Showing results by narrator "Catherine Ho" in All Categories

Before Carl Linnaeus began classifying organisms, before John James Audubon drew birds from the wild, before Charles Darwin proposed his theory of evolution, there lived a 13-year-old girl named Maria Merian who loved to draw bugs. With no formal training or university education, Maria Merian took on the role of artist, adventurer, and scientist in 17th-century Europe - a time when women were rarely allowed responsibilities outside the home, and unusual interests led to accusations of witchcraft.

In a world where nutrition can be transferred via a pill, and society is split into Eaters and Non-Eaters, 17-year-old Princess Vela has a grave dilemma. Her father, the king, is dying, and only a transplant of organs from a healthy Non-Eater boy will save him. Vela is tasked with choosing a boy fit to die for the king, which is impossible enough. But then Carr, the boy she's loved all her life, emerges as the best candidate in the Bittersweet Trials. And he's determined to win, because by doing so, he can save the life of his Non-Eater sister.

On Choosing Day, children of Adranna who reach the age of 14 are finally eligible to undergo the tests to determine if they are worthy of bonding a Frostsliver. Only one in a hundred are destined to succeed. If chosen, they will have to climb to the top of the glacier and cut a piece off for themselves, so that they may be granted the powers they've always dreamed of. When Sabira is chosen, an entire world of possibilities opens up to her. But in order to see it through, she'll have to embark on a dangerous pilgrimage to the top of the glacier.

The Parent Trap meets The Vanishing Half in Rioghnach Robinson and Siofra Robinson's Look No Further, a gripping YA novel about estranged siblings who meet for the first time at art camp and confront their differing experiences of race and identity.

Vivian Yin is dead. The first Chinese actress to win an Oscar, the trailblazing ingénue rose to fame in the eighties, only to disappear from the spotlight at the height of her career to live out the rest of her life as a recluse. Now her remaining family members are gathered for the reading of her will, and her daughters expect to inherit their childhood home: Vivian’s grand, sprawling, Southern California garden estate. But due to a last-minute change to the will, the house is passed on to another family instead—one that has suddenly returned after decades of estrangement.

The Ragpicker—a man, bonded into a mysterious 'secondskin' that has prolonged his life after the digital apocalypse—wanders the lush, deserted Earth, haunted by failing avatars and fragmented texts. He’s searching for traces of his long-dead husband but his journey is interrupted by a girl, Ysmany, fleeing her remote village in order to save a baby orphaned by a military-grade secondskin, ‘The Server,’ the fanatical ruler of their town. Together they cross the flourishing, treacherous landscape towards sanctuary.

The Truth About Dragons follows a young child on a journey guided by his mother's bedtime storytelling. He quests into two very different forests, as his two grandmothers help him discover two different, but equally enchanting, truths about dragons.

You might know that capybaras are totally adorable and are related to guinea pigs, but there’s so much more to learn about these cuddly creatures! Discover how capybaras are perfectly adapted to swimming, why they like birds riding on their backs, and what makes them eat their own poop! You’ll also discover what it takes to become a capybara zoologist. Filled with simple science and plenty of animal facts, it’s a must for all capybara fans!

Bodies are serious, irreverent, sexy, fragile, strong, political, and inseparable from our experiences and identities as human beings. Pushing the dialogue and confronting monolithic myths, this collection of essays tackles topics like weight, disability, desire, fertility, illness, and the embodied experience of race in deep, challenging ways.

Ellie stops for a friendly chat with gardener Eduardo Fuentes while patrolling one of Los Angeles's premier concert halls. A few minutes later she's shocked to discover him lying at the bottom of a staircase, clinging to life and whispering something indecipherable. Nearby, the father of Xu, a Chinese superstar classical musician, claims Fuentes was knocked down while attempting to steal his son's multimillion-dollar cello—a story Ellie has trouble believing.

