Books in Nature Up Close series

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.

The oceans are teeming with creatures large and small, from the seashore to the depths of the abyss. From the pincers of tiny crustaceans to the sharp teeth of a massive sperm whale, there’s plenty for kids to discover in Creature Close-Up: Ocean Animals. This unique book is filled with interactive elements that give young readers a chance to dive deeper than ever before. Kids can use the removable dual-focus magnifier to examine close-up images of all types of sea life from every layer of the ocean. Creature Close-Up: Ocean Animals is filled with engaging text and photographs, and also includes a dolphin model to build, a plastic turtle, reusable stickers, and a foldout pearl oyster.

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.