The Vast Wonder of World

The Vast Wonder of World
Author: Mélina Mangal
Publisher: Millbrook Press ™
Total Pages: 41
Release: 2018-11-01
Genre: Juvenile Nonfiction
ISBN: 1541537955

"A must-purchase picture book biography of a figure sure to inspire awe and admiration among readers."—School Library Journal (starred review) Extraordinary illustrations and lyrical text present pioneering African American scientist Ernest Everett Just. Ernest Everett Just was not like other scientists of his time. He saw the whole, where others saw only parts. He noticed details others failed to see. He persisted in his research despite the discrimination and limitations imposed on him as an African American. His keen observations of sea creatures revealed new insights about egg cells and the origins of life. Through stunning illustrations and lyrical prose, this picture book presents the life and accomplishments of this long overlooked scientific pioneer.

Ernest From Earth

Ernest From Earth
Author: Luke Nielsen
Publisher:
Total Pages: 264
Release: 2020-04-25
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
ISBN: 9781947381254

Ernest is a twelve-year-old boy growing up on Earth in the Twenty-Second Century, an Earth that exists free of poverty, bigotry, famine, or war. The citizens of Earth live in peace, traveling the cosmos as readily as they once navigated country highways; but Ernest is separated from his family on one such trip and finds himself on a planet eerily similar to Earth's past, with the exception of its red- and blue-skinned inhabitants. Ernest befriends a red boy named Dat, and he is forced to live in a world of racial tension and division the likes of which he has never known. Ernest operates as both an observer and a participant in the struggles around him, all while facing the challenges of growing up. Ernest and his friend Dat face bullies and a sense of isolation. They learn of tragedy and friendship, and they are thrown into a powerful legal battle that continues to shape their understanding of existence and their places in it. Ernest's experiences leave him torn between his desire to return to his family and his idyllic life and the kinship he has formed with his adopted family, especially as they struggle through a glaringly unjust world. Ultimately, Ernest begins to question what is really right, and if his own world is as perfect as it seems.

A Place on Earth

A Place on Earth
Author: Wendell Berry
Publisher: Catapult
Total Pages: 387
Release: 2009-03-01
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1582439699

Published in 1967, we return to Port William during the Second World War to revisit Jayber Crow, the barber, Uncle Stanley, the gravedigger, Jarrat and Burley, the sharecroppers, and Brother Preston, the preacher, as well as Mat Feltner, his wife Margaret, and his daughter–in–law Hannah, whose son will be born after news comes that Hannah’s husband Virgil is missing. "The earth is the genius of our life,” Wendell Berry writes here. “The final questions and their answers lie serenely coupled in it."

Ready Player One

Ready Player One
Author: Ernest Cline
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Total Pages: 386
Release: 2011-08-16
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0307887456

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Now a major motion picture directed by Steven Spielberg. “Enchanting . . . Willy Wonka meets The Matrix.”—USA Today • “As one adventure leads expertly to the next, time simply evaporates.”—Entertainment Weekly A world at stake. A quest for the ultimate prize. Are you ready? In the year 2045, reality is an ugly place. The only time Wade Watts really feels alive is when he’s jacked into the OASIS, a vast virtual world where most of humanity spends their days. When the eccentric creator of the OASIS dies, he leaves behind a series of fiendish puzzles, based on his obsession with the pop culture of decades past. Whoever is first to solve them will inherit his vast fortune—and control of the OASIS itself. Then Wade cracks the first clue. Suddenly he’s beset by rivals who’ll kill to take this prize. The race is on—and the only way to survive is to win. NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY Entertainment Weekly • San Francisco Chronicle • Village Voice • Chicago Sun-Times • iO9 • The AV Club “Delightful . . . the grown-up’s Harry Potter.”—HuffPost “An addictive read . . . part intergalactic scavenger hunt, part romance, and all heart.”—CNN “A most excellent ride . . . Cline stuffs his novel with a cornucopia of pop culture, as if to wink to the reader.”—Boston Globe “Ridiculously fun and large-hearted . . . Cline is that rare writer who can translate his own dorky enthusiasms into prose that’s both hilarious and compassionate.”—NPR “[A] fantastic page-turner . . . starts out like a simple bit of fun and winds up feeling like a rich and plausible picture of future friendships in a world not too distant from our own.”—iO9

