Adkins, Jan

Text and illustrations explore the uses and meaning of the various families of symbols including traffic signs, map symbols, trademarks, and many others.

Explains basic facts and tool uses for the beginning woodworker.

Discusses the many uses of string, rope, line, and knots, from rigging sails and clotheslines to tying packages and sewing buttons.

Examines, in detailed illustrations and text, the insides of such common and uncommon things as city streets, ocean liners, and ball point pens.

Depicts the operators and the work of ferries, tugboats, trawlers, and other work boats during the search for a missing fisherman off the coast of Massachusetts.

Text and illustrations describe the step-by-step planning and construction of a house.

Detailed drawings and brief text document the shape and function of such heavy machinery as compactors, excavators, graders, crawlers, and cranes.

A biography of the second president of the United States which focuses on his childhood and young adulthood.

Drawings and text present instructions for building sandcastles like the real stone and mortar ones of long ago. Includes descriptions of castle life and explains the roles of such people as the master of hounds, scribe, and page.

While spending the day alone on an island near his Cape Cod home, a fifteen-year-old suddenly finds himself transported back in time where he is befriended by a boy who will grow up to be his grandfather.