World Geography

Costa Rica, which means “Rich Coast,” is aptly named. Its long coastlines, bordering the Caribbean Sea to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west, have some of the most diverse ecosystems on Earth. Young listeners will learn about Costa Rica’s booming ecotourism, the daily life and cuisine, and the peaceful, laid-back nature of its people.

Henry, Jessie, Violet, and Benny chart a course for China to return the Reddimus Society's fourth artifact! Along the way they meet old friends and make new ones, but a thief threatens to ruin their trip. Then, after an unexpected stop in Thailand, they meet a suspicious man claiming to work for the Reddimus Society. The Aldens wonder if someone close to them is working for the other side. Who can the Boxcar Children trust to help them?

Corinne La Mer isn't afraid of anything. Not scorpions, not the boys who tease her, and certainly not jumbies. They're just tricksters parents make up to frighten their children. Then one night Corinne chases an agouti all the way into the forbidden forest. Those shining, yellow eyes that followed her to the edge of the trees, they couldn't belong to a jumbie. Or could they?

Growth has been both an unspoken and an explicit aim of our individual and collective striving. It governs the lives of microorganisms and galaxies; it shapes the capabilities of our extraordinarily large brains and the fortunes of our economies. Growth is manifested in annual increments of continental crust, a rising gross domestic product, a child's growth chart, the spread of cancerous cells. In this magisterial book, Vaclav Smil offers systematic investigation of growth in nature and society, from tiny organisms to the trajectories of empires and civilizations.

Max Einstein is not your typical genius. She hacks the computer system at NYU to attend classes, builds inventions to help the homeless, and talks to Albert Einstein! (Okay, that's just in her imagination). But everything changes when Max is recruited by a mysterious organization! Their mission: solve some of the world's toughest problems using science. She's helped by a diverse group of young geniuses from around the globe as they invent new ways to power the farthest reaches of the planet. But that's only if the sinister outfit known only as The Corporation doesn't get to her first.

Anna is looking forward to her senior year in Atlanta, where she has a great job, a loyal best friend, and a crush on the verge of becoming more. Which is why she is less than thrilled about being shipped off to boarding school in Paris - until she meets Etienne St. Clair: Perfect, Parisian (and English and American, which makes for a swoon-worthy accent), and utterly irresistible. The only problem is that he's taken, and Anna might be, too, if anything comes of her almost-relationship back home.

A yule log burns brightly in a fireplace. Children pop open Christmas crackers to get a surprise. Families enjoy treats such as mince pie and plum pudding. These are the sights and sounds of Christmas in England. Come explore the many English traditions that bring people of this country together at Christmas.

This the story of the unplanned adoption of an eleven-year-old girl orphan by an elderly brother and sister farm couple: Matthew and Marilla Cuthbert. They had requested a young boy orphan to help with farm chores, so the girl was unwanted at first. However, she was very intelligent, imaginative and quite a chatterbox. She gradually made her way into the unexpected adoption that brought love and respect, creating a warm and wonderful association. This delightful classic takes place in the Canadian province of Prince Edward Island.

In this trickster tale from Africa, Annasi learns the value of being a good host. He also learns the truth of the old saying, "What goes around comes around."

In Four Lost Cities, acclaimed science journalist Annalee Newitz takes listeners on an entertaining and mind-bending adventure into the deep history of urban life. Investigating across the centuries and around the world, Newitz explores the rise and fall of four ancient cities, each the center of a sophisticated civilization: the Neolithic site of Çatalhöyük in Central Turkey, the Roman vacation town of Pompeii in Italy, the medieval megacity of Angkor in Cambodia, and the indigenous metropolis Cahokia, which stood beside the Mississippi River where East St. Louis is today.

The Kidd family is on their way to Australia to find Lasseter's Gold when they are challenged by fellow treasure hunter Charlotte Badger, who challenges them to a race to the gold! But when the Kidds pull into port in Australia, their parents are suddenly arrested—they've been framed! It turns out Charlotte Badger is a pirate, and she's planted a priceless stolen black opal on the Kidds' ship, The Lost!

The Big Wander is a trip 14-year-old Clay Lancaster and his older brother Mike have planned for years. It’s Clay’s dream to find his ex-rodeo-star uncle, who quit the tour and disappeared somewhere in the vast and colorful Monument Valley. But Mike - heartbroken and unfocused after losing his girlfriend - soon heads for home. Clay, however, will not give up. He finds a job in a remote trading post, and follows a lead on his uncle’s whereabouts that takes him deep into Navajo country.

Whaling in the Arctic waters off Alaska’s coast was as dangerous as it was lucrative in 1897. In that particular year, winter came early, bringing with it storms and ice packs that caught eight American whale ships and about three hundred sailors off guard. The ships were imprisoned in ice with no hope of escape. With limited provisions on board the ships that hadn’t been crushed by the ice, there was little hope that these men could survive until warmer temperatures arrived at least 10 months later. Martin Sandler tells the incredible true adventure story of three men who were ordered by President McKinley to carry out an overland rescue in the dead of winter.

Santos Paola Santiago has recently returned from Oregon, where she defeated the Hitchhiker ghost and saved her father from the vengeful spirit that was possessing him. The poor girl deserves a rest! But first she has to rescue Dante from the void, where he's been imprisoned by some unknown force. Paola's prophetic dreams seem to have dried up, so she has to find other ways to locate a new rift where she can enter the void. Signs point to Texas—but how is she going to get there from Arizona?

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.

The only thing Lucas loves more than football is his Uncle Benny, his dad's best friend at the fire department where they both work. Benny taught Lucas everything about football. So when Lucas' parents decide the sport is too dangerous and he needs to quit, Lucas has to talk to his biggest fan. So the next morning, Lucas takes the train to the city instead of the bus to school. It's a bright, beautiful day in New York. But just as Lucas arrives at his uncle's firehouse, everything changes - and nothing will ever be the same again.

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.

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...

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?

The girl does not respond to questions in any language and remains silent, even when she is threatened, harassed, and mistreated over several days. The only clue to her identity is a tattered shoulder bag containing papers that refer to people named Shauzia, Nooria, Leila, Asif, Hassan - and Parvana. As she waits for foreign military forces to determine her fate, she remembers the past four years of her life. Reunited with her mother and sisters, she has been living in a village where her mother managed to open a school for girls.