Showing results by publisher "Brilliance Audio" in Geography & Cultures

The land was theirs, but so were its hardships. Strawberries - big, ripe, and juicy. Ten-year-old Birdie Boyer can hardly wait to start picking them. But her family has just moved to the Florida backwoods, and they haven't even begun their planting. "Don't count your biddies 'fore they're hatched, gal young un!" her father tells her. Making the new farm prosper is not easy.

In 1939, the Germans invaded the town of Lodz, Poland, and moved the Jewish population into a small part of the city called a ghetto. As the war progressed, 270,000 people were forced to settle in the ghetto under impossible conditions. At the end of the war, there were about 800 survivors. Of those who survived, only twelve were children. This is the story of one of the twelve.

I throw back my tumble of black hair, roll one bare shoulder forward, then the other. The stack of bangles on each wrist shimmies and slides as my hands rise like birds in flight..Set during the turmoil of the Spanish Civil War, sixteen-year-old Drina yearns to dance Flamenco. When she dances, she forgets who she is. She forgets what seems to be her legacy: I am nothing. I belong nowhere. Why does her mother forbid her to dance, the very thing that makes her feel alive?

Gary Paulsen’s slapstick tales capture the “wonderful madness” of growing up in a small town in northern Minnesota, when high spirits, showing off for girls, and general idiocy led Gary and his pals to attempt some amazing stunts! Wacky, daring, just plain nuts - extreme sports lead to extreme fun in new stories from Gary’s boyhood.

Caroline's mom is Jewish, her dad isn't, and Caroline has never really thought of herself as any religion. But when her nana dies and leaves Caroline a Star of David necklace, Caroline begins to wonder about her heritage. If she starts going to synagogue, won't that upset her dad? Should she have a Bat Mitzvah like her best friend, Rachel? Does Caroline want to be Jewish? The more she thinks about it, the more she thinks about it, the more questions she has.

Frannie doesn't know what to make of the poem she's reading in school. She hasn't thought much about hope. There are so many other things to think about. Each day, her friend Samantha seems a bit more "holy". And there is a new boy in class everyone is calling the Jesus Boy.

Zander Scott and his friends Kambui, LaShonda, and Bobbi are in trouble. Even though they’re students at DaVinci Academy for the Gifted and Talented in Harlem, their grades are slipping, and Mr. Culpepper, the assistant principal and "chief executioner", is ready to be rid of them.

An experienced Iditarod racer, Gary Paulsen brings his love of the sport to readers on a personal level in this intimate essay about the life of a litter of pups born to pull sleds across the snowy frontier - and the marvel he experiences as he watches them grow and learn.

For Sugar, life is anything but sweet.

Ten-year-old Sugar lives on River Road Plantation along the banks of the Mississippi River. Slavery is over, but working in the sugarcane fields all day doesn’t make her feel very free. Thankfully, Sugar knows how to make her own fun, telling stories, climbing trees, and playing with forbidden friend Billy, the plantation owner’s son. Then a group of Chinese workers arrives to help harvest the cane. Sugar wants to know everything about them - she loves the way they dress, their unfamiliar language, and, best of all, the stories they tell of dragons and emperors.

In this second book of The Cruisers series, the term “gifted and talented” takes on a whole new meaning for Zander, Kambui, LaShonda, and Bobbi - a group of misfits who attend Da Vinci Academy, a school in Harlem for only the brightest kids. Their friend Sidney Aronofsky is considered one of the best chess players in the city. When Sidney is arrested for trying to buy drugs, it comes as a shock to those who know him, especially the Cruisers. Sidney loves chess, but the pressure never lets up.

The Cruiser, the alternative newspaper published by Zander and his crew of middle school misfits, is alive and well. And now there’s plenty to report on when LaShonda, one of the Cruisers, steps into the spotlight with her costume designs for an upcoming play. LaShonda’s designs get rave reviews, but she soon learns that show business is filled with challenges and choices. LaShonda is forced to consider what’s more important — fame or loyalty to her autistic brother.

