Describes why and how such creatures as squids, scallops, devil fish, and sea otters swim--for protection, for pleasure, and to get around.

Let's learn all about animals that can do some unexpected things! Can you believe that sloths can swim? What about elephants? With amazing photos and lively text, this book explores five different creatures that, unexpectedly, can swim! Get ready to learn why and how these surprising animals splash around! ABOUT THE SERIES: The natural world is filled with animals doing unexpected things! It is hard to believe, but orcas can talk, sloths can swim, some snakes can fly, and octopuses love to play. Each book in this vibrant new nonfiction series explores the unusual abilities of five different animals, along with their habitat, diet, and behavior. Packed with photographs and fun facts, readers will learn all about these talented creatures that can fly, play, swim, and talk!

For use in schools and libraries only. Looks at different animals that can swim, including both such aquatic creatures as the sea snake, the sea otter, and the American bullfrog, and land mammals including cats, tigers, pigs, elephants, horses, and snow monkeys.

NATIONAL BEST SELLER • From the best-selling, award-winning author of The Buddha in the Attic and When the Emperor Was Divine comes a novel about what happens to a group of obsessed recreational swimmers when a crack appears at the bottom of their local pool. This searing, intimate story of mothers and daughters—and the sorrows of implacable loss—is the most commanding and unforgettable work yet from a modern master. The swimmers are unknown to one another except through their private routines (slow lane, medium lane, fast lane) and the solace each takes in their morning or afternoon laps. But when a crack appears at the bottom of the pool, they are cast out into an unforgiving world without comfort or relief. One of these swimmers is Alice, who is slowly losing her memory. For Alice, the pool was a final stand against the darkness of her encroaching dementia. Without the fellowship of other swimmers and the routine of her daily laps she is plunged into dislocation and chaos, swept into memories of her childhood and the Japanese American incarceration camp in which she spent the war. Alice's estranged daughter, reentering her mother's life too late, witnesses her stark and devastating decline.

Inspired by John Cheever's classic short story, 'The Swimmer', Roger Deakin set out from his home in Suffolk to swim through the British Isles. The result of his journey is this personal view of an island race.

Getting parents to participate in their child's education is easy with these take-home reproducibles! This book provides a single-source guide to selected reading and extension activities for grade levels K-6. Each activity sheet includes a summary of a book, discussion questions, and a list of engaging learning projects for adults and children. The activities are designed to increase discussion, build reading skills, and develop comprehension. More than 100 titles of quality children's literature are featured. Teachers will love this unique way to promote reading, and it's great PR for the library. A must for school and public libraries!

The feel-good underdog story of the first American swimmer to win Olympic gold, set against the turbulent rebirth of the modern Games, that “bring[s] to life an inspiring figure and illuminate[s] an overlooked chapter in America’s sports history” (The Wall Street Journal) “Once or twice in a decade, one of these stories . . . like Laura Hillenbrand’s Unbroken [or] Daniel Brown’s The Boys in the Boat . . . captures the imagination of the public. . . . Add The Watermen by Michael Loynd to this illustrious list.”—Swimming World Winner of the International Swimming Hall of Fame’s Paragon Award and the Buck Dawson Authors Award In the early twentieth century, few Americans knew how to swim, and swimming as a competitive sport was almost unheard of. That is, until Charles Daniels took to the water. On the surface, young Charles had it all: high-society parents, a place at an exclusive New York City prep school, summer vacations in the Adirondacks. But the scrawny teenager suffered from extreme anxiety thanks to a sadistic father who mired the family in bankruptcy and scandal before abandoning Charles and his mother altogether. Charles’s only source of joy was swimming. But with no one to teach him, he struggled with technique—until he caught the eye of two immigrant coaches hell-bent on building a U.S. swim program that could rival the British Empire’s seventy-year domination of the sport. Interwoven with the story of Charles’s efforts to overcome his family’s disgrace is the compelling history of the struggle to establish the modern Olympics in an era when competitive sports were still in their infancy. When the powerful British Empire finally legitimized the Games by hosting the fourth Olympiad in 1908, Charles’s hard-fought rise climaxed in a gold-medal race where British judges prepared a trap to ensure the American upstart’s defeat. Set in the early days of a rapidly changing twentieth century, The Watermen—a term used at the time to describe men skilled in water sports—tells an engrossing story of grit, of the growth of a major new sport in which Americans would prevail, and of a young man’s determination to excel.