National Network for Equitable Library Service

InBig Whales, Small Worldyou will meet whales from around the world. This rhyming photographic board book visits the oceans of places like New Zealand, Russia and South America. Writer, filmmaker and orca activist Mark Leiren-Young introduces young readers to blue whales bigger than dinosaurs and tiny vaquitas who swim close to shores.

Wild birds are everywhere, from the dry deserts to the icy poles. We see them soaring overhead, paddling across water, flitting through trees, pecking at the ground or our backyard bird feeders and singing from fence posts. Birds contribute to the health of the planet and provide pleasure for millions of people, but wild birds are in trouble. Today, almost 200 bird species are critically endangered. They are threatened by habitat loss, invasive species, climate change, pesticides, plastics in the environment, human-made structures and other animals.

Meet Onyx and the orcas of J pod, the world’s most famous whales. Illustrated with stunning photos, this picture book introduces young readers to the orcas humans first fell in love with. The members of J pod live in the Salish Sea, off the coast of Washington and British Columbia. Moby Doll was the first orca ever displayed in captivity, Granny was the oldest orca known to humanity, and Scarlet was the orca humans fought to save.

From the sun-scorched sands of the Kalahari to the snake-infested jungles of the Amazon, Les Stroud has made a life of surviving in the harshest, and most remote, regions on Earth. Whether seasoned in the outdoor arts or new to adventuring, everyone will learn something from this book.

The tragedy of our time has been happening all around us, barely noticeable from day to day, the loss of our planet's wild places, its biodiversity, and climate stability. Sir David Attenborough presents a witness statement and vision for the future. It is the story of how humanity came to make its greatest mistake, and how, if we act now, we can yet put it right.

John Seibert Farnsworth he lets us peer over his shoulder as he takes his notes. Follow him to a series of field stations where he teams up with scientists, citizen scientists, rangers, stewards, and grad students engaged in long-term ecological study, all the while scribbling down what he sees, hears, and feels in the moment. Farnsworth explores how communal experiences of nature might ultimately provide greater depths of appreciation for the natural world.

As an indigenous person, Tyson Yunkaporta looks at global systems from a unique perspective, one tied to the natural and spiritual world. In considering how contemporary life diverges from the pattern of creation, he raises important questions. How does this affect us? How can we do things differently?

You don't have to be a rocket scientist to think like one. Ozan Varol reveals nine simple strategies from rocket science that you can use to make your own giant leaps in work and life. Those who can tackle complex and unfamiliar problems, without clear guidelines and with the clock ticking, enjoy an extraordinary advantage.

AI is everywhere. It powers the autocorrect function of your iPhone, helps Google Translate understand the complexity of language, and decides which of your friends' Facebook posts you most want to see. In the coming years, it'll perform medical diagnoses and drive your car, and maybe even help our authors write the first lines of their novels. But how does it actually work?

Life is full of uncertainty, scientific advances indicate that the universe might be fundamentally inexact, and humans are terrible at guessing. When asked to predict the outcome of a chance event, we are almost always wrong. Thankfully, there is hope. Mathematician Ian Stewart reveals that, over the course of history, mathematics has given us some of the tools we need to better manage the uncertainty that pervades our lives.