Animal Science

Fed up with his family, Ralph decides to hop on his motorcycle and head down the road to Happy Acres Camp. Unfortunately, life at camp is not all peanut butter-and-jelly sandwiches! A strict watchdog, a mouse-hungry cat, and a troubled boy named Garf keep Ralph on his toes and away from his precious motorcycle. Perhaps home is not such a bad place to be, if only Ralph can find a way to get there again!

For decades, his family rescued lost and forgotten donkeys in the Irish countryside. He had no idea that one day, the donkeys would rescue him. Sanctuary is the remarkable true story of how faith turned one lost man’s life around with the help of the rescue animals who loved him. It’s an antidote to despair and a call to hope, revealing the beauty and wonder of Ireland as you’ve never seen it before.

Dip below the ocean’s surface and you are soon confronted by forms of life that could not seem more foreign to our own: sea sponges, soft corals, and serpulid worms, whose rooted bodies, intricate geometry, and flower-like appendages are more reminiscent of plant life or even architecture than anything recognizably animal. Yet these creatures are our cousins. As fellow members of the animal kingdom — the Metazoa— they can teach us much about the evolutionary origins of not only our bodies, but also our minds.

A pig that does math tricks. A parrot that seems to know what she's saying. A flying pig...um, pug. These animals know what it means to be in the spotlight. Meet Mudslinger the superstar pig, Einstein the parrot genius, and Otis the skydiving dog. Hear the stories of these three amazing animal superstars in Parrot Genius.

Effective altruism is built upon the simple, but profound, idea that living a fully ethical life involves doing the "most good you can do". Such a life requires an unsentimental view of charitable giving: To be a worthy recipient of our support, an organization must be able to demonstrate that it will do more good with our money or our time than other options open to us. Singer introduces us to an array of remarkable people who are restructuring their lives in accordance with these ideas and shows how living altruistically often leads to greater personal fulfillment.

When we see a bird flying from branch to branch happily chirping, it is easy to imagine they lead a simple life of freedom, flight, and feathers. What we don't see is the arduous, life-threatening challenges they face at every moment. Beaks, Bones and Bird Songs guides the listener through the myriad, and often almost miraculous, things that birds do every day to merely stay alive. Like the goldfinch, which manages extreme weather changes by doubling the density of its plumage in winter.

In this super edition, set during the events of The Broken Code, respected ThunderClan warrior Graystripe seeks a path to the Clan’s future by returning to his past - and the Moonstone in the Clans’ old forest territory. Graystripe served ThunderClan for many moons before retiring to the elders’ den. As Firestar’s most trusted friend and deputy, Graystripe promised that he would never abandon his home. But as tensions strain ThunderClan, Graystripe will need to call on all of his long history, leaving ThunderClan behind in hopes of finding an answer that might save it.

Did you know that only around a quarter of the Sahara Desert is covered in sand? And did you know that cash machines in Vatican City have an option to read their instructions in Latin? Did you know tug-of-war and rope climbing used to be official Olympic sports? There is no denying that the world is super interesting, and these Super Interesting Facts for Smart Kids prove precisely that!

For generations, rats have run the mice out of whatever lands they've claimed, keeping them constantly on the move. But now the mice are disappearing, and the young queen Luxa, who credits them with saving her life, is determined to find out why. Gregor joins her on a fact-finding mission, and when the true fate of the mice is revealed, it is something far more sinister than Gregor or Luxa have imagined.

Noted science writer Virginia Morell explores the frontiers of research on animal cognition and emotion, offering a surprising and moving exploration into the hearts and minds of wild and domesticated animals.

If you love to learn about dinosaurs, you might want to consider becoming a paleontologist. A paleontologist studies the remains of prehistoric life. They study why fossils form and why the animals and plants lived where they did.

Slagar the Fox is bent on revenge—and determined to bring death and destruction to Redwall. Gathering his evil band around him, Slagar plots to strike at the heart of the Abbey. His cunning and cowardly plan is to steal the Redwall children—and Mattimeo, Matthias's son, is to be the biggest prize of all.

When the opossum feels threatened, she becomes paralyzed. Her body temperature plummets, her breathing and heart rates drop to a minimum, and her glands simulate the smell of a putrefying corpse. Playing Possum explores what the opossum and other creatures can teach us about how we and other species understand mortality, and demonstrates that the concept of death, far from being a uniquely human attribute, is widespread in the animal kingdom.

Remarkable new discoveries affirm the octopus as one of nature’s most intelligent and complex animals. This new book brings us closer than ever to these elusive creatures. The companion to the highly anticipated National Geographic television special, this book explores the alluring underwater world of the octopus—a creature that resembles an alien lifeform, but whose behavior has earned it a reputation as one of the most intelligent animals on the planet.

You may know about the sinking of the Titanic. But did you know science played a big role in the ship’s voyage, disaster, and discovery? Learn all about the ship and the events that led to its sinking.

The Gruffalo said that no gruffalo should ever set foot in the deep dark wood. But one wild and windy night the Gruffalo's child disobeys her father's warnings and ventures out into the snow. After all, the Big Bad Mouse doesn't really exist...does he? Perfect for listening to at home, in the car, at bedtime - or any time at all!

As recently as 11,000 years ago - "near time" to geologists - mammoths, mastodons, gomphotheres, ground sloths, giant armadillos, native camels and horses, the dire wolf, and many other large mammals roamed North America. In what has become one of science's greatest riddles, these large animals vanished in North and South America around the time humans arrived at the end of the last great ice age.

A Zoo in My Luggage is the colorful, first-hand account of Gerald Durrell's six-month animal-collecting trip in British Cameroon, and his attempts to create his own zoo. Motivated by a passion for wildlife, and a desire to save endangered species from extinction, Durrell assembles a glorious panoply of exotic animals - including a female baboon called Georgina, who later runs amok in a department store; a black-eared squirrel, who tries to bury nuts in his ear; and a gentlemanly chimpanzee named Chumly, who greets him with an outstretched hand.

What do one kangaroo, two dogs, and three pigs have in common? They're heroes! Meet Lulu the kangaroo, who rescues her owner from a dangerous accident. Then hear the amazing story of Maggie and Pilot, two dogs that rely on each other. Finally, discover three amazing pigs and learn how each hog is a hero in its own way.

Set just after the events of the Dawn of the Clans prequel arc, this super edition follows WindClan's first medicine cat, Moth Flight, on a quest that changes the shape of the warrior Clans forever. The five warrior Clans are newly formed, and the forest is at peace - but in WindClan, one young cat is troubled by strange visions that will lead her to a destiny no cat could have predicted.