Follow a blue whale's enormous body to the bottom of the ocean, where it sets the stage for a bustling new ecosystem to flourish. All living things must one day die, and Earth's largest creature, the majestic blue whale, is no exception. But in nature, death is never a true ending. When this whale closes her eyes for the last time in her 90-year life, a process known as whale fall is just beginning. Her body will float to the surface, then slowly sink through the deep; from inflated behemoth to clean-picked skeleton, it will offer food and shelter at each stage to a vast diversity of organisms, over the course of a century and beyond.

Bridges can be high or low, long or short, straight or curvy. Some are designed to blend in, while others stand out. But each one tells a story: a reminder of our history, a testament to ingenuity and engineering, an invitation to imagine the possibilities of the future. Literally and symbolically, bridges connect us--to new places, new cultures, and new people.

Matty and his family make slime all the time. They know that it's simple, stretchy, scientific, and super-squishy. But Matty's slime demonstration at school turns into a disaster when he forgets the most important ingredient - saline! Instead of squishy slime, he's up to his elbows in an icky sticky swamp, and it's spreading fast. Can his classmates' creative ideas save him, or will someone find some saline at school soon?

Lili loves to cook baos, and Nai Nai has taught her all the secrets to making them, from kneading the dough lovingly and firmly to being thankful for the strong and healthy ingredients in the filling. But when Nai Nai realizes that they are out of cabbage (Secret #8: line the basket with cabbage leaves!), she sends Lili up to Babcia's apartment on the sixth floor to get some. Babcia is happy to share her cabbage, but she needs some potatoes for her pierogi. . . . What follows is a race up and down the stairs as Lili helps all the grandmothers in her building borrow ingredients for different dumplings: Jamaican beef patties, Italian ravioli, Lebanese fatayer, and more.

Did you know there are more microbes on Earth than stars in the universe? That some five million microbes live on your hand? A child's curiosity helps her understand why these tiny organisms make such a big difference in her life. After the last drop of rain falls, Meena and her mom head outside to their garden, which is bursting with veggies and flowers. But it isn't the produce that Meena is curious about. It's the microbes in the soil (giving it that earthy smell), in the compost pile, in our bodies--everywhere!--that have Meena wondering. How do they live? What do they eat? Where did Meena's own microbiome come from? Comparing microbe communities to a bustling city, where everyone has a job to do, Meena's scientist mom answers her questions while they garden, gather vegetables for a neighbor, have a snack at the picnic table, and end the day with a sudsy bath.

Meet these scientists: Marine biologist, Hydrologist, Microbiologist, Geologist, Seismologist, Climate scientist, Meteorologist, Zoologist, Astronomer, Epidemiologist, Physicist!

Libby loves science! In this STEM-themed Level 3 I Can Read! title, Libby and her friends learn about solids, liquids, and gases. A great choice for aspiring scientists, new readers, and fans of Andrea Beaty's Ada Twist, Scientist.

Pete the Cat helps the Wright brothers build their first flying machine in this historical fiction Level 1 I Can Read from New York Times bestselling creators Kimberly and James Dean.  When Pete the Cat learns that the Wright brothers' flying machine can't fly without the wind, he has an idea. What if it didn't need wind to fly? Together, the cats invent the perfect solution. Pete may even get the chance to fly! This early reader includes an author's note about the real life Wright brothers and the true story of the first flight.

Thomas Jefferson is one of the most famous founding fathers, but did you know that his mind was always on science? This STEM/STEAM picture book tells how Jefferson's scientific thinking and method battled against faulty facts and bias to prove that his new nation was just as good as any in the Old World.

Ty and Corey love to visit the museum. When they step through the doors, they become scientists. They study bugs and hunt for fossils. They catch the wind. When Ty can't participate in a lab activity because of his age, he uses his big imagination at home. Discovering new things is so much fun!

Dive into science with these fun and simple experiments for children to do at home. This fun, activity-filled book is brimming with home experiments to help budding scientists aged 8-14 explore different projects. Using household items, combine science with art and craft, and make an erupting volcano, design rubber band planets, sail a soap-powered boat, and race car balloons.

Meet Resilience, a Mars rover determined to live up to his name. Res was built to explore Mars. He was not built to have human emotions. But as he learns new things from the NASA scientists who assemble him, he begins to develop humanlike feelings. Maybe there's a problem with his programming.... Human emotions or not, launch day comes, and Res blasts off to Mars, accompanied by a friendly drone helicopter named Fly. But Res quickly discovers that Mars is a dangerous place filled with dust storms and giant cliffs. As he navigates Mars's difficult landscape, Res is tested in ways that go beyond space exploration. As millions of people back on Earth follow his progress, will Res have the determination, courage, and resilience to succeed...and survive?

