World Geography

Things have quieted down for lovable troublemaker Rafe Khatchadorian, and after all the mishaps and adventures he's been through, he's feeling a little restless. So when he's invited to attend an all-expenses-paid art field trip in California, Rafe jumps at the opportunity. But things go sideways, as they always do for Rafe, when he arrives and realizes his trip isn't the Hollywood vacation he thought it would be. Instead, he'll be participating in a "Cultural Campout" in the desert.

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.

Today's most urgent problems are fundamentally global. They require nothing less than concerted, planetwide action if we are to secure a long-term future. But humanity's story has always been on a global scale. Sachs takes listeners through a series of seven distinct waves of technological and institutional change, starting with the original settling of the planet by early modern humans through long-distance migration and ending with reflections on today's globalization.

Six hundred and fifty-seven days ago, Meg Kenyon's father left their home in France to fight for the Allies in World War II, and that was the last time Meg saw him. Recently, she heard he was being held prisoner by the Nazis, a terrible sentence from which Meg fears he'll never return. Suddenly, an impossible chance to save her father falls into Meg's lap. After following a trail of blood in the snow, Meggie finds an injured British spy hiding in her grandmother's barn.

Bick Kidd and his globe-trotting siblings Beck, Storm and Tommy may have completed their first treasure hunt after their father was lost at sea, but their kidnapped mother is still in the hands of nasty pirates. Their search for a rescue plan takes them down the Nile river in Africa, where they'll have to navigate everything from Egyptian pyramids in the desert to wet-and-wild jungles—not to mention life-threatening encounters with wilderness diseases, angry hippos and some seriously bad guys—in order to find the treasure and save the day.

The Aldens are excited to visit a deserted South Seas island. But soon they discover clues that they are not alone. Is someone on the island watching them?

On January 30, 1933, Adolf Hitler was appointed chancellor of Germany, thanks largely to the efforts of the Hitler Youth, whose organized propaganda marches throughout Germany helped the Nazi Party grow in strength. By 1939, it is estimated that more than seven million boys and girls belonged to the Hitler Youth.

The land was theirs, but so were its hardships. Strawberries - big, ripe, and juicy. Ten-year-old Birdie Boyer can hardly wait to start picking them. But her family has just moved to the Florida backwoods, and they haven't even begun their planting. "Don't count your biddies 'fore they're hatched, gal young un!" her father tells her. Making the new farm prosper is not easy.

Außergewöhnliche Begegnungen Down Under. Der kleine Drache Kokosnuss, das Stachelschwein Matilda und der Fressdrache Oskar geraten mit ihrem Boot in einen fürchterlichen Sturm, der sie meilenweit vom Kurs abbringt. Am nächsten Morgen haben sie zwar festen Boden unter den Füßen, aber keine Ahnung, wo sie sich befinden. Als sie einen Koala treffen, der auf einem Eukalyptus-Baum sitzt, ist klar: Sie sind in Australien! Und das ist erst der Beginn eines aufregenden Abenteuers.

As the children tour the famed Sydney Opera House, their next puzzle - and its key - falls right into their laps. They need to find the rightful owner of a rare Australian coin. Using their knowledge about Australia, the Aldens find the coin's owner, but a saboteur is again hot on their heels and nearly spoils their hard work. Next up, the Aldens travel to frigid Antarctica, where they need to return an artifact to the hut Shackleton used on his expeditions to the South Pole.

From USA Today best-selling author Jillian Dodd comes an addictive new series.

Have you ever said to yourself, "wouldn’t it be nice to be a detective"? This is the story of an African girl who says just that. Her name is Precious. When a piece of cake goes missing from her classroom, a traditionally built young boy is tagged as the culprit. Precious, however, is not convinced. She sets out to find the real thief. Along the way she learns that your first guess isn’t always right. She also learns how to be a detective.

Ronan Boyle may be the youngest and lowliest recruit to the secret Garda, but he’s determined to save his captain from the harpy that dragged her into Tir Na Nog at the end of book one. He may not be the strongest, or the smartest, or the best looking, or the most dexterous...so why was he picked for this mission? He’s not entirely sure. But he may be the captain’s only hope - if he can escape man-eating elves, escape a job in a unicorn’s lounge act, and find the captain before she’s sacrificed to a spooky cult trying to resurrect its leader.

It's the end of August 2005, and a big hurricane is blowing in to New Orleans, Louisiana. Barry's family plans to evacuate the Ninth Ward with everyone else, but when Barry's little sister gets violently ill, they must return to their home and stick out the storm. At first, everything seems fine. But then the levees break, the water rises, Barry is swept out of his home, and everything changes. Stranded in the floodwaters with no idea where he is and only a stranded dog by his side, Barry must find the courage to survive the storm of the century.

That was where she needed to be, in a field of purple flowers, where no one could bother her. She would sit there until the confusion left her head and the stink of the camp left her nostrils. Shauzia has a dream. She dreams of getting away from the refugee camp in Pakistan and travelling to France. There she knows she would find a better life, away from the war in her home country of Afghanistan...But escape is not so easy. Once she leaves the camp, she has no money, no food - and only her dog Jasper for company. But Shauzia is determined to find a new future for herself...

It is late August 1892, and Sophia Tims is coming home from a foreign Age, having risked her life in search of her missing parents. Now she is aboard a ship, with a hard-earned, cryptic map that may help her find them at long last. But her homecoming is anything but peaceful. Threatening clouds hang over the New Orleans harbor. Sinkholes have been opening in Boston, swallowing parts of the city whole. Rogue weirwinds tear up the Baldlands.

This humorous retelling of a favorite folktale recounts how the Chinese came to give their children short names. This perfect listen-together storybook is one adults and children will enjoy sharing together again and again. When the eldest son fell in the well and most of the time getting help was spent pronouncing the name of the one in trouble, the Chinese, according to legend, decided to give all their children short names.

Jude never thought she’d be leaving her beloved older brother and father behind, all the way across the ocean in Syria. But when things in her hometown start becoming volatile, Jude and her mother are sent to live in Cincinnati with relatives. At first, everything in America seems too fast and too loud. The American movies that Jude has always loved haven’t quite prepared her for starting school in the US - and her new label of “Middle Eastern”, an identity she’s never known before. But this life also brings unexpected surprises.

Drought-hit regions bleeding those who for whom a rural life has become untenable. Coastlines diminishing year on year. Wildfires and hurricanes leaving widening swaths of destruction. The culprit, most of us accept, is climate change, but not enough of us are confronting one of its biggest, and most present, consequences: a total reshaping of the earth’s human geography. As Gaia Vince points out early in Nomad Century, global migration has doubled in the past decade, on track to see literal billions displaced in the coming decades.

Elementary Geography was originally written by educator Charlotte Mason in the 1880s, yet this beloved book for elementary-aged students still garners attention today. Blue Sky Daisies brings you the same classic book, completely re-typeset in a pleasing and fresh format. Miss Mason’s conversational tone teaches children about their world, from its place in the solar system to their place in its lands. Elementary Geography also includes over a dozen poetry selections throughout the book, chosen by Miss Mason to complement the chapter topics.