Twelve-year-old Penny Tucker is not happy when her family decides to head out west in search of gold. the journey to California is long and difficult, and the family discovers little gold. But what they find instead is something even better : a new home.

An introduction to the Age of Exploration covers the nautical practices of fifteenth-century Europe, Henry the Navigator's fateful new sea routes, and the impact of European advancement on ancient civilizations.

Many of the world's most important and life-saving devices and techniques were often discovered purely by accident. Serendipity, timing, and luck played a part in the discovery of unintentional cures and breakthroughs: A plastic shard in an RAF pilot's eye leads to the use of plastic for contact lenses. The inability to remove a titanium chamber from rabbit's bone leads to dental implants. Viagra was discovered by a group of chemists, working in...

"Inspired by her popular Wild Thing podcast, journalist Laura Krantz incorporates the scientific method and her journalistic skills to determine if Bigfoot is real. When journalist Laura Krantz discovered that her long-lost cousin, Grover Krantz, a distinguished anthropologist and professor at Washington State University, had devoted much of his career to the search for Bigfoot, she couldn't quite believe it. A natural skeptic and a strong believer...

On March 8, 1421, the largest fleet the world had ever seen set sail from China. Its mission was "to proceed all the way to the ends of the earth to collect tribute from the barbarians beyond the seas" and unite the whole world in Confucian harmony. When it returned in October 1423, the emperor had fallen, leaving China in political and economic chaos. The great ships were left to rot at their moorings and the records of their journeys were destroyed....

The Boxcar children investigate the disappearance of a student's research paper from an observatory, and the subsequent disappearance of another student.

"Bound for Antarctica, where polar explorer Ernest Shackleton planned to cross on foot the last uncharted continent, the Endurance set sail from England in August 1914. In January 1915, after battling its way for six weeks through a thousand miles of pack ice and now only a day's sail short of its destination, the Endurance became locked in an island of ice. For ten months the ice-moored Endurance drifted northwest before it was finally crushed. But...

The world is losing hope. Political and social infighting threaten to destroy the world. Rancor and hatred only grow stronger, engulfing entire nations. And each day moral and economic strife brings embroiled countries ever closer to war. But hope is not dead. Everywhere, pockets of human kindness and compassion continue to persevere. Where lives are cherished and virtue endures. And one small, extraordinary group fights to save us all. A team in...