This epic tale of faith, hope, and selfless heroism is illuminated by the stunning illustrations of Terryl Whitlatch, the principal creature designer for the Star Wars prequels, and is brought to dynamic life by the storytelling of screenwriter and author David Michael Wieger.Bo-hibba is a remote island in a faraway time and place that is populated by animals who are at once fantastic and startlingly real. The island's survival is threatened by the Long Winter, and not even the High Priest's ancient ceremony of renewal can put an end to the suffering from the hunger and the cold.Katook, a small but courageous young lemur, lives in the village of Kattakuk. When he dares to enter a forbidden area on the island and witnesses a shocking act, the outraged priests banish him from the island forever. Forced to journey across the vast sea in search of a new home, Katook encounters great perils and marvels on his quest and undergoes profound tests of trust and friendship. At last, he finds the place where the secret of the Long Winter is revealed and where he must confront his greatest fear if he is to save his family and his island home.Like such classic works of fantasy as Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings," Rien Poortvliet's "Gnomes," C. S. Lewis's "Chronicles of Narnia," Brian Jacques's "Redwall" series, and Brian Froud's "Faeries," "The Katurran Odyssey" creates a mythic world imbued with beauty, adventure, and transcendent imagination.

    According to legend, only Swordbird, son of the Great Spirit, has the power to conquer evil and restore peace to the land. But is he real or just a myth? Can Swordbird arrive in time to save the forest . . . or will it be too late?Twelve-year-old author Nancy Yi Fan has woven a captivating tale about the birds of Stone-Run Forest and the heroism, courage, and resourcefulness in their quest for peace.

    Nature.Bea’s five-year-old daughter, Agnes, is slowly wasting away. The smog and pollution of the City—an over-populated, over-built metropolis where most of the population lives—is destroying her lungs. But what can Bea do? No one leaves the City anymore, because there is nowhere else to go. But across the country lies the Wilderness State, the last swath of open, protected land left. Here forests and desert plains are inhabited solely by wildlife. People are forbidden. Until now. Bea, Agnes, and eighteen others volunteer to live in the Wilderness State as part of a study to see if humans can co-exist with nature. Can they be part of the wilderness and not destroy it? Living as nomadic hunter-gatherers, this new community wanders through the grand country, trying to adhere to the strict rules laid down by the Rangers, whose job it is to remind them they must Leave No Trace. As the group slowly learns to live and survive on the unpredictable and often dangerous land, its members battle for power and control and betray and save each other. The farther they roam, the closer they come to their animal soul.To her dismay, Bea discovers that, in fleeing to the Wilderness State to save Agnes, she is losing her in a different way. Agnes is growing wilder and closer to the land, while Bea cannot shake her urban past. As she and Agnes grow further apart, the bonds between mother and daughter are tested in surprising and heartbreaking ways.Yet just as these modern nomads come to think of the Wilderness State as home, its future is threatened when the Government discovers a new use for the land. Now the migrants must choose to stay and fight for their place in the wilderness, their home, or trust the Rangers and their promises of a better tomorrow elsewhere.

    But in recent decades, these claims have eroded, or even been disproven outright, by a revolution in the study of animal cognition. Take the way octopuses use coconut shells as tools; elephants that classify humans by age, gender, and language; or Ayumu, the young male chimpanzee at Kyoto University whose flash memory puts that of humans to shame. Based on research involving crows, dolphins, parrots, sheep, wasps, bats, whales, and of course chimpanzees and bonobos, Frans de Waal explores both the scope and the depth of animal intelligence. He offers a firsthand account of how science has stood traditional behaviorism on its head by revealing how smart animals really are, and how we’ve underestimated their abilities for too long.People often assume a cognitive ladder, from lower to higher forms, with our own intelligence at the top. But what if it is more like a bush, with cognition taking different forms that are often incomparable to ours? Would you presume yourself dumber than a squirrel because you’re less adept at recalling the locations of hundreds of buried acorns? Or would you judge your perception of your surroundings as more sophisticated than that of a echolocating bat? De Waal reviews the rise and fall of the mechanistic view of animals and opens our minds to the idea that animal minds are far more intricate and complex than we have assumed. De Waal’s landmark work will convince you to rethink everything you thought you knew about animal—and human—intelligence.

