Showing results by narrator "Maria Pendolino" in All Categories

When Ashley Shew became a self-described "hard-of-hearing chemobrained amputee with Crohn's disease and tinnitus," there was no returning to "normal." Suddenly well-meaning people called her an "inspiration" while grocery shopping or viewed her as a needy recipient of technological wizardry. Most disabled people don't want what the abled assume they want—nor are they generally asked. In vibrant prose, Shew shows how we can create better narratives and more accessible futures by drawing from the insights of the cross-disability community.

When volcanoes blow their top, watch out! They can blast out dangerous lava, rocks, ash, and steam that can contain clouds of poisonous gas. But when lava cools, it becomes rock, which in turn creates new land.

Christy Dooley is on a famine ship headed to America from Ireland. Just before the St. John reaches Massachusetts, though, it wrecks. He wants to make sure his mother knows what happened to him, so he puts a message and his St. Christopher medal in a bottle and tosses it overboard.

Created by the Araucanian god, Ngueneche, the araucaria tree is sacred to the Araucanian people of Chile. It produces large cones of edible seeds called pinyon nuts every year, but the Araucanians never ate them out of respect for Ngueneche. During one particularly hard winter, however, their survival is on the line. How will they reconcile their beliefs with their survival?

White Rabbit, an Ojibwe Native American, helplessly watches as her village begins to suffer from a deadly winter disease. When her brother Running Wolf falls ill, she plans to bring back more healing herbs from a neighboring village. When White Rabbit races through the snow, she ends up leaving behind a new flower that appears in the spring.

Every country may have different foods, but almost all of them have a dish with noodles. All around the world, kids share their favorite regional pasta dish. What is your favorite sauce and noodle recipe? Do you share the same favorite as other kids from your country?

If you’re looking for a great invention, look no further than your bathroom or kitchen! Did you know that the first flushing toilet was invented four thousand years ago? Or that a melted chocolate bar sparked the discovery of the microwave? Learn about these great inventions and more!

Priya just moved to Texas from India and is now the new girl at school. The other kids at school don’t understand her food or her culture, so she struggles to find her identity. What she doesn’t realize, though, is that she may not be the only “new kid” who shares that struggle.

What kinds of plants grow in the garden? Carrots, radishes, and … a furry plant?

Kanikiya loves to dance! Every day she goes to the river to dance with the brolgas, a type of crane native to Australia. She loves to dance with them so much, she wishes she could be a brolga herself! Her mother doesn’t like that she dances so much, though, and warns her with legends of what happens to girls who don’t work. What would happen if she had to stop?

For engineers and architects, mistakes are part of the creative process. Learn why the Leaning Tower of Pisa leans, how the reflections from the Walt Disney Concert Hall caused a heat ray, and what engineers and architects did to solve these types of problems.

Join us as we go on a journey into the world of symmetry! Learn about the wonders of line symmetry—or reflection—as you create mirror images and watch how rotational symmetry works in this brief peek into this area of geometry.

Who were Pocahontas and the Powhatan Indians? They were the Native Americans living in Virginia who met the English settlers when they arrived in 1607. Learn about their culture and how they celebrated their harvest every year!

Did you know that Hawaii is still being built, even today? Heidi learns all about how Kilauea, the most active volcano in the world, erupts and spills more lava every day, making the island grow! She also gets to visit Mauna Loa, the biggest mountain in the world. What do you think it might be like to visit?

Emma Edmonds, a woman disguised as Private Frank Thompson, earned a spot in U.S. history as a successful Union spy during the American Civil War. At different times, she also posed as an Irish peddler woman, a black laundress, and a Confederate sympathizer.

Yo'ee is a shy child and learns to weave baskets like her grandmother. One day, she discovers how to tell stories without speaking a word.

A brave young girl named Irene talks about a disease she has—type 1 diabetes—and how she and her dad work together to keep her healthy. Irene and her father teach all of her friends about her disease and how it can affect someone's body. She teaches them about blood sugar tests, insulin, and why and how people have diabetes. By teaching all of her friends about diabetes, she is able to teach everyone at the park that while she might have a disease, it does not mean she is not a normal little girl.

Magazine articles don't just magically appear on the page. Good writers grab your attention. Then they keep you reading.

If you want to be an on-camera TV host, this book will help you to take that desire and mix it with goals, an action plan, training, and discipline to become good at hosting on camera and ultimately paid to do it or to drive your business.

Bear and Mouse cannot agree on home decor—should it be plain or fancy? They have different opinions, but that’s okay! When Bear needs to go out of town, he asks Mouse to house-sit for him. She agrees, but thinks his house is far too plain and lonely! What will Bear come home to?