James Root was a train engineer. He drove engine 69. He thought of her as "his girl". Jim loved that train.One day in September 1894 he almost lost her.He was working for the St. Paul and Duluth railroad. It was his job to run the train through the big woods of Minnesota.That September day he stopped in Duluth. The air was smoky.Jim climbed into the wooden cab of old 69. Jack McGowan climbed on. He would be the fireman for the trip."There must be a big fi...

Frogs seem like cute little creatures. But did you know they can also be downright strange? Not everything about these creatures is what it seems. Here are some interesting and strange things you may not know about our amphibious friends.Do you know the answers to these questions?How do frogs drink?How big is the smallest frog?How big is the largest frog?What happens to a frog's skin after they shed it?How long does it take a frog to change from a ...

Mary Fields got up early. It was a big day.Today Mary would enter a race. It was a race to see how fast you could hitch up horses to a wagon. If Mary won the race, she would get a job.Mary needed a job. She had no money. It was hard for a woman to get a job. It was even harder for a black woman.Mary didn't mind hard work. She had worked hard all her life.Mary was born a slave. She was a slave until she was about 33. Then President Lincoln freed the slaves....

Frogs seem like cute little creatures. But did you know they can also be downright strange? Not everything about these creatures is what it seems. Here are some interesting and strange things you may not know about our amphibious friends.Do you know the answers to these questions?How do frogs drink?How big is the smallest frog?How big is the largest frog?What happens to a frog's skin after they shed it?How long does it take a frog to change from a ...

Henry Ford had a problem. Many people would think it was a good problem, but it was still a problem.What was his problem? Henry Ford was selling too many cars.Henry had made the first Model T in 1909. He made sure that it was cheap. He wanted anyone to be able to buy a car.He got a lot of people to sell it. He also had the newspapers write about it.Henry also sold the car in different ways. There was a regular Model T that people could ride in. But that was not ...

The rainforest canopy sits near the top of the rainforest. It is filled with thousands and thousands of insects, animals and plants. Yet mankind has learned very little about this important part of our ecosystem.Without rainforests to replenish the oxygen in the atmosphere, the world would become a lot more polluted.Here are some amazing things we have discovered about the rainforest.Do you know:How many layers are there in the rainforest?How high do rain...

Hummingbirds are amazing animals. They can fly in different directions and even hover. Many scientists have studied these tiny wonders, and discovered amazing thingsHow many of these facts do you know?How far can a hummingbird walk?How fast is a hummingbird?How many eyelids do hummingbirds have?Do hummingbirds have more or fewer feathers per inch than other birds?How fast does a hummingbird breathe?Find out the answers to these questions an...

I was the great auk, a bird. Here is my story.We were a bit like the penguin. Like penguins, we were black and white. The blackness covered our heads and stretched down our backs. The white covered our chests.Many of us had a white patch on our face above our eye. White stripes raced across our strong black bills. Oh we were proud of those bills. They were over four inches long (11 centimetres) and they curved down a bit at the end. Deep white grooves cut across them, up to s...

People sweat to stay cool. The water comes out of our skin. As it dries, it takes the heat from our body with it. This helps us to stay cool.If the water is not drying fast enough, we can sit in front of a fan. This takes the water off our bodies faster.If that is not enough, we can add more water to our skin. We do this by running through a sprinkler or going swimming. Now that is a lot of water on your body. And all of that water is taking away some of the heat. That is how...

The essays in this book aim to answer the following questions: What was the place of prayer in the early modern world? What did it look and sound like? Of what aesthetic and political structures did it partake, and how did prayer affect art, literature and politics? How did the activities, expressions and texts we might group under the term prayer serve to bind disparate peoples together, or, in turn, to create friction and fissures within communities? What roles did prayer play in intercu...

The "Vampire Tales" is the biggest, hungriest, undeadliest collection of vampire stories ever assembled. Dark, stormy, and delicious, once it sinks its teeth into you there's no escape. Vampires! Whether imagined by Bram Stoker or Anne Rice, they are part of the human lexicon and as old as blood itself. They are your neighbors, your friends, and they are always lurking. Now we have compiled the darkest, the scariest, and by far the most evil collection of vampire stories ever, with over 80...

Short stories have always been a sort of instant access into an author’s brain, their soul and heart. A few pages can lift our lives into locations, people and experiences with a sweep of landscape, narration, feelings and emotions that is difficult to achieve elsewhere.In this series we try to offer up tried and trusted ‘Top Tens’ across many different themes and authors. But any anthology will immediately throw up the questions – Why that story? Why that author?The theme ...