"Advanced reader leverl 4, 1500 words"--Cover.

An introduction to five noted explorers tells the stories of Esteban, Jean Baptiste Pointe duSable, James Beckwourth, Matthew Henson, and Mae Jemison

Penetrating biographies written by a group of distinguished travel writers, broadcasters, and historians reveal the lives, motives, and passions of forty major explorers in history. It has always been mankind’s gift, or curse, to be inquisitive, and through the ages people have been driven to explore the limits of the worlds known to them—and beyond. Here are the stories of forty of the world’s greatest explorers from Europe, America, Asia, and Australia. These are men and women who changed our perception of the world through their courageous adventures. Organized thematically, the book opens with the oceanic journeys of five hundred years ago, when the great era of recorded exploration began. The following sections look at The Land, Rivers, Polar Ice, Deserts, Life on Earth, and New Frontiers. Many of these explorers recounted their journeys in vivid firsthand accounts; others were superb artists or photographers. The book features quotes from their journals and reports, and it is illustrated with paintings, photographs, engravings, and maps, so that we can experience their adventures through their own eyes and in their own words. Featured explorers include: Christopher Columbus, Vasco da Gama, James Cook, Lewis and Clark, Richard Burton, Samuel de Champlain, David Livingstone, Roald Amundsen, Gertrude Bell, Alexander von Humboldt, Yuri Gagarin, and Jacques-Yves Cousteau.

There are few thrills as exciting as weather at its worst. We often hear on the news that the day was the hottest, coldest, wettest, or snowiest on record. Is the climate really becoming more extreme as a result of global warming? The facts are in this book. Extensively illustrated with colour photographs of some of the most extreme weather ever captured on camera, more than fifty colour maps, and tables of weather records for over three hundred U.S. cities, this book is both an entertainment and an indispensable reference. Also included are historical examples of some of the more bizarre weather events observed: heat bursts, electrified dust storms, snow rollers, pink snowstorms, luminous tornadoes, falls of fish and toads, ball lightning, super bolts, and other strange meteorological events. Here's the must-have book for Weather Channel and Guinness Book of World Records fans.

David Baldacci is back with The Keeper, the follow up to his instant #1 global bestseller and award-winning YA fantasy debut The Finisher. Vega Jane was always told no one could leave the town of Wormwood. She was told there was nothing outside but the Quag, a wilderness filled with danger and death. And she believed it - until the night she stumbled across a secret that proved that everything she knew was a lie. Now Vega and her best friend Delph must find a way to make it across this terrifying land of bloodthirsty creatures and sinister magic. But the Quag is worse than Vega Jane's darkest imagining. It's a living, breathing prison designed to keep enemies out and the villagers of Wormwood in. The Quag will throw everything at Vega. It will try to break her. It will try to kill her. And survival might come at a price not even Vega is willing to pay. Master storyteller David Baldacci unleashes a hurricane of action and adrenalin that takes readers to breaking point in this second instalment in the Vega Jane series.

A fun, informative, chronological guide to the history of world explorers. This book begins with the ancient explorers, such as Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar, and includes the reasons behind exploration, and how technology and exploration have gone hand-in-hand throughout history.