Showing results by narrator "Michael Crouch" in All Categories

Summer 1968. When thirteen-year-old Jack Elliot overhears the barbershop men grousing, he devises a secret plan to keep his oldest brother, Pete, from the draft. If famous boys don’t go to war, he’ll make his brother their small town’s biggest celebrity. Jack gets unexpected help when his book-smart cousin Frankie arrives in their rural Pennsylvania town for the summer. Together, they convince Jack’s brothers to lead an expedition to find a fighter jet that crashed many winters ago—the perfect adventure to make Pete a hero.

Jake Potter is back on Dewees Island for another summer with his beloved grandmother, Honey. This time, Jake is excited that his dad will be there as he continues to recover from his injuries sustained in Afghanistan. But Jake also knows they both need get used to a new normal, which isn’t easy. Jake also discovers that his two best friends, Macon and Lovie, are struggling as well. Macon is adjusting to being a big brother, while Lovie is navigating a new relationship with her dad, who has long been absent in her life.

As Norway’s newly appointed minister of justice, child-rights advocate Clara Lofthus has a chance to accomplish something meaningful on behalf of the most vulnerable members of society. It couldn’t be more personal. After her husband’s death, she is the sole caretaker of her twin sons, Andreas and Nikolai. She’s also still haunted by her own traumatic childhood—and the lengths to which she was willing to go to pursue her own brand of vigilante justice. How far? No one ever needs to know. And this is just one of Clara’s secrets.

Cellphones have become a fact of life, with children as young as eight (yes, eight!) getting their very own “devices.” Such boundless access means our kids are in nearly constant contact with technology that was designed specifically for adults. And they’re doing so without any type of road map. Enter First Phone: the essential audiobook that apprehensive parents can confidently hand to their kids to listen to as they begin their journey into the digital world.

Fifth-grader Abe Mitchell is fed up with sharing. All he wants is something to call his own. And he just might get it when he finds a loophole in the fine print of a doughnut shop coupon. Abe thinks it entitles him to a fresh-baked mountain of crullers, dunkers, and chocolate-frosteds. But cashing in means war with Marlene Paczki, the daughter of the doughnut shop owner and Abe’s new crush.

This full-cast audiobook, featuring 11 different voice actors, and narrated by Hillary Huber, take on the roles of the Tandem Players, a group of community theater actors that love their community theater almost as much as they love the sweet old landlady who gave them a home to perform their plays in over the years. But when she passes away, and the will that was to leave the Broadtown Theater to the acting troupe disappears, they don’t even have time to mourn their loss. Her son comes in like a wrecking ball....

The Acrasian army has swept through Eledore, nearly massacring the entire race in fear and hatred of the magic they possess. This same magic is all that was keeping the demon incursion at bay, but now the great evil that was banished is seeping into the world. Watchers are formed to warn of any sightings of the demons, but little can be done if one encounters them in shadow or at night.

Two years after his partner, Francesco, died, 28-year-old Kevin Doyle is dusting off his one good suit jacket for yet another funeral, yet another loss in their close-knit group. They had all been young, beautiful, and living the best days of their lives, though they didn't know it. That was before New York City began to feel like a war zone, its horrors somehow invisible, and ignored by the rest of the world. Some people might insist that Francesco is in a better place now, but Kevin definitely isn't.

Lone Stars follows the arc of four generations of a Texan family in a changing America. Julian Warner, a father at last, wrestles with a question his husband posed: what will you tell our son about the people you came from, now that they're gone? Finding the answers takes Julian back in time to Eisenhower's immigration border raids, an epistolary love affair during the Vietnam War, crumbling marriages, queer migrations to Cambridge and New York, up to the disorienting polarization of Obama's second term.

Learning is an adventure in Ms. Frogbottom’s class because she’s got a magic map - one that takes her students all over the world to battle mythical monsters no one believes are real. All Ms. Frogbottom has to do is take out the map, tap a country, and - SHAZAAM! - off they go to a place somewhere far far away. When Ms. Frogbottom whisks the class away to Egypt, they not only come face-to-face with a mummy but also have to solve the riddle of his ancient curse!

