A young lemming is haunted by doubts about the purpose of the great march westward to the sea.

A young lemming is haunted by doubts about the purpose of the great march westward to the sea.

The future of the world’s ice is at a critical juncture marked by international debate about climate change and almost daily reports about glaciers and ice shelves breaking, oceans rising, and temperatures spiking across the globe. These changing landscapes and the public discourse surrounding them are changing fast. It is science wrought with mystery, and for Beth Peterson it became personal. A few months after Peterson moved to a tiny village on the edge of Europe’s largest glacier, things began to disappear. The glacier was melting at breakneck pace, and people she knew vanished: her professor went missing while summiting a volcano in Japan, and a friend wandered off a mountain trail in Norway. Finally, Peterson took a harrowing forty-foot fall while ice climbing. Peterson’s effort to make sense of these losses led to travels across Scandinavia, Italy, England and back to the United States. She visited a cryonics institute, an ice core lab, a wunderkammer, Wittgenstein’s cabin, and other museums and libraries. She spoke with historians, guides, and scientists in search of answers. Her search for a noted glacier museum in Norway led to news that the renowned building had set on fire in the middle of the night before and burned to the ground. Dispatches from the End of Ice is part science, part lyric essay, and part research reportage—all structured around a series of found artifacts (a map, a museum, an inventory, a book) in an attempt to understand the idea of disappearance. It is a brilliant synthesis of science, storytelling, and research in the spirit of essayists like Robert Macfarlane, John McPhee, and Joni Tevis. Peterson’s work veers into numerous terrains, orbiting the idea of vanishing and the taxonomies of loss both in an unstable world and in our individual lives.

Talks about each habitat and shows what would happen if the food chain was broken.

A dynamic guide to more than 100 books that will get kids talking and reading more. How do children become good readers? In Reading Together, educational consultant Diane W. Frankenstein shares the secret: guiding children to find an appropriate book and talking with them about the story helps them connect with what they read. This engaging guide shares advice for parents, teachers, librarians, and caregivers on how to help children find what to read, and then through conversation, how to find meaning and pleasure in their reading. With more than 100 great book recommendations for kids from Pre-K through grade six, as well as related conversation starters, Reading Together offers a winning equation to turn children into lifelong readers. Some of the award-winning books discussed include Betty G. Birney?s World According to Humphrey, Gennifer Choldenko?s Notes from a Liar and Her Dog, and David Shannon?s Bad Case of Stripes.

From the award-winning children’s book duo, Jeanne and William Steig, comes a wildly wily collection of poetry all about the…peculiarities…of the animal kingdom! Consider the lemming: No hawing or hemming No dilly or dally No silly or shally The whole lemming nation In one wild migration Is off to the sea. In this sly and hilarious collection of illustrated verse about the animal kingdom—from the lemming to the human—critically acclaimed author/illustrator duo Jeanne and William Steig introduce readers to the foibles of all kinds of creatures. And you’ll never look at animals quite the same way ever again!