What do you see when you look up in the sky? With a little imagination, you can turn ordinary clouds into bears, hippos, lions and much more. Aimed at readers aged two to five, Animals in the Clouds features beautiful illustrations and rhythmic storytelling that will inspire children and adults alike to appreciate the miracles all around us.

Clouds in the shape of dolphins, elephants, UFOs, even Alfred Hitchcock and Andy Murray . . . they're all here in this beautiful and hilarious collection of clouds photographed around the world by members of The Cloud Appreciation Society, selected and wittily captioned by Gavin Pretor-Pinney, winner of the Royal Society Winton Science Writing Prize. Author of the bestselling The Cloudspotter's Guide, A Pig With Six Legs and The Cloud Collector's Handbook, and creator of The Cloud Appreciation Society, Gavin's mission is to fight blue-sky thinking and encourage us to love and understand clouds. His new book is divided by themes such as 'Celestial Celebrities' and 'Airborne Animals', and includes an informative section on what clouds are and how they are formed. The perfect gift book for anyone willing to look skywards and discover the beauty and fascination of clouds.

A graphically stunning introduction to constellations for the youngest readers, following the meteoric rise of global bestseller Seeing Stars This stylish, informative board book helps younger children identify six of the most recognizable animal constellations from The Great Bear to the The Southern Fish. Each constellation is introduced as a cluster of stars with its connected-line shape; readers then guess the animal through a series of read-aloud clues. A full animal illustration gatefold reveals the answer, accompanied by extra information about the constellation and its important stars. Perfect for bedtime stargazing! Ages 2-4

A tale familiar to 1,000s of New Hampshire school children told and illustrated by locals Eric Pinder & T.B.R. Walsh. Stray cat Nin drifts from house to house until he meets a meteorologist named Mark. Then Nin begins his greatest journey yet--to the top of Mount Washington. Follow Nin to a land where the wind howls, snow swirls and wild bears roam. At the Mount Washington Observatory, Nin learns that the best friends--and a wonderful home--can be found anywhere, even high above the clouds.

Internationally renowned author and scientist Tim Flannery takes readers to the skies to learn about the extraordinary animals that fly in them. Can owls swim? Do woodpeckers eat wood? Are vampire bats real? Tim Flannery has the answers. In this informed and accessible book, he introduces some of the most spectacular and unusual creatures soaring through Earth’s skies with in-depth and often-bizarre facts. Flannery ties together concepts of climate change, evolution, conservation, and taxonomy throughout each animal’s profile, firmly connecting it to its environment while sparking wonder at its role in the natural world. Packed with vibrant illustrations and guided by real-life anecdotes from one of our greatest science communicators, Weird, Wild, Amazing! Sky teaches readers to cherish and delight in our planet’s ecosystems with Flannery’s signature mix of humor and wisdom.

Peters defines media expansively as elements that compose the human world. Drawing from ideas implicit in media philosophy, Peters argues that media are more than carriers of messages: they are the very infrastructures combining nature and culture that allow human life to thrive. Through an encyclopedic array of examples from the oceans to the skies,The Marvelous Clouds reveals the long prehistory of so-called new media. Digital media, Peters argues, are an extension of early practices tied to the establishment of civilization such as mastering fire, building calendars, reading the stars, creating language, and establishing religions. New media do not take us into uncharted waters, but rather confront us with the deepest and oldest questions of society and ecology: how to manage the relations people have with themselves, others, and the natural world.

Religion is universal human culture. No phenomenon is more widely shared or more intensely studied, yet there is no agreement on what religion is. Now, in Faces in the Clouds, anthropologist Stewart Guthrie provides a provocative definition of religion in a bold and persuasive new theory. Guthrie says religion can best be understood as systematic anthropomorphism--that is, the attribution of human characteristics to nonhuman things and events. Many writers see anthropomorphism as common or even universal in religion, but few think it is central. To Guthrie, however, it is fundamental. Religion, he writes, consists of seeing the world as humanlike. As Guthrie shows, people find a wide range of humanlike beings plausible: Gods, spirits, abominable snowmen, HAL the computer, Chiquita Banana. We find messages in random events such as earthquakes, weather, and traffic accidents. We say a fire "rages," a storm "wreaks vengeance," and waters "lie still." Guthrie says that our tendency to find human characteristics in the nonhuman world stems from a deep-seated perceptual strategy: in the face of pervasive (if mostly unconscious) uncertainty about what we see, we bet on the most meaningful interpretation we can. If we are in the woods and see a dark shape that might be a bear or a boulder, for example, it is good policy to think it is a bear. If we are mistaken, we lose little, and if we are right, we gain much. So, Guthrie writes, in scanning the world we always look for what most concerns us--livings things, and especially, human ones. Even animals watch for human attributes, as when birds avoid scarecrows. In short, we all follow the principle--better safe than sorry. Marshalling a wealth of evidence from anthropology, cognitive science, philosophy, theology, advertising, literature, art, and animal behavior, Guthrie offers a fascinating array of examples to show how this perceptual strategy pervades secular life and how it characterizes religious experience. Challenging the very foundations of religion, Faces in the Clouds forces us to take a new look at this fundamental element of human life.

In many parts of the world, within a few hundred miles of the equator, there exists a mysterious environment called the rain forest. High up in the mountains of these areas lies an even more mysterious environment--the tropical cloud forest. The Forest in the Clouds explores the enchanting world of the Monte Verde cloud forest in Costa Rica. Discover the splendor and fragile beauty of a precarious ecosystem that receives up to 10 feet of rain and mist each year. Readers meet rare creatures unique to the cloud forest, home to over 300 different types of birds and countless insects. There are more than 500 species of butterflies alone. Learn about the many plants that thrive in the cloud forest, such as gardens of epiphytes, which are plants that grow on other plants. The Forest in the Clouds will amaze and inspire young readers as it plainly teaches children about the importance of this delicate ecosystem to the balance of the earth. Michael Rothman vividly brings to life the plants and animals of the enchanting and ethereal cloud forest. This place, constantly in mist, is alive with color and light in his lush illustrations. A glossary of terms is provided in the back of the book along with a guide to further reading, a few helpful web sites, and addresses kids can write to in order to get further information about saving the cloud forests.

Featuring a wealth of high-quality photographs, this text describes clouds in a captivating and visual way. The science behind why clouds form and the meteorological context in which the clouds appear is presented in a detailed yet straightforward approach accessible to any reader.

As an earthling, Merk thought that life after death would be endless peace and relaxation on Cloud 9. Surprise! He found himself on Cloud 3, the physical fitness cloud, spending all his precious time training fat angels to slim down. Hed been a fitness nut on earth; how fair is that? Besides, no matter what Merk does, calamity ensues: a simple fitness walk under the stars leads to a war between angels and pirates and, since romance isnt a part of life after death, why is he so attracted to Quiggy? Follow Merk and his companions other-worldly adventures through the cloud-world of the afterlife in Merk.