Book excerpt: Fully-illustrated and with a fun and innovative flip-book format, the book provides the perfect way to explore and compare the extreme environments of the two Poles. Take a trip to the ends of the earth and discover the extreme environments of the North and South Poles. Find out which animals live where, what the weather and climate is like and the effect global warming is having. Beginning with the North Pole, the book introduces the geography and climate of the Arctic. Readers will discover how climate change is affecting sea ice and why multi-year ice is so important to walruses and polar bears. Find out what ice floes are and what lives under the ice. The many uses of the Arctic are explained, from the home it provides to whale hunters to the rocket and missile test sites it houses. And then flip the book over and you arrive in the South Pole… The famous race to reach the Pole in 1911 is retold and readers will discover why the orca is the ultimate polar predator. The huge tabular icebergs, sub-glacial lakes and ice chimneys of the Antarctic are brought to life in all their impressive glory, not to mention the sea spiders, 'death star' starfish and other undersea giants!