Set in New York City, Ship of Souls features a cast of three African-American teens: D, a math whiz; Hakeem, a Muslim basketball star; and Nyla, a beautiful military brat. When D’s mother dies of breast cancer, he is taken in by Mrs. Martin, an elderly white woman. Grateful to have a home, D strives to please his foster mother and succeeds — until Mercy arrives. Unable to compete with a needy, crack-addicted baby, D disappears into the nearby park and immerses himself in bird watching. At school, he unexpectedly makes friends with Nyla and Hakeem, but just when D thinks he has finally found a way to belong, an unexpected discovery in the park changes everything. A mysterious bird leads D and his friends on a perilous journey that will take them from Brooklyn to the African Burial Ground in lower Manhattan, and into the very realm of the dead. Their courage and loyalty are tested every step of the way, but in the end, it is D who must find the strength to fulfill his destiny. Steeped in history and suspense, this inspiring urban fantasy provides an enriching experience that readers will find hard to forget.

In August 1972, President Idi Amin declares that a message from God has come to him in a dream: all foreign Indians must be "weeded out" of Uganda in the next 90 days. Fifteen-year-old Sabine and her father, a successful businessman, are confident that their family will not be affected, since they are Ugandan citizens, but Sabine's fearful mother is certain that they will have to leave.

Luke knows his I´nupiaq name is full of sounds white people can’t say. He knows he’ll have to leave it behind when he and his brothers are sent to boarding school hundreds of miles from their Arctic village. At Sacred Heart School things are different. Instead of family, there are students - Eskimo, Indian, White - who line up on different sides of the cafeteria like there’s some kind of war going on. And instead of comforting words like tutu and maktak, there’s English. Speaking I´nupiaq - or any native language - is forbidden.

The Cruisers are in trouble - again. The freedom of expression they've enjoyed by publishing their own school newspaper, The Cruiser, has spread all the way to England, where kids from a school "across the pond" are now contributors to their own school's most talked-about publication. When photos start to go alongside the articles written by kids, things get suspicious. Zander, Kambui, LaShonda, Bobbi - and a bunch of students from Harlem’s Da Vinci Academy and London’s Phoenix School - come to learn that words and pictures in a newspaper don’t always tell the whole story.

The story of Negro League baseball is the story of gifted athletes and determined owners; of racial discrimination and international sportsmanship; of fortunes won and lost; of triumphs and defeats on and off the field. It is a perfect mirror for the social and political history of black America in the first half of the 20th century. But most of all, the story of the Negro Leagues is about hundreds of unsung heroes who overcame segregation to do the one thing they loved more than anything else in the world: play ball.

Oy lives in America now, but she loves to go to the back room of Pak's auto shop on Saturdays to learn traditional Thai dances. She loves it almost as much as being a member of the Quail Club - five friends who gather after school to hatch and care for baby quail. When the teacher announces a talent show, Oy knows how proud her family and Pak would be to see her step onstage in her beautiful gold-threaded dress from Thailand. But bossy Liliandra vows to kick her out of the Quail Club....

When a young man’s body is found by the railroad tracks, the murder and its mysterious circumstances threaten the peace and security of a small Florida town. Zora believes she knows who killed Ivory, and she isn’t afraid to tell anyone who’ll listen. Whether Zora is telling the truth or stretching it, she’s a riveting storyteller. Her latest tale is especially mesmerizing because it is so chillingly believable....

Batu is just an ordinary kid in present-day Almaty, worried about bullies, school, and his mom’s new baby…until the day he meets Aspara, the Golden Warrior. Aspara steps straight out of Batu’s notebook cover—and out of Kazakhstan’s past. Aspara has been waiting hundreds of years to be summoned to the human world and to finally get his chance to search for the Golden Cup, a magical talisman sent down from the heavens. When the Golden Cup was lost, Aspara watched as many of his friends and family were killed or disappeared.