Showing results by publisher "Recorded Books" in Literature & Fiction

When Simone is awakened by her mom as a wildfire threatens their home, it is the beginning of a life-changing journey. On their way to take shelter in a high school gym, the family passes firefighters from a prison unit battling the fire. Simone’s mom tells her that when she was a girl in Viet Nam, she was forced to evacuate her home after a flood. Joined by other children sheltering in the gym, Simone, a budding artist, encourages everyone to draw as a way to process their situation.

It’s been a few months now since XR_935 met Emma, a human girl who wasn’t supposed to exist. Robots thought they’d eliminated the humans, but some have survived all these years. Now, robots and humans live side by side, and the world is much better for it. They’ve formed a new society, living together as equals.

Essie has grown up in the public library, raised in secret by the four librarians who found her abandoned as a baby in the children’s department. With four mothers and miles of books to read, Essie has always been very happy living there. But now that she is eleven, Essie longs for a little more freedom…and maybe a friend her own age. She seems to get her wish when her moms let her go by herself to the mall.

Nosotros, la familia Vargas Ramírez, venimos de un lugar lejano al norte de Tenochtitlan llamado Iztapalapa, lugar de la loza sobre el agua. Una tierra rodeada de autos y pasto seco. Un sitio donde estaban repartidos los pedazos de nuestro pequeño mundo. Ahí vivimos algún tiempo, pero un día mi padre escuchó un canto hermoso de un ave que se elevaba y parecía decir tihui, tihui, tihui: vamos, vamos, vamos. Y así reunimos a nuestros amigos que conformaban ese pequeño mundo y decidimos partir hacia el norte, hacia el otro lado, hacia una vida mejor.

Ava Lin is six and a half years old, and she loves bubble tea, finding treasures, and animals (note the 117 varieties of pets on her wish list). She’s very good at drawing and balancing pasta on her nose. And there’s a Very Exciting Thing happening in her life right now: tomorrow is her first day of first grade! Which means she gets a new backpack, new pencils, and a new lunch box. But what she really wants to get in first grade is a best friend, which isn’t as easy as she thought.

It's 1975, Tamil Nadu, South India, and nine-year-old Pavi is living a carefree life with her large intergenerational family. Everyday is an adventure. Why not steal 233 mangoes from the neighbor's tree? Or make up grand stories that take her to Jupiter? If only there wasn't a sadness lingering over the family. You see, her uncle Selva died just five months after she was born. Pavi may have been just a baby when Selva died, but she feels close to him, as if he's watching over her, helping her when she needs it. But she has so many questions about Selva's death.

Ava Lin is six and a half years old, and this year she’s in first grade. She’s really good at making things and eating snacks and making lists. But what she really wants to be good at is earning enough tickets to fill her kindness bucket. In Ava’s class, if you do something kind for someone, that person puts a ticket in your bucket, and whoever has the most tickets by the end of the week gets to choose a prize. Ava really wants to choose the narwhal eraser—she NEEDS that eraser—so she has to be sure she’s the best bucket filler of the week, no matter what.

El ballet lo es todo para Florencia del Lago. Después de años de arduo trabajo, es seleccionada como Clara en la producción invernal de El Cascanueces. No sólo es la bailarina más joven en recibir tal honor sino también la primera latina. Está en camino de ser contratada por las mejores compañías de ballet.

We, the Vargas Ramírez family, come from a faraway place north of Tenochtitlan called Iztapalapa, Land of Clay Upon Water. A land surrounded by cars and dry grass; a place where the pieces of our small world were scattered. For some time we lived there, but then one day my father heard a beautiful birdsong that rose up and appeared to say tihui, tihui, tihui: let’s go, let’s go, let’s go. And so we gathered up our friends who made up that small world and decided to head north, for the other side, and a better life.

Black Boy, Rise combines gorgeous, moving text filled with lyrical references to poets and writers whose voices have lifted and defined the Black experience, including Langston Hughes, Lucille Clifton, W. E. B. Du Bois, and James Weldon Johnson, that powerfully reflect the soul and gloriousness of Black boys in all their brilliance: the rich legacy of their past, the grit and grace of their present, and the divine promise of their future.

