Nonfiction Biology

Her name was Henrietta Lacks, but scientists know her as HeLa. She was a poor Southern tobacco farmer who worked the same land as her slave ancestors, yet her cells - taken without her knowledge - became one of the most important tools in medicine: The first “immortal” human cells grown in culture, which are still alive today, though she has been dead for more than 60 years. HeLa cells were vital for developing the polio vaccine; uncovered secrets of cancer, viruses, and the atom bomb’s effects.

Who's that hiding in the tree? It's a panda! Listen to learn more about giant pandas.

Beautiful butterflies flutter about, catching our eyes with their bright colors. Their senses, eating habits, and life cycle are just as wondrous as their bright colors.

Penguins glide, slide, and dive. Find out what else these birds can do!

This audiobook describes the development of a tiger from infancy to adulthood, as she grows up in India.

Zombies have no control over their own minds. Some insects and other creepy crawlies have the power to turn other animals into zombies, controlling their behavior. Listeners will learn all about these creatures and the real-life zombies they are making.

Cheep! Cheep! What is that sound? It’s a baby bird in a nest! Beginning listeners will discover why nests make good homes for growing baby birds, squirrels, and other animals.

Peek! A baby prairie dog looks out of its underground burrow. Beginning listeners will discover why burrows make good homes for growing baby rabbits, meerkats, and other adorable animals.

Bite, chew, grind! Sharp beaked triceratops is hungry. With giant horns and a shield-like neck frill, this gentle giant can put up a fight. Learn more about this massive dinosaur in Triceratops: Three Horned Giant.

Learn all about zebras!

Brr! Polar bears live in cold places. Learn other things about these animals inside this book.

Follow us on a journey around all the body parts of birds, from eyes to beaks, to feet to tails. Find out all about how each body part works, what it looks like, and what it does and how each body part differs between species.

Scrub all you want, but you'll never get your body entirely clean. From rash causing itch mites to bacteria swimming in your stomach, meet the tiny creatures hitching a ride on your body.

Follow us on a journey around all the body parts of reptiles, from eyes to teeth, to shells to tails. Find out all about how each body part works, what it looks like and what it does and how each body part differs between species.

Follow us on a journey around all the body parts of mammals, from eyes to ears, to legs to tails. Find out all about how each body part works, what it looks like and what it does and how each body part differs between species.

Acclaimed author Joyce Sidman has received multiple awards for her books of poetry, including a Caldecott Honor for Red Sings from Treetops. Itself a Newbery Honor, Book, Dark Emperor and Other Poems of the Night features several spellbinding poems about “the feast of sound and spark” that awakens with the raccoons, snails, owls, and crickets each night after sunset.

Have you ever wondered just how a glow stick works? Or what about those glow-in-the-dark stars you stick on your ceiling keep on shining? In her first book, author and teacher Anita Sitarski answers these questions and more giving listeners the inside scoop on everything that glows. Fireflies, bacteria, squid, jelly fish—what do all of these things have in common? They glow! It seems like one of mother nature’s mysteries, but many curious scientists have begun to shine light on this beautiful phenomenon.

In spring of 1918, World War I was underway, and troops at Fort Riley, Kansas, found themselves felled by influenza. By the summer of 1918, the second wave struck as a highly contagious and lethal epidemic and within weeks exploded into a pandemic, an illness that travels rapidly from one continent to another. It would impact the course of the war, and kill many millions more soldiers than warfare itself.

When Jennifer Doudna was a sixth grader in Hilo, Hawaii, she came home from school one afternoon and found a book on her bed. It was The Double Helix, James Watson’s account of how he and Francis Crick had discovered the structure of DNA, the spiral-staircase molecule that carries the genetic instruction code for all forms of life. This book guided Jennifer Doudna to focus her studies not on DNA, but on what seemed to take a backseat in biochemistry: figuring out the structure of RNA, a closely related molecule that enables the genetic instructions coded in DNA to express themselves.

With three hearts and blue blood, its gelatinous body unconstrained by jointed limbs or gravity, the octopus seems to be an alien, an inhabitant of another world. It’s baggy, boneless body sprouts eight arms covered with thousands of suckers—suckers that can taste as well as feel. The octopus also has the powers of a superhero: it can shape-shift, change color, squirt ink, pour itself through the tiniest of openings, or jet away through the sea faster than a swimmer can follow.