Fairy Child

"What is your favorite story?" is the question children across the country often ask professional storyteller Pleasant DeSpain. As he attempts to answer, his list grows longer and longer, until he confesses he likes them all. An untiring researcher of oral traditions, DeSpain is known for his concise versions of world folktales specifically crafted for retelling. This new, digital recording of 10 stories is excerpted from DeSpain's 22 Splendid Tales to Tell from Around the World, Volume One.

A classic fable from Rudyard Kipling's Just So Stories, read by Johnny Morris. Have you ever wondered how and why the animals came to be as they are? In these magical tales, drawn from stories he heard as a child in India as well as on folk traditions he later collected all over the world, Rudyard Kipling gives some wonderfully imaginative explanations.

Did you ever look carefully at a spider's webs? Did you ever wonder what causes thunder and lighting? Why do dogs chase cats? Why does it look like there's a man in the moon? In this delightful recording of tales from around the world, each story explains why an animal, plant, or natural object looks or acts the way it does.

Mama believed the woman who dies with the most fabric scraps wins. She saved scraps from odd sewing jobs for neighbors. She saved buttons from old winter coats and birthday dresses. Mama had a button from Daddy's first uniform and another from Grandma's cloth coat, and every button in the box came with a story. In her trademark Texas twang, award-winning storyteller Barbara McBride-Smith recounts stories from her family that speak to all of us.

Alan Bennett reads The Owl and the Pussy-Cat and Other Nonsense Rhymes by Edward Lear. The poems and limericks include "The Daddy Long-Legs and the Fly", "The Owl and the Pussy-Cat", "The Duck and the Kangaroo", "The Table and the Chair", "The Broom, the Shovel, the Poker and the Tongs", "Mr and Mrs Discobbolos", "The Nutcrackers and the Sugar Tongs", "The Two Old Bachelors", "The Pobble Who Has No Toes", "The Jumblies", "The Dog with a Luminous Nose", and many more.

Newly re-mastered for digital formats, this is the definitive recording of Hans Christian Andersen's six best-loved stories. Narrator Diane Wolkstein, the artistic director of the Hans Christian Andersen Center in New York City, tells Andersen stories throughout the world. She is the author of 23 award-winning books of folklore and has been honored by the National Storytelling Network as a recipient of its coveted Circle of Excellence Award, a designation reserved for America's best living storytellers.

Jumbeelia the young giantess loves to hear the old story about the iggly plop who climbed up the bimplestonk to the giants' land of Groil. Then, one day, she throws a bimple over the edge of Groil. Down, down, down Jumbeelia climbs, right down into the land of the iggly plops, where she discovers Colette, Poppy, and Stephen Jones; puts them into her canvas bag; and carries them back to Groil. Soon, the children find themselves shut in her dollhouse, with no visible means of escape.

One week after their 11th birthday, the Fowl twins - scientist Myles, and Beckett, the force of nature - are left in the care of house security (NANNI) for a single night. In that time they befriend a troll who has clawed his way through the earth's crust to the surface. Unfortunately for the troll, he is being chased by a nefarious nobleman and an interrogating nun, who both need the magical creature for their own gain, as well as a fairy-in-training who has been assigned to protect him. The boys and their new troll best friend escape and go on the run.

Blue Sargent has found things. For the first time in her life, she has friends she can trust, a group to which she can belong. The Raven Boys have taken her in as one of their own. Their problems have become hers, and her problems have become theirs. The trick with found things, though, is how easily they can be lost. Friends can betray. Mothers can disappear. Visions can mislead. Certainties can unravel.

Mal, Evie, Carlos, and Jay may be the children of terrible villains, but they’re fitting in amazingly well on Auradon. Well, at least most of them are. For Mal, the pressure to be royally perfect is too intense, so she returns to her rotten roots on the Isle of the Lost. But Mal soon finds that her archenemy, Uma, the daughter of Ursula, has taken her spot as self-proclaimed Princess of Evil.

Prilla, the newest fairy to arrive in Never Land, is so odd that Never Land itself isn't certain whether to let her into Fairy Haven. Prilla shakes hands when she meets other fairies, and she says "Pleased to meet you", instead of "Fly with you". What's more, she calls Tinker Bell Miss Bell. Altogether, she acts more like a Clumsy than a self-respecting Never fairy should.

The second epic installment of Brandon Mull’s #1 New York Times bestselling fantasy series!After the cliffhanger ending of A World Without Heroes, Jason is back in the world he’s always known - yet for all his efforts to get home, he finds himself itching to return to Lyrian. Jason knows that the shocking truth he learned from Maldor is precious information that all of his friends in Lyrian, including Rachel, need if they have any hope of surviving and defeating the evil emperor.

Sviska is a man of the shadows, an assassin without any one place to call his own. But in the Far North, he discovers a secret. Magic, long thought lost to the world, is alive. The genocide to destroy every elf, wizard, and sacred being of old is not yet complete. Sviska's masters work the strings of the world and he has been sent for a task he does not even fully understand yet. When at last he feels he has what he has always wanted, darkness falls upon the world.

Young Trot and the old captain, peg-legged Cap'n Bill, might seem like odd friends, but they are constant companions and Cap'n Bill taught her to love and appreciate the ocean. Trot was especially fascinated by the idea of mermaids and talked about them often with Cap'n Bill, who warned that no one who had met a mermaid had ever lived to tell the tale. One day while out sailing around, the pair is greeted by a beautiful mermaid who extends an invitation for them to come and visit their underwater kingdom and even become mermaids themselves for the adventure.

In a remote mountain valley lives a special pack of wolves—one night a month, when the moon is full, they turn into werewolves. Little werewolves are taught never to venture to the far side of one mountain because of the grave dangers there. But the youngest daughter of the pack’s alpha wolf just can’t contain her curiosity. She sneaks a peek at the forbidden side to discover it is a ski resort, where she befriends a young boy. But will their friendship survive if he discovers her dark secret?

"La sorcière de la rue Mouffetard", "Le géant aux chaussettes rouges", "La sorcière du placard aux balais"... Avec une malice et un humour contagieux, Pierre Gripari et François Morel nous font partager ces 13 contes modernes, insolites et savoureux! Celui qui a su ouvrir de nouvelles portes à l'imaginaire en inversant les codes du conte classique continue de faire rire et rêver avec un univers poétique et facétieux adoré des enfants.

My friend Robin and I were going to have the best sleepover ever. We'd stay up late, eat s'mores, share secrets - and not knock on my magic mirror. I was not getting pulled into another fairy tale. But the mirror still ends up pulling me and my brother, Jonah, into Sleeping Beauty's story - and this time, Robin comes with us, too! When Robin pricks her finger on the spindle, I know we're in trouble.

Of course you think I was the bad guy, terrifying poor little Jack. You don't know the other side of the story. Well, let me tell you....

The Bremen Town Musicians never wanted to be heroes. They wanted a recording contract! At least that's the story listeners hear from the donkey's point of view in this charming twist on a classic fairy tale that supports curriculum standards.

Tania "Thumbelina" Pulgar may be small, but she's fierce in the wrestling ring. When her friend Jorge “The Mouse” Mendoza introduces her to a manager named Mr. Mole, she’s promised a pro career full of fame and fortune. But soon Thumbelina is miserable as she's dragged from match to match and forced into a flashy new persona that just isn’t a good fit. Can the little wrestler break free of Mr. Mole’s hold and live her own life?