Books in Great Explorers series

To say that Rene-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle was determined is like saying the sun is warm. La Salle made his way from Eastern Canada to the Great Lakes. Then he traveled by canoe down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico. This vast territory was dense unexplored wilderness, controlled by the fierce and powerful Iroquois. To make the merely daunting nearly impossible, La Salle was on his own. His King, Louis X1V, would provide neither protection, men nor money. Through one setback after another, La Salle kept on going. His men deserted him; he walked a thousand miles, in the middle of the brutal Canadian winter, back to Montreal and organized a new expedition. The Iroquois threatened; he brought together rival tribes, and speaking in their own language, united them into an alliance against the Iroquois. La Salle's ship sunk with a fortune in furs meant to finance his expedition. Again, he walked back to Montreal and found new financial support. Part adventure, part biography, Despite All Obstacles is the fascinating story of this obstinate and courageous man who had dreams as large as the continent and a will to match those dreams.

The explorer who discovered his own humanity. In 1528, the conquistador Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca escaped a hostile reception in Florida only to be shipwrecked off the coast of Texas. For the next eight years, he lived among the native tribes of the Southwest while he journeyed towards the safety of the Spanish settlements in Mexico. He and three companions survived starvation, sickness and slavery thanks to the generosity of native peoples along the way. When Cabeza de Vaca finally reached the Spanish, he was a changed man and led the struggle against the feudal-like exploitation of the New World populations. Stuart Waldman tells the fascinating story of two journeys: one covering 2,500 miles through unexplored territory, the other the transformation of a man's heart. Excerpts from Cabeza de Vaca's journals make the reader's immersion into this mystifying world complete. The gatefold map allows the reader to follow the journey while reading.

The first voyage around the globe was a daring, high-stakes gamble that changed the world forever. Portugal dominated the wildly lucrative spice trade, and Spain was desperate for a piece of the action. Spain had everything to gain. Portuguese officer Ferdinand Magellan had nothing to lose. His decades fighting for Portugal had left him with a crippled knee and his king's withering scorn. And so Magellan left Portugal to lead an expedition for his country's bitter rival, Spain. He knew it would be an exceedingly dangerous voyage, but the reality proved much worse. Killer storms, mutinies, deadly battles, murders, deprivation and disease dogged the four-year journey. Magellan was driven to ever-greater extremes of brilliance, courage, brutality and madness as he sailed around the world. Magellan's World is the story of a harrowing adventure, an inspiring and flawed hero, and an epic event in the history of the world.

Five years after Columbus sailed off to find a sea route to the Orient, the Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama went on the same quest. His epic, 27,000 mile journey around the bottom of Africa was filled with danger, treachery, sacrifice, cruelty and acts of extraordinary courage. By the time da Gama returned, half his ships were gone, and two thirds of his crew were dead, but he had found what Columbus had not. Da Gama brought back tales of East African and Asian marketplaces overflowing with riches, of rulers who wore emeralds and rubies and pearls the size of grapes, of ships and cannons that were no match for those of the Portuguese. Portugal would soon send more ships and more cannons. The rest of Europe would follow. And the world would never be the same. Joan Elizabeth Goodman's narrative captures both the drama of da Gama's voyage and its central place in world history. Tom McNeely's fluid watercolors give the reader a visceral sense of an unknown world unfolding before the explorer's eyes.

