Non-fiction

Andrea Gonzales

Teenagers Gonzales and Houser met at a Girls Who Code computer camp in 2014, and, for a final project, they created the game Tampon Run, which aims to break down menstruation taboos. To the girls' surprise, the game took off, and soon they were minicelebs in both pop culture and the tech world, with lots of opportunities. Their experiences are recounted in alternating chapters. Sophie, the girl terrified of public speaking, finds her voice, while Andrea, who comes from a strict Filipino household, must deal with making her own choices.

Stephanie Sammartino McPherson

Describes how the combination of artificial intelligence and robotic technolgy is creating robots which exhibit social, learning, and thinking skills, raising ethical questions about the role of robots in the future.

Ben Sedley

An illustrated guide to moving past negative thoughts and feelings compassionately counsels teens on how to manage and validate painful feelings while getting to their sources to identify personal priorities

Angela Duckworth

Psychology professor Duckworth's previous work with the competitive global management firm, McKinsey & Company, and a prestigious MacArthur fellowship attest to her own grittiness as she presents a solid foundation for an engaging investigation into "grit"-that is, how the combination of determination and desire affects chances of reaching a chosen goal.

Cynthia Levinson

Many of the political issues we struggle with today have their roots in the US Constitution. Each chapter in this timely and thoughtful exploration of the Constitution's creation begins with a story-all but one of them true-that connects directly back to a section of the document that forms the basis of our society and government.

Mary Roach

The best-selling author of Gulp and Stiff explores the science of keeping humans healthy and focused in the extreme environments of war, drawing on interviews with doctors, uniform designers, trainers and weapons testers to illuminate how soldiers are conditioned to survive traumas ranging from heat and panic to exhaustion and noise.

Kate Moore

In 1917, the Radium Luminous Materials Corporation willingly employed young women, paid far better than most businesses, and had many enticing perks-including the glow. Radium girls, most in their teens and early twenties, painted watch dials with a luminescent paint mixed with radium dust, which clung to their hair and clothes and produced a telltale glow about them as they walked home each evening. At the time, radium was used in cancer treatments and touted in expensive tonics, so the girls didn't question smoothing the radium-laden paintbrushes in their mouths, as instructed, or even painting their nails with them. But the women would soon suffer horrific pain and grotesquely shattered bones and teeth, and the company, it would be discovered, had known better.

Neil deGrasse Tyson

The world's most ebullient, funny, irreverent, and illuminating astrophysicist regales listeners and viewers with amazing, mind-whirling puzzles and facts on his StarTalk podcast and National Geographic Channel television show. Now fans and those whose exposure to Tyson has been limited so far to his appearances on other host's talk shows will be able to bask in the glow of this enthusiastic stargazer's wide-ranging curiosity, deep knowledge, and passion for proving that science can be fun and edifying via this big book bursting with color photographs and sidebars. The chapter headings take the form of questions: "Can We Use Wormholes to Travel?" "Is There a Solution for Pollution?" "Can Science Help Me Find True Love?" "When Are the Zombies Coming?"

Sara Latta

What is the universe made of? At CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, scientists have searched for answers to this question using the largest machine in the world: the Large Hadron Collider. It speeds up tiny particles, then smashes them together-and the collision gives researchers a look at the building blocks of the universe.

Nick and Sophie, two cousins, are about to visit CERN for a tour of the mysteries of the cosmos. Sophie's a physics wiz. Nick, not so much. But by the time they're through, Nick and Sophie will both feel the power of hidden particles, fundamental forces, dark matter, and more. It's all a blast in this mind-blowing graphic novel!

Kay Frydenborg

Explores the connection between dogs and humans from hunter-gatherer partners to modern day pets, focusing on how humans have influenced dogs' evolution and raising new questions about the species' shared future.

Sarah Prager

A LGBTQ chronicle for teens shares hip, engaging facts about 23 influential gender-ambiguous notables from the era of the Roman Empire to the present, exploring how they defied convention to promote civil rights, pursue relationships on their own terms and shape culture.

Mike Winchell

Welcome to the late 1880s and the war of the currents, a furious battle over the viability and future of electricity. The combatants were, in one corner, the legendary inventor Thomas Edison, the inveterate champion of direct current (DC); in the other corner, the eccentric Serbian inventor Nikola Tesla and his partner, the formidable George Westinghouse, champions of alternating current (AC). It was an epic battle, for the stakes were enormous, being, in short, who would light and power America. It was a battle royal with the venerable Edison emerging as the villain of the piece. But will the good guys win?

Neal Bascomb

It is estimated that during WWI there were some 192,848 British and Empire POWs held in Germany. Here Bascomb recounts some of their stories of prison camp life, escape, recapture, and escape again. The most talented and persistent of these escape artists were sent to the Holzminden camp under the command of the vile Karl Niemeyer. Spurred on, perhaps in part, by his depredations, a core group of POWs determined to escape by tunneling out of the camp. Ultimately their nine-foot-deep tunnel extended more than 60 feet and offered escape to 29 POWs. But this was only the first part of their quest for freedom. They still had to traverse 150 miles across enemy territory to Holland and freedom.

Elizabeth Letts

Traces Hitler's efforts to build a master race of the finest purebred horses and the heroic achievements of American soldiers to rescue imperiled stolen equines from a hidden Czechoslovakian farm during a 1945 battle between Third Reich and Allied forces.