The mixed-race Hawaiian athlete George Freeth brought surfing to Venice, California, in 1907. Over the next twelve years, Freeth taught Southern Californians to surf and swim while creating a modern lifeguard service that transformed the beach into a destination for fun, leisure, and excitement. Patrick Moser places Freeth’s inspiring life story against the rise of the Southern California beach culture he helped shape and define. Freeth made headlines with his rescue of seven fishermen, an act of heroism that highlighted his innovative lifeguarding techniques. But he also founded California's first surf club and coached both male and female athletes, including Olympic swimming champion and “father of modern surfing” Duke Kahanamoku. Often in financial straits, Freeth persevered as a teacher and lifeguarding pioneer--building a legacy that endured long after his death during the 1919 influenza pandemic. A compelling merger of biography and sports history, Surf and Rescue brings to light the forgotten figure whose novel way of seeing the beach sparked the imaginations of people around the world.

Meet the students at Puppy Academy—a team of plucky puppies learning to be working dogs. Murphy is used to being top dog; no one at Puppy Academy can perform a water rescue like he can. But when he's sent to the beach to try for his Surf Rescue Badge, his first time in the ocean leaves him wave-tossed and afraid. Will Murphy find the confidence to get back in the water? Can he be brave when it matters most?

One morning in September 2011, a large crowd gathered at the shore in Huntington Beach, California. The people had come to watch dozens of surfers ride the rolling ocean waves. This wasn’t just any surfing competition, however—the surfers were dogs! With more than a thousand fans cheering the competitors on, an English bulldog named Sir Hollywood rode a long wave and was declared one of the winners. Surf dog competitions are fairly new, but dogs have been riding surfboards with their owners for fun since the 1920s. In Surf Dog Miracles, kids will meet the talented dogs that learn to balance on a surfboard, recover if they almost fall off the board, and even surf backward. Some surf dogs raise money for charity, while others can help people with disabilities ride a wave. Packed with real-life stories and full-color photos of these special animals, this book is sure to be a favorite of dog lovers everywhere.

Meet the students at Puppy Academy—a team of plucky puppies learning to be working dogs. Scout wants nothing more than to be a police dog, just like her mom and dad. But when she fails her test, Scout isn't sure she'll ever earn her badge—until, that is, a sausage thief strikes. It's up to Scout to catch the culprit and save the day.

Subtitled Heroes, Rescues and Architecture of the Early Coast Guard, this very complete record of the people, technology, architecture and exploits of the U.S. Life-Saving Service is a large-format book illustrated with 446 photographs and maps. It is especially strong on the wonderful and regionally varied architecture of the Service's stations, of which there were more than today's mariners or beachcombers can imagine -- 41 on the New Jersey coast, 31 on Lake Michigan, 13 on Cape Cod alone. In the last half of the nineteenth century, when coasting vessels numbered in the tens of thousands, the stations and their beach patrols were a necessity, and the surfmen managed dramatic rescues, many of which are recounted here.

From author Gill Lewis and illustrator Sarah Horne, the Puppy Academy Bindup Books collection includes Scout and the Sausage Thief, Star on Stormy Mountain, Pip and the Paw of Friendship, and Murphy and the Great Surf Rescue.

While on vacation in Alphabet City, Little e and the other lowercase letters repair an old fire truck and come to the rescue when a fire engulfs the letter-making factory.