Showing results by narrator "Michael Crouch" in All Categories

Eleven-year-old Jake’s life has just turned upside-down. His father was wounded in Afghanistan, and his mother is going to leave to care for him. That means Jake’s spending the summer on tiny Dewees Island with his grandmother. The island is a nature sanctuary - no cars or paved roads, no stores or restaurants. To make matters worse, Jake’s grandmother doesn’t believe in cable or the internet. Which means Jake has no cell phone, no video games...and no friends. This is going to be the worst summer ever!

After a mostly-successful stint at Hills Valley Middle School, Rafe is excited to visit the incredible city of London with his class. Sightseeing around a foreign country sounds like a blast, until Rafe finds out his roommate is Miller the Killer, bully extraordinaire! Then he's forced to work on a class project side by side with his crush Jeanne Galletta and her too-perfect boyfriend, which might be even worse than rooming with Miller.

Mark is 17 years old and trapped in a time loop, and that’s just fine with him. It’s summertime and he’s spending this one infinitely repeating day reading his way through the town library. Then he discovers someone else in the loop with him: the brilliant, haunted Margaret. Together Mark and Margaret set out to find every wonderful, amazing, perfect thing that happens in that one day - a journey that will take them to the dark secret that waits at the very heart of their endless day.

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!

In the wake of his parents’ tragic deaths in a house fire, fourteen-year-old Richard has been sent to live with his aunt and uncle in the remote, insular town of Ballantyne, where he quickly earns a reputation as an outcast. When a classmate named Tom goes missing, everyone suspects that the angry new boy is responsible for his disappearance. And no one believes Richard when he says the telephone booth out by the edge of the woods sucked Tom into the receiver like something out of a horror movie.

In the former United States, sixteen-year-old Noam Álvaro wakes up in a hospital bed, the sole survivor of the viral magic that killed his family and made him a technopath. His ability to control technology attracts the attention of the minister of defense and thrusts him into the magical elite of the nation of Carolinia. The son of undocumented immigrants, Noam has spent his life fighting for the rights of refugees fleeing magical outbreaks. Sensing a way to make change, Noam accepts the minister’s offer to teach him the science behind his magic.

With his father’s mysterious disappearance and his brother Ronnie enlisting in the Vietnam War, 13-year-old TJ Crowley is left alone with his racist, unstable mother, Kate. The newly enforced Fair Housing Act results in the unthinkable for the Crowleys when a Black family, headed by the eminent Dr. Washington, crosses the racial red line and moves in next door. Kate is quick to warn TJ that their new neighbors are strictly off-limits and makes a panicked call to beg Ray, her old flame, to travel to their home in Wichita Kansas to help deal with “the problem next door.”

For centuries, the Kingdom of Eledore has relied upon the kainen race's natural magical talents to retain its elevated and seemingly impervious status in the world, particularly above the humans in Acrasia. Plots and assassination attempts grow against the royal twin heirs, Nels and Suvi, as the Acrasians seem to be doing more than saber rattling against what they see as an evil, tyrannical nation.

Every year, the five kingdoms send their finest magic users to the Ink Academy to learn the sacred art of ink manipulation and create intricate tattoos of great power. Ry knows this because he sits in their classrooms, his inkless condition so awful even the vachi, tiny flying lizards attracted to the ink, can't stand to come near him. His grey eyes mark him a Repeller, and his only value to society is keeping the vachi away from his betters.

Yeerk ships are pouring in from all ends of the galaxy—this is it. What will be the climactic, awful battle the Animorphs have been waiting for. Rachel has always been prepared for all out war, perhaps a little too ready. The President of the United States is a Controller, so the Animorphs have to rally their own military force. They succeed. Five thousand troops will fight against the seemingly endless onslaught of Yeerks. And this time, there will be no compromise. No half way. It's all out war for the Animorphs. It's Rachel's moment.

Rafe and Jimmy, two misunderstood "troublemakers", are finally up to something good. They're in charge of a huge celebration of books and reading - but when a small issue snowballs into a big problem that threatens to derail the whole event, they need to work fast to keep things on track! And the best part? Rafe and Jimmy are joined by the funniest storytellers they know, including Jamie Grimm from I Funny, Jacky Ha-Ha, the Kidd family of Treasure Hunters, and super-genius Max Einstein - everyone's favorite characters from James Patterson's best-selling series for kids!

