Books with author Michael Burgan

Find out how restaurants and food manufacturers employ scientists to make their products tastier and more convenient.Calling All Innovators series introduces students to careers in science and technology. The complex text allows readers (Grades 5-8) to determine the main idea and explain how it is supported by key details. Have you ever wondered how your favorite fast food order can taste exactly the same at every one of the restaurant's locations? Or how your favorite potato chips can stay crispy for days after you open the bag? Readers will learn how the fascinating field of food science began, how it has developed over time, and what it takes to become a food scientist today.

Learn about the country's history, culture, people and much more!Though it is a relatively young nation, the United States of America is one of the world's most powerful and influential countries. Readers will learn how a small group of British colonies grew to become an independent nation. They will also learn about the native people who populated the area before European colonization and explore the culture, government, and geography of the modern United States.

It’s the 1960s, and the Vietnam War is raging. You find yourself in the midst of the turmoil. Will you: Enlist in the Marines and volunteer to go to war? Join your fellow young Americans eager to protest the war? Be a young Vietnamese man forced to choose between the communist North and the capitalist South? Everything in this book happened to real people. And YOU CHOOSE what you do next. The choices you make could lead you to jail, to the jungles of Vietnam, or even to death.

At the turn of the 20th century, photographer Edward S. Curtis devoted his life to learning all he could about American Indians and sharing it with world. He took his first photo of an American Indian in 1895, and for the next 30 years he traveled the West and north to Alaska to chronicle traditional native culture. The result was a magnificent—and controversial—20-volume project, The North American Indian. While some scholars and American Indians found fault with the work Curtis published, many others greatly appreciated it. His grand endeavor was nearly forgotten when he died in 1952, but Curtis’ rediscovered photographs are now recognized as treasures that will live forever.

The long-term damage from an accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant more than 30 years ago is still unknown. When explosions ripped through the reactor in rural Ukraine, then part of the Soviet Union, they spewed huge amounts of radioactive material into the atmosphere and caused the worst nuclear disaster in history. About 10,000 people have died or will die because of their exposure to radiation, and experts worry about the children born to parents who were living near the disaster area. With international help, Ukraine has enclosed the damaged reactor, giving scientists time to figure out what the future holds.