Polar Times

It's sink or swim for Jack and Annie when Magic Tree House whisks them off to the middle of the ocean. And that's just the beginning....

In January of 1934, Admiral Richard E. Byrd began an Antarctic expedition that would change his life forever. Already a celebrated explorer, Byrd's expeditions were media sensations on radio and film. On this trip, Byrd had an audacious undertaking in mind: manning a weather station alone, miles from the American base along the coast, through the harsh Antarctic winter.

It's icicle city when the Magic Tree House carries Jack and Annie to the frozen Arctic. Luckily, a seal hunter on a dogsled lends them warm clothes. Unluckily, they get stuck on cracking ice. Will the giant polar bear save them? Or will Jack and Annie become frozen dinners?

This is a brilliant dual biography charting British Robert Scott's and Norwegian Roald Amundsen's race to the South Pole during 1911-12. Huntuford's is the accepted, definitive account of the race and a reassessment of the two men. Thoroughly researched, revealing the adventures and misfortunes that befell them both, he describes the driving ambitions of the era, and the complex, often deeply flawed individuals who were charged with carrying them out.

In Lions at Lunchtime, the Magic Tree House whisks Jack and Annie to the vast plains of Africa. Before Jack can find out where the lions are, Annie starts to help hundreds of wildebeasts cross a rushing river. Next, they follow a honey of a bird and meet an awesome Masai warrior. Jack hopes any lions will just stay away. Jack is about to be very disappointed.

Words With My Father offers a gripping audio portrait of the evolution of a young man's mental illness and how it manifested into a dramatic and often dangerous existence through the turbulence of the Civil Rights, Peace and Conservation movements.

When archaeologist Annja Creed reluctantly agrees to help an old colleague on a dig in Antarctica, she wonders what he's gotten her into. It turns out that her former associate has found a necklace made of an unknown metal depicting three snakes. He claims it's over 40,000 years old — and that it may not have earthly origins. As the pair conduct their research, Annja soon realizes she has more to worry about than being caught in snow slides.

Atmospheric scientist Markus Rex recounts the monumental Arctic expedition he captained for one year in this gripping and authoritative book. A groundbreaking step toward understanding the climate crisis, the MOSAiC expedition was the first of its kind, journeying deep into the epicenter of climate change, the Arctic, to seek hard-to-find and potentially world-changing scientific data. The Greatest Polar Expedition of All Time is about the teamwork it takes to complete a risky goal, all in the name of understanding—and responding to—the climate crisis.

From his childhood in a remote town in New Zealand's North Island to the wilds of the Arctic and Antarctic, life has been an incredible journey for filmmaker Max Quinn. How he got himself into this field is a story in itself, but A Life of Extremes is so much more. It's a journey that lovers of natural history, travel, adventure, and filmmaking will revel in as he takes you to some of the harshest environments in which anyone could be expected to work. For this book is the absorbing life of a polar filmmaker.

Bristle lives in the Alaskan wilderness, just outside of the town of Iceberg. Bristle gets a magical sleep stone for her eighth birthday, which has the power to borrow and give sleep. Although Bristle is warned by her parents to avoid humans, Bristle makes friends with another eight-year-old human girl named Pinga. But when a human boy steals the sleep stone and creates havoc in the town, Bristle and Pinga try to get the sleep stone back.

An American research ship disappears in the Arctic's Chukchi Sea only to reappear a few days later. When a special US Coast Guard unit boards the vessel, they find it deserted, its power grid wrecked, two bombs waiting to explode, and an even darker secret hidden below her decks. A few miles across the international maritime boundary, a massive Russian oil platform harbors its own secret. Below the behemoth lies a mysterious energy source so powerful it threatens to topple the balance of world power in favor of Moscow. The Russians will to kill to protect it.

Depression and loneliness come and go. It is not uncommon for them to occur together, as depression causes people to isolate themselves, withdraw, and generally feel alone. Likewise, people who are alone in life (such as the elderly, shut-ins, prisoners, and people who are generally shy) may experience bouts of depression. Regardless of which causes the other, the reality is that you cannot avoid the problem and hope it goes away. While feelings of loneliness and depression may lessen with time, they usually return.

An inspiring journey following a boy who suffers trauma at a very young age which shakes his world, beliefs, and faith. This leads him down a dark path into drug addiction and alcoholism, before he surrenders to his disease and accepts his bipolar disorder diagnosis. He finds triathlons and ultra-endurance racing as an empowering outlet that helps transform him and becomes a positive outlet for treating his manic bipolar systems.

In April 2011, four soldiers - each a hero of recent conflicts who suffered devastating injuries in the line of duty - set out on a challenge that even an able-bodied athlete would balk at: a 200 mile trek, unsupported, to the North Pole. It was the culmination of a journey that began long before, when two friends decided to mount an expedition that would demonstrate how remarkable our armed forces are and raise funds for the rehabilitation of injured service men and women.

Antarctica and Back in 60 Days is Tim Bowden's account of crossing the Southern Ocean and visiting Australia's Antarctic bases. When the ABC's Tim Bowden went to the Antarctic he took his tape recorder to make radio programs, kept a daily diary, and, like all the "Voyage Sixers" aboard Iceberg, took photographs of everything.The result was a number of outstanding radio documentaries and this book, which offers to all who read it an opportunity to know what it is really like to spend some time in the southernmost part of the world, crossing the Southern Ocean and visiting Australia's Antarctic bases.