When Beck’s emotionally fragile dad starts dating the recently single (and supposedly lesbian) mom of former bully, Jaxon Parker, Beck is not having it. Jax isn’t happy about the situation either, holding out hope that his moms will reunite and restore the only stable home he’s ever known. Putting aside past differences, the boys plot to derail the budding romance between their parents at their conservative hometown’s first-ever Rainbow Prom. Hearts will be broken, new romance will bloom, but nothing will go down the way Beck and Jax have planned.

Lewis Madigan is young, gay, out of work, and getting antsy when he’s roped into providing end-of-life care for his insufferable homophobic neighbor, Chester Wheeler. Lewis doesn’t need the aggravation, just the money. The only requirements: run errands, be on call, and put up with a miserable old churl no one else in Buffalo can bear. After exchanging barbs, bickering, baiting, and pushing buttons, Chester hits Lewis with the big ask. Lewis can’t say no to a dying wish.

High school junior Blaine Bowers has it all—the perfect boyfriend, a pretty sweet gig as a muralist for local Windy City businesses, a loving family, and awesome, talented friends. And he is absolutely, 100% positive that aforementioned perfect boyfriend—senior student council president and Mr. Popular of Wicker West High School, Joey—is going to invite Blaine to spend spring break with his family in beautiful, sunny Cabo San Lucas. Except Joey breaks up with him instead. In public. On their one-year anniversary.

Never knowing his parents, eleven-year-old Stewie Little and his brother have been raised on a farm by their older sister. Stewie steadfastly tends the chickens left by his beloved late grandmother. And every day Stewie goes door to door selling fresh eggs from his wagon—a routine with a surprise just around the corner. It’s his new customer, Marilyn. She’s prickly and guarded, yet comfortably familiar—she reminds the grieving Stewie so much of the grandmother he misses more than he can express.

Marty arrives in London with nothing but his oboe and some savings from his summer job, but he's excited to start his new life - where he's no longer the closeted, shy kid who slips under the radar and is free to explore his sexuality without his parents' disapproval. From the outside, Marty's life looks like a perfect fantasy: In the span of a few weeks, he's made new friends, he's getting closer with his first-ever boyfriend, and he's even traveling around Europe. But Marty knows he can't keep up the façade.

Every evening for eight years, at his request, President Obama was given 10 handpicked letters written by ordinary American citizens - the unfiltered voice of a nation - from his Office of Presidential Correspondence. He was the first president to interact daily with constituent mail and to archive it in its entirety. In To Obama, Jeanne Marie Laskas interviews President Obama, the letter writers themselves, and the White House staff who sifted through the powerful, moving, and incredibly intimate narrative of America during the Obama years:

Gordy’s grandfather, Mezzarix, who is a powerful, evil elixirist, stole the Vessel, the source of power for all potion masters. He fled to Florida to establish a headquarters, declare his manifesto - No More Prisons. No More Rulers. No More Secrets - and launch his final attack. Gordy, an apprentice elixirist, has been hiding in a safe house with his family and friends, but his mom has become increasingly concerned for their safety. Despite her worries, Gordy and his friends enter the underground network known as the Swigs, a haven for renegade potion masters.

When Adam Eddington, a gifted marine biology student, makes the acquaintance of blond and beautiful Kali Cutter at Kennedy International Airport on his way to Portugal to spend the summer working for the renowned scientist Dr. O'Keefe, he has no idea that this seemingly chance meeting will set into motion a chain of events he will be unable to stop.

Out there is chaos, the collapse of society, and so much to be afraid of. All that matters is freedom. That’s what Remy Blake has been taught by his survivalist father. Raised off the grid in the middle of nowhere, his own survival skills not yet honed, Remy is days shy of his eighth birthday when his father unexpectedly dies. As seasons pass, supplies run out, and fending for himself grows more desperate, Remy sets out on foot, unprepared for the great unknown of civilization.