When Sophie and her two Jack Russell terriers move to Boston, she's excited not to be the only brown kid in the neighborhood anymore. She instantly likes the quirky teenager named Juno next door and her pug, Bonney. But not everything's easy. Her classmates make fun of her Vermont overalls. The upstairs neighbor hates barking. And Bonney needs surgery that Juno's family can't afford. So Sophie and Juno invent the Barking Puppy, the first ever newspaper written “by dogs” and “for dogs.” Will anyone else get how funny it is?

Ballet is Florencia del Lago's entire world. After years of hard work, she is chosen as Clara in the winter production of The Nutcracker. Not only is she the youngest dancer to receive such an honor but also the first Latina. She's on track to be recruited by the best ballet companies. Unfortunately, she suffers a panic attack on opening night—on stage, in front of everyone. And then Selena, Florencia's best friend, steps right into the role to replace her.

Told from the perspective of a young refugee girl, debut children's book author and New Voices winner Maham Khwaja tells the story of a family forced to flee their home due to violence. Emotive illustrations by Daby Zainab Faidhi balance the family's love for one another and hope for the future with the harrowing journey to escape on foot, travel by boat, and then finally resettle in a safe place. Through it all, the young girl tries to hold on to all the pieces of her life before and find a way to rebuild a sense of home.

It’s time for her class’s country project, and Marya is super excited. She loves public speaking, and she’s assigned Pakistan, where her family is from. But Marya has two problems: She doesn’t actually know very much about her grandparents’ country, and she’s paired with new kid Waleed, who is so shy he can barely talk, let alone present to the class. Marya figures if she can just befriend Waleed, he’ll help her make the best project ever.

THE HARVEST FESTIVAL of Pongal is days away, and V. Malar could not be more excited for the celebration. With her aunt, uncle, and cousins Priya and Kamal flying in to visit her home in Pori, India, Malar and her parents have food to prepare and a house to clean, so they can be gracious hosts to their guests. When Priya and Kamal arrive, they take over Malar’s room and compare everything about Pori to their home in Seattle. Even when Malar shows them the farm animals and the local temple, her cousins whisper secrets to each other, laughing and making Malar feel left out.

Miriam is the youngest, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t know things. She’s not as gullible as her parents or older siblings think, and she is too old for ridiculous stories that make no sense. So, using her superior detective skills, she sets out to debunk all of the fantastical things that people tell gullible kids. When her first tooth comes loose, Miriam is determined to prove to her friends and family that the tooth fairy isn’t real. She’s going to lay the perfect trap . . . just as soon as her tooth actually comes out.

Growing up, Jung-soon spent every moment she could at her grandparents' house. Dressing up and watching cartoons. Dyeing each other's fingernails with crushed balsam petals. Getting the whole neighborhood together to sweep their streets. Falling asleep together...just the three of them, happy. Grandfather was Grandmother's best and only friend. On every Jesa day, during the ancestral ritual, he would gently place the okchundang candy in her mouth, a big smile spreading across her face as it melted on her tongue.

Everyone thinks Yesenia is calm, collected, and crushing it. But really, her stomach is constantly a ball of nerves. With parents who left their home in the Dominican Republic to make a better life for their kids, and three perfect, over-achieving older sisters, Yesenia can't let anyone know about the anxiety that’s causing her to fall behind in school. When her doctor tells her parents that taking care of an animal could help, little did they know her newly adopted kitten would be such a mischievous influence.

A long weekend with lots of snow sounds like a recipe for super-special fun to Nina, especially with new friends Priya and Nayan visiting. They’ve just moved to Wisconsin from Florida, so Nina is prepared to introduce them to lots of winter activities: snowball fights, snow angels—and maybe even a snow fort! And then Nina notices a strange car at her neighbors’ house while they’re out of town. Clearly, it’s time to be a Snow Spy and identify MP (Mystery Person).

It’s Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day, and Nina, Kavita, and Jay are all going to create gardens with Mom, a landscape architect. Naturally that’s not enough for Nina, who quickly develops big ideas for an impressive business selling the vegetables she plans to grow. But her plans don’t include managing the problems that inevitably arise, including rabbits, slugs, mosquitos, and more.