The Polar Bear Explorers Club

It sounded like a respectable and worthy enough death for an explorer - tumbling from an ice bridge to be impaled upon a mammoth tusk - but Stella really, really didn't want that to happen, just the same.Join Stella Starflake Pearl and her three fellow explorers as they trek across the snowy Icelands and come face-to-face with frost fairies, snow queens, outlaw hideouts, unicorns, pygmy dinosaurs and carnivorous cabbages . . . When Stella and three other junior explorers get separated from their expedition can they cross the frozen wilderness and live to tell the tale?A gorgeously imaginative middle grade fantasy adventure combining the best of Peter Pan, Lemony Snicket, Northern Lights and Alice in Wonderland.'A magical adventure of friendship, bravery and derring-do in a richly imagined world.' The Bookseller'A fantastic frosty adventure.' Sunday Express'Wintry, atmospheric, highly imaginative fantasy.' Metro'The most huggable book of the year . . . An (iced) gem.' SFX

In the final book of the whimsical Polar Bear Explorers’ Club series, Stella and the gang go on their most perilous adventure yet to find a cure for their cursed friend. Stella Starflake Pearl has been expelled from the Polar Bear Explorers’ Club. But that’s not going to stop her and the rest of the junior explorers from embarking on another exceptionally perilous expedition. It hasn’t been long since Shay was bitten by a witch wolf, but he’s in danger of turning into one himself. Only an ice queen’s long-lost spell book and Stella’s ice princess magic has the power to break the curse. The one thing standing in their way is a treacherous monolith no explorer has ever returned from…the Black Ice Bridge. In this final, daring installment of the Polar Bear Explorers’ Club series, Stella and the rest of the gang embark on their most fearsome quest yet, plagued by distrustful mermaids, screeching red devil squids, irksome trolls, and a centuries-old curse.

Stella and the gang travel to Witch Mountain to save Felix and what they find along the way could change the course of their adventures forever in this second novel in the whimsical Polar Bear Explorers’ Club series. Stella Starflake Pearl has been eagerly awaiting her next adventure, ever since she and Felix returned from the Snowy Icelands. She fears, however, that she might never be sent on another expedition, especially since the president of the Polar Bear Explorers’ Club himself is afraid of her ice princess powers. But when disaster strikes and Felix is snatched by a fearsome witch, Stella and the rest of the junior explorers—including a reluctant new ally from the Jungle Cat Explorers’ Club—must set off into the unknown on a forbidden journey to the top of Witch Mountain. What awaits them there is a mystery. The only thing they know is this: No one ever returns from Witch Mountain. In the second installment of Alex Bell’s magical The Polar Bear Explorers’ Club series, Stella and the gang face villainous vultures, terrifying witch wolves, flying sharks, and eerie picnicking teddy bears on their daring quest to save one of their own.

In their fifth thrilling adventure, the explorers journey deep into the Bubble Ocean on their quest to stop the evil Collector, but time is running out . . . The Poison Tentacle Sea was home to the powerful Bone Current. As they had feared, it gave a sudden surge and pulled them in. Half-mermaid Ursula Jellyfin has always longed for adventure, and this time the stakes are higher than ever. The Collector is holding a group of children prisoner on Pirate Island, and it's up to Ursula and her friends Jai, Max and Genie to set them free. Armed with a magical mermaid trident, and with new recruit Zara the pirate fairy on board, their mission is filled with danger. The explorers must face zombie skeletons, make a daring rescue from a whirlpool and travel through a dinosaur graveyard. But even if they do make it to Pirate Island, can they fool the Collector and get in to an impenetrable fort? Fast-paced, magical storytelling in a breathtaking underwater world. Alex Bell's inventiveness and attention to detail is a joy to read. Praise for the series: 'A magical adventure of friendship, bravery and derring-do in a richly imagined world.' The Bookseller 'A fantastic frosty adventure.' Sunday Express 'Wintry, atmospheric, highly imaginative fantasy.' Metro 'The most huggable book of the year . . . An (iced) gem.' SFX

Polar bears—fierce and majestic—have captivated us for centuries. Feared by explorers, revered by the Inuit, and beloved by zoo goers everywhere, they are a symbol for the harsh beauty and muscular grace of the Arctic. But as global warming threatens the ice caps’ integrity, the polar bear has also come to symbolize the environmental peril that has arisen due to harmful human practices. In the past twenty years alone, the world population of polar bears has shrunk by half. Today they number just 22,000. Urgent and stirring, On Thin Ice is both a celebration and a rallying cry on behalf of one of earth’s greatest natural treasures.

From bestselling author James Raffan comes an enlightening and original story about a polar bear’s precarious existence in the changing Arctic, reminiscent of John Vaillant’s The Golden Spruce. Nanurjuk, “the bear-spirited one,” is hunting for seals on Hudson Bay, where ice never lasts more than one season. For her and her young, everything is in flux. From the top of the world, Hudson Bay looks like an enormous paw print on the torso of the continent, and through a vast network of lakes and rivers, this bay connects to oceans across the globe. Here, at the heart of everything, walks Nanurjuk, or Nanu, one polar bear among the six thousand that traverse the 1.23 million square kilometers of ice and snow covering the bay. For millennia, Nanu’s ancestors have roamed this great expanse, living, evolving, and surviving alongside human beings in one of the most challenging and unforgiving habitats on earth. But that world is changing. In the Arctic’s lands and waters, oil has been extracted—and spilled. As global temperatures have risen, the sea ice that Nanu and her young need to hunt seal and fish has melted, forcing them to wait on land where the delicate balance between them and their two-legged neighbors has now shifted. This is the icescape that author and geographer James Raffan invites us to inhabit in Ice Walker. In precise and provocative prose, he brings readers inside Nanu’s world as she treks uncertainly around the heart of Hudson Bay, searching for nourishment for the children that grow inside her. She stops at nothing to protect her cubs from the dangers she can see—other bears, wolves, whales, human beings—and those she cannot. By focusing his lens on this bear family, Raffan closes the gap between humans and bears, showing us how, like the water of the Hudson Bay, our existence—and our future—is tied to Nanu’s. He asks us to consider what might be done about this fragile world before it is gone for good. Masterful, vivid, and haunting, Ice Walker is an utterly unique piece of creative nonfiction and a deeply affecting call to action.

Presents an introduction to the polar bear, discussing its evolution, physical characteristics, life cycle, predatory behavior, habitat, and the threats to its existence from global warming.

This is an adventure novel that revolves around Eric Venable. Excerpt: Were this to be the tale, simply, of how Eric Venable fell and rose again from the depths, much might be said of his voyage to Tientsin River. It would bear much dwelling upon; it would in itself make, from the Horatio-Algerian viewpoint, an excellent moral tale. But it would delete all about Shinski and Marie, and the Shirvan diamond, and the burlap, -wrapped parcel; it would have to touch upon, Mrs. Ivanoff's pistol with discretion; and of course, it could say little about the poet Gerin's company of sh, shadows, or the devil Boris Kryalpin, or the ending of the Kum Chao.