    Now Terry Tempest Williams, the author of the environmental classic Refuge and the beloved memoir When Women Were Birds, returns with The Hour of Land, a literary celebration of our national parks, an exploration of what they mean to us and what we mean to them.From the Grand Tetons in Wyoming to Acadia in Maine to Big Bend in Texas and more, Williams creates a series of lyrical portraits that illuminate the unique grandeur of each place while delving into what it means to shape a landscape with its own evolutionary history into something of our own making. Part memoir, part natural history, and part social critique, The Hour of Land is a meditation and a manifesto on why wild lands matter to the soul of America.

    In a fragmenting United States, the cities of Phoenix and Las Vegas skirmish for a dwindling share of the Colorado River. But it is the Las Vegas water knives - assassins, terrorists and spies - who are legendary for protecting Las Vegas' water supplies, and for ensuring Phoenix's ruin.When rumours of a game-changing water source surface, Las Vegas dispatches elite water knife Angel Velasquez to Phoenix to investigate. There, he discovers hardened journalist Lucy Monroe, who holds the secret to the water source Angel seeks. But Angel isn't the only one hunting for water, Lucy is no pushover, and the death of a despised water knife is a small price to pay in return for the life-giving flow of a river.

    Amongst the unusual flora and fauna, they discover within themselves something more strange and terrible than any sight their safari has to offer. Safari Honeymoon is a tale of jungle love and jungle madness.

    His two children work abroad and he is alone after the funeral and grows deliberately recluse. A few weeks later he’s puzzled and annoyed when a lady arrives at his home delivering a schnauzer puppy. Called Rosie, it was ordered by his wife to be delivered to him after her death, together with a note from her. His wife had always wanted a dog but Will didn’t like them and had never agreed. But after a very difficult initial spell, he gradually grows to love Rosie and appreciate the companionship his little new friend brings to his life. Rosie also helps him overcome his grief and appreciate more than ever the wise and loving foresight of his wife. Two travel adventures follow in Switzerland and Austria where doggie-centred dramas ensue - including the injury and loss of Rosie. All dogs have a small monetary market value and many are worth nothing at all. But to their loving owners they are priceless.

    Fortunately, Reddy has wise Granny Fox on his side and, with some timely help from other woodland friends, manages to avoid an unhappy ending.As this timeless fable unfolds, children will delight in Reddy's risky antics and the commotion his behavior causes among Johnny Chuck, Drummer the Woodpecker, Peter Rabbit, and the other inhabitants of the Green Forest. Thornton W. Burgess, author of Old Mother West Wind and many other children's classics, was a master at telling a good story that holds a child's attention while instilling an important lesson in the most painless and enjoyable fashion. First published in 1913, The Adventures of Reddy Fox was one of his finest efforts. In this inexpensive Dover edition, newly reset in large, easy-to-read type, it will delight children (and adults) today, just as it did their grandparents.

    Adopted and raised by a kindly, eccentric squirrel, Urchin has no idea of his powerful destiny or of the way he will influence the island of Mistmantle.The rule of the good King Brushen and Queen Spindle is threatened by an evil plot from within the court. When their young prince is found murdered, the isle is thrown into turmoil. Behind the scenes, the wicked Lord Husk and Lady Aspen are determined to take control. But to underestimate the power of the islanders and the ancient prophecies is a big mistake...Triumphant heroes and brilliantly wicked villains do battle in this heart-stopping adventure in the great tradition of Watership Down and The Wind in the Willows.Glorious new illustrations by Christine Enright capture the spirit of Urchin, and the world of Mistmantle.

    Soon to be a mother, Silverhair looks to the future with hope. But even as her life begins, the world she loves is ending. A new menace, more vicious than any enemy, is descending upon the snowlands -- a two-legged creature that kills for joy. Desperate to save their kind, Silverhair and the matriarch, Owlheart, must travel across the glacial torrents, beyond the saw-toothed mountains. There they will seek help from the distant cousins who found their destiny in the sea, and from an enemy -- an ice-faced menace known as...the Lost.

    McKinley. His name was Christopher Johnson McCandless. He had given $25,000 in savings to charity, abandoned his car and most of his possessions, burned all the cash in his wallet, and invented a new life for himself. Four months later, a party of moose hunters found his decomposed body. How McCandless came to die is the unforgettable story of Into the Wild.Immediately after graduating from college in 1991, McCandless had roamed through the West and Southwest on a vision quest like those made by his heroes Jack London and John Muir. In the Mojave Desert he abandoned his car, stripped it of its license plates, and burned all of his cash. He would give himself a new name, Alexander Supertramp, and, unencumbered by money and belongings, he would be free to wallow in the raw, unfiltered experiences that nature presented. Craving a blank spot on the map, McCandless simply threw away the maps. Leaving behind his desperate parents and sister, he vanished into the wild.