Books in Motion Close-up series

Discover your amazing world through curious and fascinating up-close photography!Transform the ordinary into something extraordinary with exciting micro and macro photography! Reptiles & Amphibiansexplores all things cold-blooded, pairing extreme, hyper-detailed images of scaly skin, snake eyes, and webbed feet with fun facts, activities, and brainteasers. So let’s turn up the ZOOM and discover a whole new way of seeing the world.

Babe Ruth is still regarded as perhaps the greatest baseball player ever to step on a diamond. Born into a poor family in Baltimore, George Herman Ruth Jr. was sent to a Catholic reform school at age seven, where he learned how to play baseball. Initially a talented southpaw, the Babe went on to shatter every home-run record on the books?and when fewer games were played in a season and a heavier ball was used. In this engaging and fast-paced biography, award-winning author Wilborn Hampton shares with readers The Babe was also a man of big heart, temper, and appetite.

?Elvis left no one indifferent to rock and roll??so begins award-winning author Wilborn Hampton?s thoughtful account of the beloved and controversial Elvis Presley. When Elvis shook his hips and sang his soulful songs, teenagers screamed and parents fretted. Fans, record executives, movie producers, and even the army wanted a piece of this enigmatic performer and shy boy from Tupelo, Mississippi. What Elvis gave them changed music forever. This latest addition to Viking?s ongoing biography series, Up Close, includes gorgeous black-and-white photographs and introduces readers to the complicated life of the king of rock and roll.

Up Close: Jane Goodall by Sudipta Bardhan-Quallen Up Close: Thurgood Marshall by Chris Crowe A trailblazing scientist made famous by her favorite primates. Jane Goodall will forever be linked with the chimpanzees that she?s studied for over fifty years. A pioneer in scientific research, she revolutionized longstanding views about chimps, forest conservation, and women in scientific fields. This Up Close biography tells the story of how a demure young woman from London went to Africa and changed the world.

Discover your amazing world through curious and fascinating up-close photography!Transform the ordinary into something extraordinary with exciting micro and macro photography! Bugs & Butterfliesexplores all things creepy and crawly, pairing extreme, hyper-detailed images of butterfly wings, honeybee eyes, and spider legs with fun facts, activities, and brainteasers. So let’s turn up the ZOOM and discover a whole new way of seeing the world.

Bill Gates is many things: the richest person in the world; the ruthless businessman who co-founded Microsoft and led it to domination of the computer software industry; and now, the leading global philanthropist. When Gates was born in 1955, no one in the world owned a personal computer. A window had a pane of glass. A mouse was a rodent. As a teenager, Gates realized how computers were about to change the world, and made his fortune by riding that wave; modern teens look to him as their model of how technology can be turned into wealth. Marc Aronson’s biography is a probing portrait of a man whose name is a household word.

The name ?Ella Fitzgerald? brings to mind a silky voice crooning jazz standards. The First Lady of Song earned her nickname by touring almost nonstop for over fifty years, winning thirteen Grammys, and recording album after album. But who was the woman behind the name? How did a teenage runaway become a renowned jazz singer? Long after her homeless days, Ella remained insecure?she often suffered stage fright. Yet she was a born performer, able to improvise lyrics and record songs in single takes. She even seemed more comfortable on stage than off, and close friends found her hard to truly know. Tanya Lee Stone?s Up Close biography delivers several never-before-published details of this intensely private, legendary singer?s life.

John Steinbeck consistently appears on class reading lists across the U.S., and his work has influenced generations. Steinbeck lived and wrote during some of the most eventful and controversial eras of twentieth-century America, including the struggles of California?s migrant workers during the 1930s, which led to his masterpiece, The Grapes of Wrath. A complicated man whose personal life often took a backseat to his writing?he fought his way through three marriages, was a distant father, and battled with alcoholism?Steinbeck wrote because he was compelled to. Yet he always doubted his abilities, and lived in fear of never writing a decent book. Milton Meltzer?s biography includes numerous excerpts of this iconic author?s writing, and is the latest addition to the Up Close series.

Frank Lloyd Wright was the most influential architect of the twentieth century?and a rogue genius whose life was a wild ride. Wright routinely ignored unpaid bills, clients? wishes, budget constraints. Only his creative vision mattered to him. That vision transformed the way we live, sweeping aside the Victorian home and creating a uniquely American architecture exemplified by his Prairie Style houses. Wright built hotels, churches, and offices, too, incorporating endless innovations in techniques and materials. Ideas poured out of him throughout his long career; he called it ?shaking the design out of my sleeve.? Jan Adkins?s fascinating biography of this compelling, infuriating, largerthan- life figure will change the way every reader looks at architecture.

Sea Life showcases our beautiful and curious oceans, exploring up-close photography of fish, coral, and other sea creatures. Take a deep breath and take a look! Transform the ordinary into something extraordinary with exciting micro and macro photography! Sea Life explores our beautiful and curious oceans, pairing extreme, hyper-detailed images of fish, coral, and other magnificent sea creatures with fun facts, activities, and brainteasers. So let’s turn up the ZOOM and discover a whole new way of seeing the world.

Frank Lloyd Wright was the most influential architect of the twentieth century?and a rogue genius whose life was a wild ride. Wright routinely ignored unpaid bills, clients? wishes, budget constraints. Only his creative vision mattered to him. That vision transformed the way we live, sweeping aside the Victorian home and creating a uniquely American architecture exemplified by his Prairie Style houses. Wright built hotels, churches, and offices, too, incorporating endless innovations in techniques and materials. Ideas poured out of him throughout his long career; he called it ?shaking the design out of my sleeve.? Jan Adkins?s fascinating biography of this compelling, infuriating, largerthan- life figure will change the way every reader looks at architecture.