Showing results by publisher "Brilliance Audio" in Growing Up & Facts of Life

When 11-year-old Jack Martel crawls out of his pup tent on the first morning of his camping trip with his mom in Acadia National Park, he notices right away that something isn’t right. Where is his mom’s tent, and their rental car? And where is his mom? Any other kid might panic, might even go to the police. But Jack isn’t like other kids. And his mom isn’t like other moms. Jack knows that it’s up to him to find his mom before someone figures out what’s happened and separates them forever.

In all the ways that matter, Mark is a normal kid. He's got a dog named Beau and a best friend, Jessie. He likes to take photos and write haiku poems in his notebook. He dreams of climbing a mountain one day. But in one important way, Mark is not like other kids at all. Mark is sick. The kind of sick that means hospitals. And treatments. The kind of sick some people never get better from.

Will Everett has always wished for an adventure. Little does he know his adventure starts the moment he boards the Boundless. There is a murder, and now Will protects a key that can unlock the train¹s hidden treasures. Villains are fast on his heels and strange creatures are lurking outside the windows, as the Boundless hurtles across the country. Together with Maren, a gifted escape artist, and Mr. Dorian, a circus ringmaster with amazing abilities, Will must save the Boundless before someone else winds up dead.

Amalee’s world is out of order. She’s used to things being all over the place, because of the frequent presence of her father’s bantering, bickering group of friends. But now everything is a big question mark. School isn’t what it used to be, and Amalee’s not really sure she likes her friends anymore. Life is a mystery that’s weighing her down.Then Amalee’s dad becomes seriously ill, and life becomes even more complicated. The world quiets to a whisper... until Amalee finds help from some very unexpected places.

Bone and his sister, Squirrel, are stray dogs born in a shed. Left mother-less as puppies, the two dogs survive together for a while, but are soon wrenched apart, and Bone must now go on, alone. Charlie is a boy who has suffered a terrible loss. And, as he's healing with the help of his dog, another tragedy occurs. All Henry has wanted is a dog of his own, and now that his best friend has moved away, his parents still won't let him.

When disaster-prone twelve-year-old Matt Pesce accidentally sets his neighbor’s hedges on fire, his parents sentence him to community service at a senior center. But what help can Matt possibly be to the likes of the General, who’s glued to old war documentaries, a pair of elderly chess champions, and the ladies of the knitting club?

If only Weezie could find her daddy, she’s sure her life would be happier. Tired of making up stories about a parent she knows nothing about, Weezie teams up with her bike-riding buddy, Calvin, and new friend, Louella, to find her mysterious father. Does he drive a truck? Sing country and western songs? Why, her real daddy might even be better than the made-up father she’s been telling lies about at school! Now, all she has to do is find him.

Charlie Joe Jackson may be the most reluctant reader ever born. And so far, he’s managed to get through life without ever reading an entire book from cover to cover. But now that he’s in middle school, avoiding reading isn’t as easy as it used to be. And when his friend Timmy McGibney decides that he’s tired of covering for him, Charlie Joe finds himself resorting to desperate measures to keep his perfect record intact. This is the hilarious story of an avid non-reader and the extreme lengths to which he’ll go to get out of reading a book.

Fifteen-year-old Rae Maddox’s mom, Gina, is a big fan of fresh starts. Gina thinks of them as an adventure, but for Rae, each move is just one more friend lost, one more chance to feel like an outsider. After arriving in Wisconsin, Gina promises to stay put until Rae graduates. Cautiously optimistic, she wades into the social whirl at Whitman High School, making a few friends and even earning a chance at love. But when the vice principal pairs her with fellow newbie Allison Daly, Rae’s tentative happiness is jeopardized.

Now thirteen, Mika has left behind her Stockholm orphanage for a treacherous journey with Detective Hoff to finally meet her mother, Annie Moonwind, a maid at the imposing Roseboon estate. Upon their arrival, and to their surprise, Valdemar is mistaken for the local constable, and Mika his errand girl, summoned to arrest Annie for mysterious crimes. But are dark forces at work at Roseboon? After all, doors are kept bolted. Windows are nailed shut. And screams pierce the dark. Maybe something wicked has been unleashed. Everything points to a creature that only comes at night.

