2011 Sibert Medal Winner On remote Codfish Island off the southern coast of New Zealand live the last ninety-one kakapo parrots on earth. These trusting, flightless, and beautiful birds—the largest and most unusual parrots on earth—have suffered devastating population loss. Now, on an island refuge with the last of the species, New Zealand’s National Kakapo Recovery Team is working to restore the kakapo population. With the help of fourteen humans who share a single hut and a passion for saving these odd ground-dwelling birds, the kakapo are making a comeback in New Zealand. Follow intrepid animal lovers Sy Montgomery and Nic Bishop on a ten-day excursion to witness the exciting events in the life of the kakapo.

Rat Island rises from the icy gray waters of the Bering Sea, a mass of volcanic rock covered with tundra, midway between Alaska and Siberia. Once a remote sanctuary for enormous flocks of seabirds, the island gained a new name when shipwrecked rats colonized, savaging the nesting birds by the thousands. Now, on this and hundreds of other remote islands around the world, a massive-and massively controversial-wildlife rescue mission is under way. Islands, making up just 3 percent of Earth's landmass, harbor more than half of its endangered species. These fragile ecosystems, home to unique species that evolved in peaceful isolation, have been catastrophically disrupted by mainland predators-rats, cats, goats, and pigs ferried by humans to islands around the globe. To save these endangered islanders, academic ecologists have teamed up with professional hunters and semiretired poachers in a radical act of conservation now bent on annihilating the invaders. Sharpshooters are sniping at goat herds from helicopters. Biological SWAT teams are blanketing mountainous isles with rat poison. Rat Island reveals a little-known and much-debated side of today's conservation movement, founded on a cruel-to-be-kind philosophy. Touring exotic locales with a ragtag group of environmental fighters, William Stolzenburg delivers both perilous adventure and intimate portraits of human, beast, hero, and villain. And amid manifold threats to life on Earth, he reveals a new reason to hope.

The Mother of All Booklists: The 500 Most Recommended Nonfiction Reads for Ages 3 to 103 is written for parents, grandparents, and teachers unfamiliar with the bewildering array of award and recommended reading lists. This book is a long overdue composite of all the major booklists. It brings together over 100 of the most influential book awards and reading lists from leading magazines, newspapers, reference books, schools, libraries, parenting organizations, and professional groups from across the country. The Mother of All Booklists is to reading books what the website Rotten Tomatoes is to watching movies—the ultimate, one-stop, synthesizing resource for finding out what is best. Mother is not the opinion of one book critic, but the aggregate opinion of an army of critics. Organized into five age group lists each with one hundred books—preschoolers (ages 3-5), early readers (ages 5-9), middle readers (ages 9-13), young adults (ages 13-17), and adults (ages 18+)—The Mother of All Booklists amalgamates the knowledge of the best English-language booklists in the United States, including a few from Canada and Great Britain. Each of the 500 books is annotated, describing the contents of the book and suggesting why the book is unique and important. Each includes a picture of the book cover.

This book is about an endangered bird species: a kakapo, named Aroha. Aroha lost her family since she just hatched. Now, she has to survive in the wild by herself.One day, she encounters some strange birds outside her nest. Will Aroha's life be in danger, or will she be brave enough to face her future?Join Aroha and the strange birds as they venture through the forest, only to know that danger lurks ahead.

This engaging volume introduces readers to the world of technical texts and their uses and is aligned with grade 2 Common Core ELA-Literacy standards. Students learn about the purposes and types of technical texts, and actually analyze sample texts. They review experiments, recipes, and crafts, and compare and contrast the examples. They also discover how specific images contribute to and clarify texts. In an activity section, readers are given the opportunity to write their own technical text. Vocabulary boxes explain "diagrams," "format," "charts," "data," and "warning boxes." Sidebars profile noteworthy writers, including Aristotle, Francis Bacon, Charles Darwin, and Martha Stewart.