Showing results by narrator "Em Grosland" in All Categories

With DJ and HILO's help, can Gina find the key to turn the world back to what it was? Find out in Hilo 8—a laugh-out-loud, action-packed adventure filled with epic battles! True friendship! Good jokes! Bad jokes! Giant (hilarious) monsters! Spoiled royals! Prophecies! Good! Evil! And much, much more!

“Short stories have to accomplish a nearly impossible magic trick: to introduce a world often much stranger than our own and make you care about it in a matter of pages,” writes R. F. Kuang in her introduction. “The most important part of this magic trick is just a willingness to get weird.” The stories in The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2023 are brimming with bizarre and otherworldly premises.

Andrew's just trying to get through school photo day with one aim: a photo of him which his mum will like. But today of all days, the world seems out to get him. There's a bully, the science experiment gone wrong, scary news about his grandmother, and someone else's juice snot (don't ask). Andrew struggles with anxiety, and the little kernel of worry in his stomach is getting hotter and hotter . . . Can he make it through the day without popping?

Life in a remote fishing village in the middle of a civil war is neither safe nor inspiring. So, when an opportunity comes along for village girl Lynn to be kidnapped and enslaved by Darren, a ruthless pirate queen, she takes full advantage of it. But Darren is neither as ruthless nor as piratical as she appears at first glance--and Lynn's not exactly what she seems to be, either.

As many have discovered during the COVID-19 pandemic, working from home certainly has its perks. From the easy (non)commute to your computer to the extra time you can spend with your family and pets to the benefits of customizing your environment to your own personal needs, many are continuing to enjoy the work-from-home lifestyle. But it also comes with its challenges. How do you avoid distractions around your home? How can you remain as productive as you are in the office? That’s where Work-from-Home Hacks comes in to help!

From the vast lore surrounding King Arthur, Camelot, and the Knights of the Round Table comes an anthology of gender-bent, race-bent, LGBTQIA+ inclusive retellings.

The nine stories in Morgan Thomas’ shimmering debut collection, Manywhere, witness Southern queer and genderqueer characters determined to find themselves reflected in the annals of history, at whatever cost. As each character traces deceit and violence through Southern tall tales and their own pasts, their journeys reveal the porous boundaries of body, land, and history, and the sometimes ruthless awakenings of self-discovery.

Our Red Book takes us through stories of first periods, last periods, missing periods, and everything about bleeding that people wish they had been told. Weaving together powerful voices—from teenagers, midwives, Indigenous scholars, Olympic athletes, incarcerated writers, disoriented fathers, elected leaders who fought to make period products free, friends transitioning genders, grandmothers, and lovers—the book invites us on a collective journey of growth and change, with Rachel’s own voice as a guide.

Would-be amusement park aficionado Dalia only has two items on her summer bucket list: (1) finally ride a roller coaster and (2) figure out how to make a new best friend. But when her dad suddenly announces that he's engaged, Dalia's schemes come to a screeching halt. With Dalia's future stepsister Alexa heading back to college soon, the grown-ups want the girls to spend the last weeks of summer bonding--meaning Alexa has to cancel the amusement park road trip she's been planning for months.

"Your authenticity is your superpower." That's the motto that professional skateboarder Leo Baker lives by and champions. But like any hero's journey, learning about their power didn't come easy. In this installment of the Pocket Change Collective, Baker takes the listener on a complicated, powerful journey through the world of skate and competitive sport as a non-binary athlete.

Every year, tens of thousands of children write to Highlights magazine, sharing their hopes and dreams, worries and concerns, as if they were writing to a trusted friend. From the beginning, the editors at Highlights have answered every child individually. Longtime editor in chief Christine French Cully has curated a collection of this remarkable correspondence (letters, emails, and poems) in Dear Highlights - revealing an intimate and inspiring 75-year conversation between America’s children and its leading children’s magazine.

Carla Michaels' life isn't what she thought it was. She met her loving husband in college. She had a career as a teacher. All she ever wanted to complete her life was a baby. After five miscarriages, Carla had almost given up hope of ever becoming a mother. Then a devastating tragedy strikes, and everything she had ever loved is gone - now she's left torn and shattered, wondering if she can go on with life. Unexpectedly, she receives an envelope full of books - journals that were kept hidden from her.

Cociel couldn't take it anymore. Like all the other mice on the Reservation, he was ruled by the tyrannical cats of the Kingdom, especially their so-called prime minister, the brutal and greedy Whiska. But all the other mice were terrified of taking action, and for good reason: Cociel's own mother had been jailed, as so many other mice had been.

Pregnancy can be a scary yet exciting feeling at the same time. There are many questions and concerns that soon-to-be mothers address on a daily basis, but where do they get their answers from? There is no better way to prepare yourself for what lies ahead than listening. Individuals have been kind enough to share their knowledge and experience with us, so why not take advantage of that?

A novella about a boy named Mick and his struggles with life. His parents' divorce and a friend's suicide make his world unbearable. Each cut has a deeper meaning. A cry for help. I spin my dad's Ruger SP101 revolver on the wood floor of my bedroom. Sometimes, just to see what it feels like, I place the tip of the gun against my temple, but I never once pull the trigger. NO! I'm more into the slice of the blade against my skin and the blood running down my arm. It relieves so much pressure. And I can breathe again....

Explore new and familiar worlds where the human consciousness can be uploaded into a body on Mars … an alien helps a girl decide if she should tell her best friend how she feels … two teens get stuck in a time loop at a space station … people are forced to travel to the past or the future to escape the dying planet … only a non-binary person can translate the binary code of a machine that predicts the future … everyone in the world vanishes except for two teen girls who are in love.

Phoebe is a wish-granting fairy who doesn’t believe in children. Birdie, Gem, and Van are sixth graders who don’t believe in fairies. But deep down, each of them has a wish. Birdie and Gem have been best friends forever, but now things are changing, and Birdie doesn’t know why. Birdie feels left behind, while Gem feels she’s growing up too fast and no one understands what it’s like. Van is lonely, far from their friends in Ireland who never thought that being nonbinary was such a big deal.

It's exhausting trying to be the perfect daughter. Still, getting good grades without making any waves may be the only way to distract from the fact that Sparrow Malone's mother is on the verge of falling apart. Which means no getting upset. No being weird. No standing out for the wrong reasons.

The stories in this anthology range from quietly strange to ambitiously speculative. Humans transform into cosmic energy or sentient algae. A man wakes up in a new body in a world with continents cut out, months absent from the calendar year, and souls misplaced. Students at a high school regularly vanish without a trace. A woman descends into the depths of the ocean and encounters all-knowing creatures who may have the answers to her deepest questions.

Andrew’s just trying to make it through Picture Day, which is easier said than done when it seems like the whole world is out to get him—from a bully to a science experiment gone wrong to a someone else’s juice snot (don’t ask). But as Andrew goes through the school day, and as one thing after another goes wrong, that little kernel of worry in his stomach is getting hotter and hotter, until it threatens to pop and turn into a public panic attack, his worst fear. He tries to keep his anxiety at bay, but the news that his grandmother with Alzheimer’s is missing is too much.