Showing titles in Science & Technology

You know the Super Soaker. It's one of the top 20 toys of all time. And it was an accidental discovery that brought it into being. Trying to create a new cooling system for refrigerators and air conditioners, inventor Lonnie Johnson instead created the mechanics for the iconic toy. A love of rockets, robots, and inventions and a mind for creativity were present in Lonnie Johnson's early life.

Robert Fulton's failure as a painter led to one of the most important technological advances of the industrial age: the steamboat. Fulton's designs and personal influence linked together America's waterways and revolutionized trade and travel for a century to come.

Sloths spend most of their lives in trees, and until recently, scientists didn’t know very much about them. But Dr. Rebecca Cliffe was determined to discover their secrets. To find out more, she fitted sloths with special backpacks containing a device to track their activity. She learned how to climb trees in the Costa Rican jungle so she could take sloth hair samples and test their DNA. And she’s helped create sloth crossings and plant trees to ensure the sloths aren’t trapped in shrinking territories. Along the way, she earned the nickname Dr. Sloth.

David Aguilar was born missing part of one arm, a small detail that seemed to define his life and limit people’s ideas of who he was and who he could be. But in this funny and heartfelt memoir, David proves that he can throw out the rulebook and people’s expectations and maybe even make a difference in the world—and all with a sense of humor.

As young boys, Orville and Wilbur Wright loved all things mechanical. As young men, they gained invaluable skills essential for their success by working with printing presses, bicycles, motors, and any sort of machinery they could get their hands on. As adults, the brothers worked together to...

In 1934, Irene Curie, working with her husband and fellow scientist, Frederic Joliot, made a discovery that would change the world: artificial radioactivity. This breakthrough allowed scientists to modify elements and create new ones by altering the structure of atoms. Curie shared a Nobel Prize with her husband for their work. But when she was nominated to the French Academy of Sciences, the academy denied her admission and voted to disqualify all women from membership.

One day in 1882, Thomas Edison flipped a switch that lit up lower Manhattan with incandescent light and changed the way people live ever after. The electric light bulb was only one of thousands of Edison’s inventions, which include the phonograph and the kinetoscope, an early precursor to the...

Both Thomas Edison and Henry Ford started off as insatiably curious tinkerers. That curiosity led them to become inventors - with very different results. As Edison invented hit after commercial hit, gaining fame and fortune, Henry struggled to make a single invention (an affordable car) work. Witnessing Thomas' glorious career from afar, a frustrated Henry wondered about the secret to his success.

Jeanne Villepreux-Power was never expected to be a scientist. Born in 1794 in a French village more than 100 miles from the ocean, she pursued an improbable path that brought her to the island of Sicily. There, she took up natural history and solved the two-thousand-year-old mystery of how the argonaut octopus gets its shell. In an era when most research focused on dead specimens, Jeanne was determined to experiment on living animals. And to keep sea creatures alive for her studies, she had to invent a contraption to hold them: the aquarium.

Meet the Wizard of Menlo Park, and see how he grew from a lonely, inquisitive boy who carried out experiments in his basement to the smart, enterprising, and imaginative inventor who gave us the stock-market ticker, helped develop the phonograph and cinema, and even came up with the first storage battery and electric car.

The untold story of five women who fought to compete against men in the high-stakes national air races of the 1920s and 1930s - and won.  

A young reader’s adaptation of the story of the youngest American to ever orbit the Earth—cancer survivor Hayley Arceneaux—who shows us all that when we face our fears with hope and faith, the extraordinary is possible “Hayley will capture your heart as she proves that even the wildest...

Discover what it's like to spend a year in space in this awe-inspiring memoir from a real-life NASA astronaut who did just that! Prepare to blast off with astronaut Scott Kelly as he takes readers on a journey through his year aboard the International Space Station and his life prior to becoming...

Part how-to, part girl-empowerment, and all fun, from the leader of the movement championed by Sheryl Sandberg, Jack Dorsey, and other giants of tech. Since 2012, the organization Girls Who Code has taught computing skills to and inspired over 10,000 girls across America. Now its founder, Reshma...

Learn all about the lives and extended space adventure of astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore in this exciting biography. In March 2025, Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore splashed into the Gulf of Mexico. A pod of dolphins greeted them, and their friends and family celebrated their return...

Every visitor of Yosemite National Park in California should say "thank you" to one man: John Muir.

Le destin d'une grande dame de la science, première lauréate du prix Nobel et à ce jour la seule femme à en avoir reçu deux. Scientifique d'exception, son travail sur la radioactivité a sauvé des millions de vies humaines.

Embark on an inspiring journey through the life and groundbreaking work of Barbara McClintock, a pioneering geneticist whose discoveries revolutionized our understanding of genetics. This captivating book, tailored for young listeners aged 8-14, brings science to life with engaging stories, hands-on activities, and vivid illustrations.

Discover the life of Albert Einstein, a story about asking questions and discovering big things for ages 6 to 9. Albert Einstein became one of the most important scientists in history for his discoveries about physics and how our universe works. Before everyone knew him as a genius, Albert was a...

Inspire your little one to follow their dreams with simple, engaging stories about talented people through history, to listen to at home or on the go. Some of the most influential people in history started out as little dreamers with something they wanted to change. With their unique ideas and...