Showing results by narrator "Ramon de-Ocampo" in All Categories

Blown helplessly off course by a sudden gale, 14-year-old Andy Galloway is washed ashore on Admiralty Island, an immense wilderness known as the "Fortress of the Bears". As he struggles to survive, Andy discovers an unlikely ally in a large dog running with a pack of wolves. The dog leads Andy to food: but also to the strange cave of a mysterious, and almost certainly dangerous, hermit.

A championship surfer, Jack Lopez accurately depicts the art of surfing in this tale described as The Outsiders for a new age.

In the Break tells the story of 15-year-old Jamie and Juan, best friends who live and breathe surfing. They don’t have a care in the world when they’re out on the water. But when an argument between Jamie and his abusive step-father comes to blows, Jamie turns to the one person who can help. Together the two (plus Jamie’s sister Amber) head for Mexico - surfboards stowed in the back.

The second volume in the Guys Read Library of Great Reading is chock-full of mystery, intrigue, and nefarious activity. Featuring some of the best writers around, and compiled by certified guy Jon Scieszka, Guys Read: Thriller is a pulse-pounding collection of brand-new short stories, each one guaranteed to keep you riveted until the final page.

At their renowned writing school, every student is simultaneously terrified of and attracted to the charismatic poet and professor Miranda Sturgis, whose high standards for art are both intimidating and inspiring. As two students, Roman and Bernard, strive to win her admiration, the lines between mentorship, friendship, and love are blurred. Roman’s first book wins a prestigious prize. Meanwhile, Bernard labors for years over a single poem. Secrets of the past begin to surface, and friendships are broken....

New York Times Notable Book author Charles Yu wrote the best-selling novel How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe. In his stunning, often humorous, collection Sorry Please Thank You, Yu draws on pop culture and science to make incisive observations about society - and offer touching insight into the human condition. In two of Yu’s remarkable stories, he focuses on a big-box-store night-shift employee with girl trouble and a company that outsources grief for profit.

Dagoberto Gilb has won the PEN/Hemingway Award and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. Sonny Bravo is a young Mexican American struggling to become a man while living with his mom and step-father in a small urban community known as the Flowers. There the assorted residents teach Sonny life lessons, even as racial tensions simmer in the city around them.

Daunted by the hand he has been dealt, 12-year-old Horatio Tuckerman is having a tough time. Two years ago, his dad died of lung cancer. Embittered and anguished, Horatio's life has been a whirlwind of change since losing his best friend. A one-time city kid, Horatio now lives in a small Wisconsin town. His grandfather O.P. (the Old Professor) has moved in and taken over his bedroom. Even worse, his mother Evie, a dentist, is dating a guy nicknamed "Pink Gums Paul."

A young writer, living abroad, returns home to his native Argentina to say goodbye to his dying father. In his parents' house, he finds a cache of documents - articles, maps, photographs - and unwittingly begins to unearth his father’s obsession with the disappearance of a local man. Suddenly he comes face to face with the ghosts of Argentina's dark political past and long-forgotten memories of his family’s resistance against an oppressive military regime.

It's a typical night for high-school senior Jack Danielson. A star football player, he just broke the league rushing record, celebrated at the local diner, and got shot down (again) by his girlfriend. Jack feels he's having "the most normal senior year a guy could have" in "the most normal little town in America". He couldn't be more wrong.

Middle school is off to a rocky start for Marvin Watson. Doomed to misfit status, his only friends are a girl with major orthodontics, the smelliest boy in school, and the trio of sarcastic man-size moths that live in his attic. No one said middle school would be easy! Also, no one said that Marvin's town would be threatened by mutant bugs, including a very hungry Shakespeare-quoting spider. But life in the suburbs is full of surprises.

Henry Leach wants nothing more than for magic to be real and for his little sister, Brianna, to leave him alone. Both wishes come true, but not in the way he expects. As it turns out, Henry's family has a history with magic - a history that dates back to the San Francisco earthquake of 1906. Now his father has been caught up in an evil wizard's scheme, and the last Wandmaker, Coralis, needs Henry's help to save the world. It would be a dream come true for Henry - except that in his first act of magic, he accidentally turns his sister into a hedgehog. Oops!

In this unique fantasy tale set in 1899, teenaged Abel Dandy lives with his parents in Faeryland, a community of human oddities. Abel, who is normal, runs away. But when he gets mixed up with the wicked Dr. Mink and his traveling freak show, dark and dangerous secrets emerge that change Abel’s life forever.

Ranging in age from six to 40, 38 sons and daughters of lesbians offer brief essays that could be valuable to like offspring, as well as to relatives and friends trying to understand the problems such children face. Homophobia, visited upon the children as well as their mothers, is the most commonly cited concern; some younger contributors feel isolated from their peers, and a couple of boys endure rejection from radical lesbian acquaintances.

A literary jigsaw puzzle of a debut novel set in Colombia during the peak of its decades-long conflict, and in New York City. While her parents are away, a teenager finds herself home alone, with the household staff mysteriously gone, no phone connection, and news of an insurgency on the radio - and then she hears a knock at the door.

Oregon teenager and tennis champ Jeff McKenzie can’t wait for summer vacation. But when he decides to take his Bronco for a joyride on the Hamptons’ farm land, he gets into real hot water. As punishment Jeff is ordered to work on the farm for the first few weeks of summer. Getting up early and working with Mexican immigrants just doesn’t appeal to him. The only thing he looks forward to is seeing the Hamptons’ eldest daughter Alexa, who he is quickly falling for. Gradually he comes to appreciate the hardworking people....

While daydreaming, 11-year-old Matt Hamilton gets lost in the mysterious woods of Rathburn Park. A small white dog shows him the way out, but it seems strange that no one else has seen such a dog. It seems stranger still when Matt returns to the woods and meets a girl dressed in old-fashioned clothes. She claims her name is Amelia Rathburn, but the only Rathburn still living is nearly a hundred years old.

Chase and his friends Nicole and Rashawn made it to the safety of Nicole’s family’s farm, the winter home of the Rossi Brothers Circus, but the flood waters are rising and they need to reach higher ground. The lions have escaped their cages and an unpredictable jaguar is on the loose. Have Chase and his friends lived through a terrifying night only to face a new danger?

Chris Brabson hates the Union troops. Yankee riders in the Tennessee mountains have stolen his family's newly harvested crops and their only horse. In spite of this, Chris' brother joins the Union army, and his parents refuse to take either side. But Chris has no doubts, he would fight for the Confederacy. The Perilous Road, a Newbery Honor book, powerfully illustrates the senseless waste of war and the true meaning of courage and tolerance.

After the king of Damask dies, Bad Prince Charlie is put on the throne to divert attention from his uncles' plan-to procure Weapons of Magical Destruction.

Fourteen-year-old Dewy Marriss never imagined America’s gas pumps would dry up the same week he promised to manage his family’s bicycle shop. Suddenly everyone wants a bike, and nobody wants to wait. With his parents stranded far from home, Dewey tries to keep up with his overwhelming responsibilities.