Regarding the fiction novels...
It was falsely presumed, before the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration, that the further South one sailed, the warmer the waters become. This is true, until one passes the equator and continues deeper south. Antarctica, as we know today, is not a tropical land filled with cannibalistic tribes, as depicted in these two famous novels below. Rather, it is a frozen desert too punishing for permanent human habitation. This tidbit of information showcases the wonderful scientific advancements made just in the last 150 years, thanks largely to the explorers and their crews who braved earth's harshest climate in pursuit of truth.
Do you prefer to read a print book? Look for the following titles in your local libraries:
From Amazon: "Maximum Ride is a perfectly normal teenager who just happens to be able to fly, the result of an out-of-control government experiment. Max and the other members of the Flock-six kids who share her remarkable ability-have been asked to aid a group of environmental scientists studying the causes of global warming. The expedition seems like a perfect combination of adventure, activism-and escaping government forces who watch the Flock like a hawk.
But even in Antarctica, trapped in the harshest weather on our planet, Maximum Ride is an irresistible target in constant danger. For whoever controls her powers could also control the world . . . "
Grayson Branch - JF PAT
Olive Hill Branch - YA PATT
From the Publisher: "An introduction to regions with cold climates, including Earth's polar regions and high-elevation mountain regions, with information about the animals, plants, and people that live there and the explorers who first described these areas. Features include fact boxes, illustrations, period photographs, a glossary, and a list of recommended books and websites"
Grayson Branch - JNF 911
From the Publisher: "Walter Dean Myers presents a thrilling record of Antarctica and the expedition parties that have uncovered the frozen continent throughout history. Walter Dean Myers brings the dramatic race to the South Pole to life in Antarctica, tracking the explorers of the South Pole - including James Cook, Ernest Shackleton, and Richard Evelyn Bird - and the dangers they encountered there, as well as their contributions to science. The heroism and adventure - and sometimes the ultimate failure - of the expeditions are depicted in Myers's powerful prose, and through the photos, maps, and illustrations that complement the text."
Call Number: J 919.89 M9929a
From Nature.com: "UNDER this somewhat obscure title is hidden one of the most delightful naturalist log-books ever published. It dates from 1912 when Dr. R. C. Murphy followed his university course with a trip on the New Bedford whaling and sealing brig Daisy on a round trip in the South Atlantic to South Georgia and back...The diary treats chiefly of whales, penguins and albatrosses, but has many human touches and reflexions on whalemen and others. It is a lively book, and at the time of writing must have contained much about the life of the southern ocean and its islands that was fresh and unknown. If modern whaling, as well as several Antarctic expeditions, have made South Georgia and its animal life better known, Dr. Murphy's observations are so lively and exhaustive that their freshness and vivacity are unimpaired."
Call Number: 919.89 M978l
From Amazon.com: "Frozen Secrets is the tale of a continent, the inside story of the critical, cutting-edge research that brave men and women from around the world have done and still do in Antarctica."
From Open Library: "Felicity Aston, physicist and meteorologist, took two months off from all human contact as she became the first woman -- and only the third person in history - to ski across the entire continent of Antarctica alone...Aston's journey across the ice at the bottom of the world asked of her the extremes in terms of mental and physical bravery, as she faced the risks of unseen cracks buried in the snow so large they might engulf her and hypothermia due to brutalizing weather. She had to deal, too, with her emotional vulnerability in face of the constant bombardment of hallucinations brought on by the vast sea of whiteness, the lack of stimulation to her senses as she faced what is tantamount to a form of solitary confinement."
From Cambridge University Press: "Frederick Cook (1865–1940) gives a detailed account of his experiences on the Belgian Antarctic Expedition, the first to endure the harsh winter of the Antarctic. The goal of the expedition was scientific discovery, and Cook, the ship's doctor, tells an engaging story of 'new human experience in a new, inhuman world of ice'. Boarding the Belgica in Rio de Janeiro, he joined a crew that included Roald Amundsen, who would later lead a Norwegian expedition to the South Pole. Cook describes the challenging conditions in the Antarctic Circle, where the ship became ice-bound for almost a year, with over two months of total darkness."
From Wikipedia: "Written in 1897, it is a continuation of Edgar Allan Poe's 1838 novel The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket. It follows the adventures of the narrator and his journey from the Kerguelen Islands aboard Halbrane."
From Wikipedia: "The story details the events of a disastrous expedition to Antarctica in September 1930, and what is found there by a group of explorers led by the narrator, Dr. William Dyer of Miskatonic University. Throughout the story, Dyer details a series of previously untold events in the hope of deterring another group of explorers who wish to return to the continent. These events include the discovery of an ancient civilization older than the human race, and realization of Earth's past told through various sculptures and murals."
From LibriVox: "Shackleton's most famous expedition was planned to be an attempt to cross Antarctica from the Weddell Sea south of the Atlantic to the Ross Sea south of the Pacific, by way of the Pole. It set out from London on 1 August 1914 and reached the Weddell Sea on January 10, 1915, where the pack ice closed in on the Endurance. The ship was broken by the ice on 27 October 1915. The 28 crew members managed to flee to Elephant Island, bringing three small boats with them."
From LibriVox: James Marr was a Boy Scout selected to go along with Sir Ernest Shackleton aboard the Quest in 1921 for the Shackleton–Rowett Expedition to Antarctica. This book provides a description of what would be Shackleton's last exploration due to his untimely death en route. - Summary by mleigh."
From LibriVox: "The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket is Edgar Allan Poe’s only complete novel, published in 1838.
The work relates the tale of the young Arthur Gordon Pym who stows away aboard a whaling ship called Grampus. Various adventures and mis-adventures befall Pym including shipwreck, mutiny and cannibalism. The story starts out as a fairly conventional adventure at sea, but it becomes increasingly strange and hard to classify in later chapters, involving religious symbolism and the Hollow Earth. (Summary from Wikipedia)"
From LibriVox: "This satiric romance is the story of Adam More, a British sailor. Shipwrecked in Antarctica, he stumbles upon a tropical lost world of prehistoric animals, plants, and a cult of death-worshipping primitives. He also finds a highly developed human society which has reversed the values of Victorian society. Wealth is scorned and poverty revered; death and darkness are preferable to life and light..."