The one-armed professor who conquered the mighty Colorado. No European had ever taken boats down the Colorado river and come out alive. In May 1869, ten men boarded four rowboats in Green River City, Wyoming. Three months and 1,000 miles later, just two battered boats carrying six exhausted and starving men emerged from the depths of the Grand Canyon. The Last River tells their remarkable story. The man who challenged the Colorado was different from other explorers. Major John Wesley Powell was a small, bookish, one-armed geology professor from a midwestern farm. Despite his size and the constant pain from the Civil War wound that had cost him his arm, Powell's twin passions -- adventure and scientific exploration -- drew him to the Colorado River. For three months he and nine crew members made their home on the river. They thrilled to riding the rapids and endured the back-breaking labor of transporting boats and cargo past rapids too dangerous to run. They discovered canyons of unsurpassed beauty and gave them names like Music Temple and Canyon of Lodore. They saved each other from drowning, and suffered together as their food supply dwindled to nearly nothing. Excerpts from journals of crew members personalize the gripping text. Original paintings and a fold-out map allows the reader to simultaneously follow the expedition's route and its adventures. The Last River is an inspiring and riveting true adventure written with drama and compassion that brings history to life.

This title introduces readers to Ferdinand Magellan, the great explorer who was the first to sail around the world. Magellan's life story is examined from his childhood to service in the court of Portugal's queen. Magellan's search for the Spice Islands in command of the Trinidad, the San Antonio, the Concepcion, and the Victoria is detailed, as is his exploration of the Canary Islands, Brazil, and Argentina and naming the Pacific Oceana and the Straits of Magellan on the way to the Philippines and Indonesia. Aligned to Common Core Standards and correlated to state standards. Abdo & Daughters is an imprint of Abdo Publishing, a division of ABDO.

"Where Goodman's book shines is the foldout maps and diagrams of the voyages and in the journal entries by Hudson and members of his crew ... When the next group of students with an assignment on explorers descends on the library, have this useful and attractive resource on hand." --School Library Journal Beyond the Sea of Ice: The Voyages of Henry Hudson takes readers into a land of impenetrable fog and crushing ice, a mysterious place where lie the dreams of kings, merchants and learned geographers--a passage to the Orient. Sailing small wooden boats well above the Arctic Circle, guided by maps and charts that were based on rumor and hope as much as fact, and surrounded by crews that shared neither his belief nor his commitment, Henry Hudson searched again and again for what was not there. In 1611, his mutinous crew set him adrift on the freezing waters of the bay that would one day bear his name. Beyond the Sea of Ice is the story of Henry Hudson's four harrowing voyages of discovery. Bringing the skills of an experienced novelist, Goodman creates an epic narrative of Henry Hudson's passionate quest. Fernando Rangel's paintings capture the icy beauty of the North Atlantic, the lushness of the new world and the cruelty and death that accompanied a doomed voyage of discovery. Actual entries from the journals of each voyage bring the reader directly into life at sea in the 17th century, and Mikaya Press' exclusive gatefold Read-Along Map™ allows the reader to read about the explorer's travels while following them on a map at the same time.

This title introduces readers to Jacques Cousteau, the great explorer who introduced millions of people to the undersea world from his ship the Calypso. Cousteau's life story is examined from his childhood to his marriage and his education at the French Naval Academy and his service in the French Navy and World War II. Cousteau's collaboration with engineer Emile Gagnan is included, including their invention of the Self-Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus or SCUBA system, as is his invention of the underwater camera. Cousteau's film work is examined, including his Academy Award-winning films The Silent World (1956) and World Without Sun (1964), as is his famous series The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau. Aligned to Common Core Standards and correlated to state standards. Abdo & Daughters is an imprint of Abdo Publishing, a division of ABDO.

After two years of training with the British Mount Everest Expedition, Edmund Hillary, along with Nepalese Sherpa Tenzing Norgay, completed the challenging climb to become the first men to reach the summit of the world's highest peak, Mount Everest, on May 29, 1953. But this historic achievement didn't mean the end of Hillary's adventures. In 1955, he led a party across Antarctica by snow tractor, pioneering a new route to the South Pole. Hillary followed this up by leading several expeditions to the Himalayas, and establishing the Himalayan Trust, which has funded more than 30 schools in Nepal, as well as hospitals, medical clinics, and airstrips. Knighted by Queen Elizabeth of Great Britain, Hillary was also granted honorary citizenship in Nepal. In Sir Edmund Hillary, learn about this daring explorer and his accomplishments.