David Aguilar was born missing part of one arm, a small detail that seemed to define his life and limit people’s ideas of who he was and who he could be. But in this funny and heartfelt memoir, David proves that he can throw out the rulebook and people’s expectations and maybe even make a difference in the world—and all with a sense of humor.

Jimmy is sure that his dog Abby is special. After all, it was Abby who (with the help of Jimmy & friends) helped nab the criminal Barnaby Bratford and shut down Barnaby's babysitting service, a front for robbing the nice folks of Quietville. Jimmy's parents, on the other hand, are starting to feel like Abby is one destructive little dog (she chewed up Mom's entire shoe collection!) and they insist on enrolling Abby in obedience training.

His self-involved older sister and workaholic Mom think he needs to stop obsessing already! But when his Dad finally allows Jimmy to get a puppy before school starts, everything changes and Jimmy has something new to focus on: his amazing dog, Abby, who seems to have some very unusual habits. She sleeps all day but is wired at night, and she runs from the garlic kelp biscuit made by Jimmy's strange new babysitter Mrs. Cragg. There's just something different about Abby. Could she possibly be...a vampire?

Pete Milano has always been the class clown and proud of it. What's the point of having friends if you can't make them laugh, right? Even if doing so has the unfortunate side effect of constantly getting him into trouble. But, for once, Pete's tricks have led him to just the right place at just the right time. Now he's about to become famous, because he's been asked to audition for the hottest new movie with the hottest girl costar. But balancing real life with movie life is way harder than it sounds.

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....

In Thailand, Oy was called by her own name, but in her first school in America, the teacher renames her Olivia. Everything else is different too. The other girls leave her out of their games, and a boy named Frankie teases her. Then Liliandra, a popular girl in the class, sees a photo of Oy in her Thai dancing dress and offers to let Oy into her club if she brings the dress to school. Oy knows that would be a betrayal of her family’s traditions, but she wants so much to belong. At home, fingering the pink silk of her dress, Oy makes a decision.

Tugs Esther Button was born to a luckless family. Buttons don’t presume to be singers or dancers. They aren’t athletes or artists, good listeners or model citizens. Until tomboy Tugs befriends the popular Aggie Millhouse, wins a brand-new Brownie camera in the Independence Day raffle, and stumbles into a mystery only she can solve, she looks at her hapless family and sees her own reflection looking back. But it’s a summer of change, and it just may be that in the end, being a Button is precisely what one clumsy, funny, spirited, and observant young heroine decides to make of it.

As the middle sister in a family with three girls, Stevie Reel doesn’t know much about boys, and that’s always been just fine with her. But lately, things have been changing: kids at school are starting to pair up, and Owen, the new boy in her Earth Science class, seems to have his sights set on her. The trouble is, Stevie doesn’t want a boyfriend - she’s not even sure that she’s ready to have a boy friend. And her sisters, who know exactly where they stand on the issue of boys, are no help: Alex is too busy trying to orchestrate her first kiss, and Joey can't understand why anyone would prefer a boy over a frog....

When the Moody family drops anchor on “Artichoke” Island, they are greeted by the mysterious Cap’n Weevil, a one-eyed buccaneer with a scraggly beard and a treasure map. Before you can say “Davy Jones’s Locker,” Stink and Judy are racing in search of gold. But they’re not the only salty dogs lookin’ for loot. Can Scurvy Stink and Mad Molly beat out their rivals? Not unless they can find the hidden clues, crack the secret codes, and solve the tricky puzzles - before time runs out! Aaarrr!

Judy Moody is making a list and checking it twice, but all her brother, Stink, wants this year is snow. It hasn’t snowed on Christmas in Virginia in more than a hundred years, however, so what are the chances that that will change? Enter the new mailman, Mr. Jack Frost, who not only looks like a jolly old elf but also seems to know a lot about weather patterns, has a fondness for the cold, and works looooooong hours during the holiday season.