Showing results by publisher "Brilliance Audio" in Literature & Fiction

Abby Carnelia is an average sixth grader. She gets along okay with her parents, does pretty well in school, and has an annoying little brother. There’s absolutely nothing remarkable about her at all — that is, until the day when she happens to tug on her earlobes while standing in front of a hard-boiled egg. That’s the day Abby discovers there’s something very, very special about her after all: she has a magical power, and there are some people who will do anything to find out where it came from.

Oggie Cooder's charving has already taken him to the top of the world. (Charving, in case you don't know, involves chewing and carving pieces of cheese.) But there's one place Oggie Cooder has never been allowed to go: Donnica Perfecto's pool.

"One day I was 12 years old and broke. I set out to mow some lawns with Grandpa's old riding mower. One client was Arnold the stockbroker, who offered to teach me about: the beauty of capitalism. Supply and demand. Diversifying labor. Distributing the wealth. 'It's groovy, man,' Arnold said. The grass grew, and so did business. Arnold invested my money in many things. One of them was a prizefighter. All of a sudden I was the sponsor of my very own fighter, Joey Pow."

Rachel Yoder has been out-of-sorts ever since her best friend moved away. What will she do without her? When a new girl named Audra shows up at the Amish schoolhouse, Rachel soon finds herself with a sticky sandwich, a mud-spattered dress, a sore nose, and a rotten attitude. As things go from bad to worse, Rachel is in danger of losing more than one friend. Will she ever learn the value of forgiveness?

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.

In The Shoe Bird, Jim Dale brings to life a flock of unforgettable bird characters: Arturo the parrot, Gloria the goose, Minerva the owl, and even the extinct Dodo! This is Eudora Welty's fantastical story of how some feathered friends made a fateful switch from flying to wearing shoes, little knowing that they would soon become the prey of Freddy the Cat!

I thought I knew everything there was to know about my parents, like what they always eat for breakfast. Then one morning, everything changes. Mom suddenly hates tea and loves cornflakes and Dad’s scarfing down poached eggs like there’s no tomorrow - which, by the way, there may not be unless I can figure out what’s gone wrong. Can it really be that Mom and Dad have been replaced by aliens from another world? And what the heck happened to our dog?

A six-year-old boy goes to spend the summer with his grandmother, Alida, in a small Minnesota town. With the men all gone off to fight, the women are left to run the farms. There’s plenty for the boy to do - trying to help with the chores; getting to know the dog and the horses, cows, pigs, and chickens. But when his cousin Kristina goes into labor, he can’t do a thing. Instead, the house fills with women come to help and to wait, and to work on the quilt together

Meg Pickel’s older brother, Orion, has disappeared. One night, Meg steals out to look for him and makes two surprising discoveries: She stumbles upon a séance that she suspects involves Orion, and she meets the author Charles Dickens, also unable to sleep and roaming the London streets.

Nickel is a survivor. Raised by the state in abusive foster homes, he escapes at the age of ten to live his life the way his father wanted him to: not as a civilian, but as a warrior. Nickel pays his way by blackmailing pedophiles he tracks down online, selling marijuana to high school students, and working as a private investigator in between. Money talks, but for kids, Nickel works for free. This time, it’s Arrow, a beautiful high school girl, who needs help.

Ten-year old Rachel is driving her Amish friends and family “buggy” with her lack of patience, which brings her trouble at every turn – from sledding into a creek to ruining a yummy shoofly pie, to flunking a test in school, to being dragged facedown in the snow. Will Rachel spend the entire winter getting into more trouble than her Lancaster County family and schoolmates can handle? Or will she finally discover that patience has its own rewards?

>In the winter life in McKinley, Minnesota, revolves around the rinks, where kids play hockey and grown-ups skate to scratchy phonograph records. Then, the year Marsh and his best friend, Willy, are 12, Carl appears at the rink, wearing a battered, old leather flight jacket and doing a strange dance that is both beautiful and disturbing to watch. It is Marsh and Willy who discover the terrible secret behind Carl’s dance, a secret that threatens to destroy him. But a small miracle occurs....

Anthony has returned from a trip around the world, and he’s ready to challenge Keith, the mastermind who cured the common fart, for leadership of Sweet Farts, Inc. And right now, Keith’s hold on the company is squeaking away: his sister, Emma, is his newest employee, and she cares only about her petting zoo, and his best friend, Scott, is still trying to impress everyone at the lab, even though he’s just one bad idea away from getting fired.

Max “the Wolf” is a top-notch Boy Scout, an expert at orienteering, and a master of being prepared. So it is a little odd that he suddenly finds himself, with no recollection of his immediate past, lost in an unfamiliar wood. Even odder still, he encounters a badger named Banderbrock, a black bear named Walden, and McTavish the Monster (who might also be an old barn cat) - all of whom talk - and who are as clueless as Max.

The summer I was 12, mowing lawns with Grandpa’s old riding mower turned into big business. With advice from Arnold the stockbroker, I learned all about making money.

Nyle’s life with her grandmother on their Vermont sheep farm advances rhythmically through the seasons until the night of the accident at the Cookshire nuclear power plant. Without warning, Nyle’s modest world fills with protective masks, evacuations, contaminated food, disruptions, and mistrust. Things become even more complicated when Ezra Trent and his mother, refugees from the heart of the accident, take temporary shelter in the back bedroom of Nyle’s house.

Thanks to his invention of Sweet Farts, the tablets that cancel even the most ripe and pungent fart smells, Keith has become the center of all kinds of attention he doesn’t want. His kid sister has turned into a farting maniac, and his parents blame him. His so-called best friends torture him at school with nicknames like “S.B.D.” (for Silent But Deadly) and try to humiliate him every chance they get. The principal wants to know what Keith’s next brilliant invention will be.

Before the summer is over, Scarlett will have to survive a whirlwind of thievery and romantic missteps. But in the city where anything can happen, she just might be able to pull it off.

That's what Annabelle discovers on her first day in her brand-new life. Birchwood Middle School is totally different from her old all-girls elementary. In fact, lots of things in Annabelle's life are totally different now that she's back from summer camp. There's mom's new boyfriend, a new house, new friends - even a new puppy that likes to chew on Annabelle's clothes. Well, at least the puppy comes with a leash and a training manual! If only she could say the same for the boys...

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.