Rebecca L Johnson

Describes the climate, seasons, plants, animals, and soil of the boreal forest, a biome or land zone, which stretches across the northern parts of North America, Europe, and Asia.

In the animal kingdom, survival is the name of the game--and not everything is as it seems. A number of animals rely on particularly clever tricks to fool predators or prey. A baby bird mimics a poisonous caterpillar. A moth escapes bats by making sounds that interfere with the bats' echolocation. A tiny rain forest spider builds a big spider "puppet" out of bits of dead leaves, insect parts, and other items. Find out more about some of nature's most...

Audisee® eBooks with Audio combine professional narration and sentence highlighting for an engaging read aloud experience! Take a walk in the deciduous forest. Sunlight filters through new green leaves. It's early summer, and squirrels are chattering in the treetops. A warbler calls out. She's building a nest in an oak tree. A fox crouches behind a stump. Will he find a fat mouse for his next meal? Or will he go searching for berries? Discover...

Take a walk in the rain forest. It's hot and humid and humming with life. Look up into the dense canopy of leaves above you. Tangled vines lead to the treetops, where parrots squawk and monkeys swing from branch to branch. A poison dart frog clings to a slippery leaf. A sloth creeps through the canopy. The dense rain forest overflows with life. Discover the plants and animals that depend on each other in this unique biome through narrative text, entrancing...

Take a walk in the prairie. This land of all grass and open sky is full of life. You can hear the warbling song of a meadowlark. At your feet, a grasshopper munches on a flower stem. How do the plants and animals of the prairie depend on one another for survival? Through narrative text, striking photos, and illustrations, discover a world of tall grasses and wildflowers that creatures from butterflies to badgers call home.

Are zombies real? As far as we know, dead people do not come back to life and start walking around, looking for trouble. But there are things that can take over the bodies and brains of innocent creatures, turning them into senseless slaves. Meet nature's zombie makers--including a fly-enslaving fungus, a suicide worm, and a cockroach-taming wasp--and their victims.

What is matter made of? Scientists have been trying to answer this question for thousands of years. The concept of the atom-the tiniest fragment of a substance that still retains the characteristics of that substance-goes back to the Greek philosopher Leucippus, who lived in about 450 b.c. In the mid-1600s, Robert Boyle provided experimental evidence that atoms did, indeed, exist. And in 1897, British physicist Joseph John Thomson discovered the first...

In the 1880's, science witnessed a major shift: Charles Darwin proposed his theory of evolution. People dug up the first dinosaur fossils. And the field of paleontology-the study of ancient plants and animals-emerged. Othniel Charles Marsh and Edward Drinker Cope became enthralled with these new ideas, discoveries, and developments. Both were determined to become world-famous paleontologists. When they met in 1863, they started off as friends. But...

After the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear explosion in Ukraine, scientists believed radiation had created a vast and barren wasteland in which life could never resurface. But the Dead Zone, as the contaminated area is known, doesn't look dead at all. In fact, wildlife seems to be thriving there. The Zone is home to beetles, swallows, catfish, mice, voles, otters, beavers, wild boar, foxes, lynx, deer, moose-even brown bears and wolves. Yet the animals in the...