Armada

Armada
Author: Ernest Cline
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Total Pages: 386
Release: 2015-07-14
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0804137269

From the author of Ready Player One, a rollicking alien invasion thriller that embraces and subverts science-fiction conventions as only Ernest Cline could. Zack Lightman has never much cared for reality. He vastly prefers the countless science-fiction movies, books, and videogames he's spent his life consuming. And too often, he catches himself wishing that some fantastic, impossible, world-altering event could arrive to whisk him off on a grand spacefaring adventure. So when he sees the flying saucer, he's sure his years of escapism have finally tipped over into madness. Especially because the alien ship he's staring at is straight out of his favorite videogame, a flight simulator callled Armada--in which gamers just happen to be protecting Earth from alien invaders. As impossible as it seems, what Zack's seeing is all too real. And it's just the first in a blur of revlations that will force him to question everything he thought he knew about Earth's history, its future, even his own life--and to play the hero for real, with humanity's life in the balance. But even through the terror and exhilaration, he can't help thinking: Doesn't something about this scenario feel a little bit like...well...fiction? At once reinventing and paying homage to science-fiction classics as only Ernest Cline can, Armada is a rollicking, surprising thriller, a coming-of-age adventure, and an alien invasion tale like nothing you've ever read before.

Sun, Moon and Earth

Sun, Moon and Earth
Author: Robin Heath
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Total Pages: 66
Release: 2001-04-01
Genre: Science
ISBN: 0802713815

Explores the cycles of the sun and moon and discusses early calendars and the work of ancient astronomers and mathematicians.

What's So Special about Planet Earth?

What's So Special about Planet Earth?
Author: Robert E. Wells
Publisher: Albert Whitman & Company
Total Pages: 37
Release: 2009-09-01
Genre: Juvenile Nonfiction
ISBN: 0807593532

Move to another planet? Sounds interesting! In our imaginary spaceship, let's check out the planets in our solar system. Mercury is closest, but it has no air, and it's either sizzling hot or bitterly cold. The atmosphere on Venus is poisonous; plus, human beings would cook there. Mars might work, but you'd always have to be in a protective shelter. And if you got to the outer planets, you couldn't even land as they are mostly made of gas! Our home planet is looking good. Why is Earth so comfortable for plants, animals, and people? As Robert E. Wells explains, it's because of our just-right position form the sun, marvelous atmosphere, and abundant water. Our planet is very special and perfect for us, and that's why we must do all we can to keep Earth healthy.

Returning to Earth

Returning to Earth
Author: Jim Harrison
Publisher: Open Road + Grove/Atlantic
Total Pages: 259
Release: 2007-12-01
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1555846491

“The longtime chronicler of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula . . . gives eloquent expression to death and the grieving process.” —Booklist Hailed by The New York Times Book Review as “a master . . . who makes the ordinary extraordinary, the unnamable unforgettable,” beloved author Jim Harrison returns with a masterpiece—a tender, profound, and magnificent novel about life, death, and finding redemption in unlikely places. Donald is a middle-aged Chippewa-Finnish man slowly dying of Lou Gehrig’s Disease. His condition deteriorating, he realizes no one will be able to pass on to his children their family history once he is gone. He begins dictating to his wife, Cynthia, stories he has never shared with anyone as around him, his family struggles to lay him to rest with the same dignity with which he has lived. Over the course of the year following Donald’s death, his daughter begins studying Chippewa ideas of death for clues about her father’s religion, while Cynthia, bereft of the family she created to escape the malevolent influence of her own father, finds that redeeming the past is not a lost cause. Returning to Earth is a deeply moving book about origins and endings, making sense of loss, and living with honor for the dead. It is among the finest novels of Harrison’s long, storied career, and confirms his standing as one of the most important American writers. “A deeply felt meditation on life and death, nature and God, this is one of Harrison’s finest works.” —Library Journal

To End All Wars

To End All Wars
Author: Ernest Gordon
Publisher: Zondervan
Total Pages: 244
Release: 2002
Genre: Bridge on the River Kwai (Motion picture)
ISBN: 0007118481

The bestselling classic of the power of love and forgiveness in a Japanese prisoner of war camp.