neighborhood safety and activities, Libby makes the boy feel welcome.

Aquarium worker Ming gives a guided tour of the Blue Harbor Aquarium, where she explains such things as what kinds of jobs people have there, what kinds of fish and animals live there, and how food is prepared for aquarium dwellers.

Bactrian camels roam grasslands and rocky deserts. Learn all about these rugged travelers and their habitats in Camels.

Giant pandas munch on bamboo. Learn all about these gentle bears and their habitats in Giant Pandas.

Anacondas hide in muddy waters. Learn all about these giant snakes and their habitats in Anacondas.

Orangutans swing through rain forest trees. Learn all about these clever apes and their habitats in Orangutans.

Born in Ontario, Canada, in 1940, Alex Trebek grew up listening to the radio and hoping to one day become a broadcaster. His dream became a reality when he was hired as a reporter for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation in 1961. Alex's composed nature and ability to skillfully improvise while on television eventually led to his role as the host of Jeopardy!, the biggest quiz game show in the United States.

In The Subversive Seventies, Michael Hardt sets out to show that popular understandings of the political movements of the seventies—often seen as fractious, violent, and largely unsuccessful—are not just inaccurate, but foreclose valuable lessons for the political struggles of today.

Good. Evil. Dangerous. Glamorous. Will the real Cleopatra please stand up? Almost everything we know about the last queen of Egypt came from her enemies the Romans. Now it's time to meet the ''real'' Cleopatra, a ruler more complex, brilliant, and powerful than we ever knew. Cleopatra didn't just rock the boat when she became queen at seventeen. She rocked the world with brilliant alliances that kept her in power and in control. When Mark Antony tried to put Egypt under his thumb, she negotiated for - and won - more territory than any Egyptian ruler had snagged in generations.

In early 1968 the grisly on-the-job deaths of two African-American sanitation workers in Memphis, Tennessee, prompted an extended strike by that city's segregated force of trash collectors. Workers sought union protection, higher wages, improved safety, and the integration of their work force. Their work stoppage became a part of the larger civil rights movement and drew an impressive array of national movement leaders to Memphis, including, on more than one occasion, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. King added his voice to the struggle in what became the final speech of his life.