In a world gone wrong, heroes and villains are not always easy to distinguish and every individual has the ability to contribute something powerful. In this stunning collection of original and rediscovered stories of tragedy and hope, the stars are a diverse group of students, street kids, good girls, kidnappers, and child laborers pitted against their environments, their governments, differing cultures, and sometimes one another as they seek answers in their dystopian worlds.

Previously two separate audiobooks, this audio bundle combines both 100 Ways to Happy and 100 Ways to Calm and provides you with twice as many simple activities and exercises for creating joy and instilling tranquility in your life whenever you need it most.

Bike cop Ellie Rush dreams of becoming a homicide detective, but it's still a shock when the first dead body she encounters on the job is that of a former college classmate. At the behest of her Aunt Cheryl, the highest-ranking Asian-American officer in the LAPD (a source of pride for Ellie's grandmother, but annoyance to her mom), Ellie becomes tangled in the investigation of the coed's murder—with equal parts help and hindrance from her nosy best friend, her over-involved ex-boyfriend, a smoldering detective, and seemingly everyone else in her extended family.

Felicity has always been hesitant in the kitchen herself after many failed attempts, but a takeout meal gone wrong inspires her to craft some handmade fortune cookies. They become so popular that Felicity runs out of generic fortunes and starts making her own personalized predictions. When one customer’s ill-fated fortune results in his murder, Felicity’s suspiciously specific fortune has the police focusing on her as the main culprit. Now she must find a way to turn her luck around and get cleared from suspicion.

From 1949 to 1950, the People's Liberation Army (PLA) made crucial decisions to establish a navy and secure China's periphery. The civil war had been fought with a peasant army, yet in order to capture key offshore islands from the Nationalist rival, Mao Zedong needed to develop maritime capabilities. Mao's Army Goes to Sea is a ground-breaking history of the founding of the Chinese navy and Communist China's earliest island-seizing campaigns.

In a world of magic and war, a fierce Demon King formed a pact with the mortal kingdoms: Every 25 years he will choose a human partner that he must try to love for 100 days. If he falls in love, the partner will have the power to kill him. Many centuries later, the Demon King meets a gruesome fate at the hands of the girl he loves. His death sparks the beginning of the end of the world. Aster, a farmer’s daughter turned mage, narrowly survived the apocalypse and now seeks an ancient magical entity to save what remains.

A year has passed since the disastrous Elysium massacre that left Keiko "Kei" Springs traumatized and hungry for revenge against her former mentor, Snake. However, going after the world's second most powerful man is not as easy as it sounds. Kei must make a series of deadly alliances and navigate the complicated web of politics that will give her a chance to take him down. But will going after him destroy the family she's managed to build?

Composed of several interconnected stories, each taking place in a year ending with the number six, ironically a number that in Chinese divination signifies “a smooth life,” Dear Chrysanthemums is a novel about the scourge of inhumanity, survival, and past trauma that never leaves. The women in these stories are cooks, musicians, dancers, protestors, mothers and daughters, friends and enemies, all inexplicably connected in one way or another.

Juliana Zhao is absolutely certain of a few things: 1. She is the world’s foremost expert on love. 2. She is going to win the nationally renowned Asian Americans in Business Competition. When Juliana is unceremoniously dropped by her partner and she’s forced to pair with her nonconformist and annoying frenemy, Garrett Tsai, everything seems less clear. Their joint dating advice column must be good enough to win and secure bragging rights within her small Taiwanese American community, where her family’s reputation has been in the pits since her older sister was disowned a few years prior.

Ex-Rider Keiko "Kei" Springs was living with her adopted daughter Becky away from her previous life of crime. Unfortunately, the past is not easy to escape and her sadistic former sensei, Snake, gives her an ultimatum: perform eight tasks for him or die. The final mission before her freedom is nearly impossible, though. Snake wants her to take down a luxury resort where the super-rich are implanted with their heart's desires, only to be brainwashed into serial killers for blackmail potential.