Books published by publisher Houghton Mifflin and Company, Boston

John Muir lived from 1838 to 1914. During that time he covered most of the American wilderness alone and on foot without a gun, without a sleeping bag, with only a sackful of stale bread and tea. Major credit is ascribed to him for saving the Grand Canyon and Arizona's Petrified Forest. In 1903 he convinced President Theodore Roosevelt, while on a three-day camping trip together, of the importance of a national conservation program. He had been president of the militia Sierra Club since its formation in 1892. Muir's writing, based on journals he kept throughout his life, gives our generation a picture of America only 100 years ago, still wild and unsettled. Edwin Way Teale has preserved the best of Muir's work in selections that show both the ago and the man.

In ancient times the Rings of Power were crafted by the Elven-smiths, and Sauron, the Dark Lord, forged the One Ring, filling it with his own power so that he could rule all others. But the One Ring was taken from him, and though he sought it throughout Middle-earth, it remained lost to him. After many ages, it fell by chance into the hands of the hobbit Bilbo Baggins. From his fastness in the Dark Tower of Mordor, Sauron's power spread far and wide. He gathered all the Great Rings to him, but always he searched far and wide for the One Ring that would complete his dominion.On Bilbo's eleventy-first birthday, he disappeared, bequeathing to his young cousin, Frodo, the Ruling Ring and a perilous quest: to journey across Middle-earth, deep into the shadow of the Dark Lord, and destroy the Ring by casting it into the Cracks of Doom.THE LORD OF THE RINGS tells of the great quest undertaken by Frodo and the Fellowship of the Ring: Gandalf the Wizard; the hobbits Merry, Pippin, and Sam; Gimli the Dwarf; Legolas the Elf; Boromir of Gondor; and a tall, mysterious stranger called Strider.

"The Bird's Christmas Carol is the story of the Bird family and their youngest child Carol who is born on Christmas. She is a lovely and sweet girl who contracts an unknown disease and becomes bedridden. Even though she is ill Carol remains sweet and generous. The book is a wistful moral tale about a saintly child, but is enlivened by many humorous scenes. One Amazon review stated " I read this book as a child, and we're reading it to our children too. It's very moving and although the end will bring tears to your eyes, you'll still be glad you read it"

Richard Dawkins, in The God Delusion, tells of his exasperation with colleagues who try to play both sides of the street: looking to science for justification of their religious convictions while evading the most difficult implications-the existence of a prime mover sophisticated enough to create and run the universe, "to say nothing of mind reading millions of humans simultaneously." Such an entity, he argues, would have to be extremely complex, raising the question of how it came into existence, how it communicates -through spiritons!-and where it resides. Dawkins is frequently dismissed as a bully, but he is only putting theological doctrines to the same kind of scrutiny that any scientific theory must withstand. No one who has witnessed the merciless dissection of a new paper in physics would describe the atmosphere as overly polite.

This is the definitive thesaurus for middle school and high school students. No other book at this level offers as many synonyms, example sentences, or features.• 6,000 main entries, with more than 70,000 synonyms in all• Clear example sentences for every meaning of every entry word• Word Group features include related vocabulary for words with no true synonyms