Julian Ladd and Rye Adler cross paths as photography students in the exclusive Brodsky Workshop. When Rye needs a roommate, Julian moves in, and a quiet, compulsive envy takes root, assuring, at least in his own mind, that he will never achieve Rye’s certain success. Both men are fascinated with their beautiful and talented classmate, Magda, whose captivating images of her Polish neighborhood set her apart, and each will come to know her intimately - a woman neither can possess and only one can love.

An anthropologist and his daughter travel to Kermunkachunk, the capitol of Chalazia, to conduct research for an ethnography on the Chalazian Mafia Faction (a splinter group of the Chalazian Children's Theater). The book takes place over the course of a night at the Bar Pulpo, Kermunkachunk's #1 spoken-word karaoke bar, where conversations are actually being read from multiple karaoke screens arrayed around the barroom. Moreover, it's Thursday, "Father/Daughter Nite", when the bar is frequented by actual fathers and daughters as well as couples cosplaying fathers and daughters.

At West Beacon Middle School, eighth graders Oscar Villanueva, Riley Baptiste, and Noah Wright become unlikely friends during Introduction to Clay class. Oscar, a football star, just lost his little sister to cancer. Riley's been dragged away from Philadelphia by her single mom to a new life in West Beacon, a tiny Pennsylvania coal town that's smaller than Riley's old school.

Sunday quit, just like that. She said she was tired of being a day. And so the other days of the week had no choice but to advertise: "WANTED: A NEW DAY. Must be relaxing, tranquil, and replenishing. Serious inquires only." Soon lots of hopefuls arrived with their suggestions, such as Funday, Bunday, Acrobaturday, SuperheroDay, and even MonstersWhoResembleJellyfishDay! Things quickly got out of hand...until one more candidate showed up: a little girl with a thank-you gift for Sunday.

Big hats, big trucks, big oil fortunes — Texas clichés all. And while those elements do flourish throughout Texas, they alone hardly define the place. The Lone Star State is and has always been a great melting pot, home to sprawling cities, trailblazing innovators, and treasured traditions from all over, many of which become ingrained in popular culture and intertwined with the American ideal.

A gripping portrait of life in a Montauk summer house - a debut memoir of first love, identity and self-discovery among a group of friends who became family. They call Montauk the end of the world, a spit of land jutting into the Atlantic. The house was a ramshackle split-level set on a hill, and each summer thirty one people would sleep between its thin walls and shag carpets. Against the moonlight the house's octagonal roof resembled a bee's nest. It was dubbed The Hive.

It's 1969. Molly is a girl who's not sure she can feel anything anymore, because life sometimes hurts way too much. Her brother Barry ran away after having a fight with their father over the war in Vietnam. Now Barry's been drafted into that war - and Molly's mother tells her she has to travel across the country in an old schoolbus to find Barry and bring him home.

Life is tough for 13-year-old Lenny Kidd. He's constantly being tormented by the school bully, Hunter Machammer. He can't stay awake in math class and is bored out of his mind by his crazed teacher, Ms. Drazula. And he has no money to buy the only thing he wants in life: an Xbox. Then he makes a bizarre discovery at home that could change his life forever. The only people he tells his secret to are his best friends, Alex and Shelly. Together, the three of them plot and scheme their way to success. But just when Lenny thinks he's got it made, life throws him a curveball.

Saving Washington follows young Joshua Bolton and his childhood friend Ben, a freed black man, as they witness British tyranny firsthand, become enraptured by the cause, and ultimately enlist to defend their new nation in a battle that galvanized the American nation on the eve of its birth. Chris Formant’s gripping tale blends real-life historical figures and events with richly developed fictional characters in a multi-dimensional world of intrigue, romance, comradeship, and sacrifice, transporting us two-and-a-half centuries back in time.

Wyatt is 15, and nobody in his homophobic small town of Lincolnville, Oregon, knows that he’s gay. Not even his best friend (and accidental girlfriend) Mackenzie. Then he discovers a secret from actual history: Abraham Lincoln was in love with another guy! Since everyone loves Lincoln, Wyatt’s sure that if the world knew about it, they would treat gay people differently, and it would solve everything about his life.