One of the founders of US cryptology who would eventually become one of the world's greatest code breakers, Elizebeth Smith Friedman (1892-1980) was a brilliant mind behind many important battles throughout the 20th century, saving many lives through her intelligence and heroism. Whip-smart and determined, Elizebeth displayed a remarkable aptitude for language and recognizing patterns from a young age. After getting her start by looking for linguistic clues to the true authorship of Shakespeare's writings, she and her husband, William Friedman, were tasked with heading up the first government code-breaking unit in America, training teams and building their own sophisticated code systems during the lead-up to World War I. Elizebeth's solo career was even more impressive. She became the Treasury Department's and Coast Guard's first female codebreaker and created her own top-notch codebreaking unit, where she trained and led many male colleagues. During Prohibition in the 1920s, her work solving and intercepting coded messages from mobsters and criminal gangs lead to hundreds of high-profile criminal prosecutions, including members of Al Capone's gang. Her crowning achievement came during World War II, when Elizebeth uncovered an intricate network of Nazi spies operating in South America, a feat that neither law enforcement nor intelligence agencies had been able to accomplish. Despite her unparalleled accomplishments, Elizebeth was largely written out of history books and overshadowed by her husband.

How can the sun power the lights in our homes? What happens to our things after we recycle them? How is renewable energy being used to fight climate change? Ada Twist, Scientist: The Why Files is the perfect nonfiction resource for all these questions and more.

Oliver is desperate to restore his reputation--and winning the science fair sounds like the perfect way for everyone to forget about the whole barf thing. There's just one obstacle standing in his way: Ana Lía Quintero, who wins the science fair every year. Luckily, Oliver has the help of his geoscientist aunt, even though she's a little, um, quirky. If Oliver has any chance of defeating his archnemesis, he'll have to learn all about volcanic burping and bacteria farts, how Earth's layers are basically like boba tea, and how school cliques and the solar system have a lot in common.

Juliana Zhao is absolutely certain of a few things: 1. She is the world's foremost expert on love. 2. She is going to win the nationally renowned Asian Americans in Business Competition. When Juliana is unceremoniously dropped by her partner and she's forced to pair with her nonconformist and annoying frenemy, Garrett Tsai, everything seems less clear. Their joint dating advice column must be good enough to win and secure bragging rights within her small Taiwanese American community, where her family's reputation has been in the pits since her older sister was disowned a few years prior. Juliana always thought prestige mattered above all else. But as she argues with Garrett over how to best solve everyone else's love problems and faces failure for the first time, she starts to see fractures in this privileged, sheltered worldview. With the competition heating up, Juliana must reckon with the sacrifices she's made to be a perfect daughter--and whether winning is something she even wants anymore.

"You are to report to Station X at Bletchley Park, Buckinghamshire, in four days time ... That is all you need to know." This was the terse telegram hundreds of young women throughout the British Isles received in the spring of 1941, as World War II raged. As they arrived at Station X, a sprawling mansion in a state of disrepair surrounded by Spartan-looking huts with little chimneys coughing out thick smoke - these young people had no idea what kind of work they were stepping into. Who had recommended them? Why had they been chosen? Most would never learn all the answers to these questions. Bletchley Park was a well-kept secret during World War II, operating under the code name Station X. The critical work of code-cracking Nazi missives that went on behind its closed doors could determine a victory or loss against Hitler's army. Amidst the brilliant cryptographers, flamboyant debutantes and absent-minded professors working there, it was teenaged girls who kept Station X running. Some could do advanced math, while others spoke a second language. They ran the unwieldy bombe machines, made sense of wireless sound waves and sorted the decoded messages. They were expected to excel in their fields and most importantly: know how to keep a secret.

Cal wants to be a journalist, and he's already well underway with almost half a million followers on his FlashFame app and an upcoming internship at Buzzfeed. But his plans are derailed when his pilot father is selected for a highly-publicized NASA mission to Mars. Within days, Cal and his parents leave Brooklyn for hot and humid Houston. With the entire nation desperate for any new information about the astronauts, Cal finds himself thrust in the middle of a media circus. Suddenly his life is more like a reality TV show, with his constantly bickering parents struggling with their roles as the "perfect American family." And then Cal meets Leon, whose mother is another astronaut on the mission, and he finds himself falling head over heels--and fast. They become an oasis for each other amid the craziness of this whole experience. As their relationship grows, so does the frenzy surrounding the Mars mission, and when secrets are revealed about ulterior motives of the program, Cal must find a way to get to the truth without hurting the people who have become most important to him.

Pong. The Legend of Zelda. Final Fantasy VII. Rock Band. Fortnite. Animal Crossing: New Horizons. For each of the 40 years of video game history, there is a defining game, a game that captured the zeitgeist and left a legacy for all games that followed. Through a series of entertaining, informative, and opinionated critical essays, author and video game critic Jordan Minor investigates, in chronological order, the innovative, genre-bending, and earth-shattering games from 1977 through 2020. Minor explores development stories, critical reception, and legacy, and also looks at how gaming intersects with and eventually influences society at large while reveling in how uniquely and delightfully bizarre even the most famous games tend to be.

Elizebeth Smith Friedman had a rare talent for spotting patterns and solving puzzles. These skills led her to become one of the top cryptanalysts in America during both World War I and World War II.   She originally came to code breaking through her love for Shakespeare when she was hired by an eccentric millionaire to prove that Shakespeare's plays had secret messages in them. Within a year, she had learned so much about code breaking that she was a star in the making. She went on to play a major role decoding messages during WWI and WWII and also for the Coast Guard's war against smugglers.   Elizebeth and her husband, William, became the top code-breaking team in the US, and she did it all at a time when most women weren't welcome in the workforce.