Showing results by narrator "Laura Knight-Keating" in All Categories

This is a book of oral presentations given by us animals, for us animals, and about us animals. The cleaner fish will talk about his friend the shark and his sharp teeth. The zebra will get to tell you about all the black-and-white animals in the world. The mole knows everything there is to know about the daddy longlegs. The southern cassowa—yes, fox? What is it? Yes, you'll get to talk about geese. Huh? Yes, you'll get to talk about how delicious they are.

When a kid is dragged to Central Park in New York on a Saturday (when he could be at home watching the ball game), the last thing he wants is a history lesson from his mom. But then his mother starts telling him a story. A story about the giant structure sitting in right in front of them—Cleopatra’s Needle. It turns out that an enslaved boy and hundreds of other people spent more than six hundred days carving the Needle out of stone and pulling it upright. And another kid’s drawings were used to create the hieroglyphs on its sides.

For Annie's tenth birthday, her papa gives her a pad of paper, some colored pencils, and the Klimas family secret. It’s called the nuodeema burna, or eater of sins. Every time Annie does something wrong, she writes it down and sticks the paper in a hidden hole in the floor of their house. But Annie is quick to discover that her inheritance has a dark side.

Maggie is loving her new life now that she gets to help her friend Bob take care of magical animals at his stable. Not only does she help in his barn, but she also accompanies him on special trips to help injured animals. When she finds a hurt unicorn in the forest, Maggie sets off to rescue him. But along the way, they encounter a troll who plans to stop them. Will they reach the unicorn in time?

As if her parents' divorce and sister's departure for college weren't bad enough, 14-year-old Ricky Bloom has just been diagnosed with a life-changing chronic illness. Her days consist of cursing everyone out, skipping school - which has become a nightmare - daydreaming about her crush, Julio, and trying to keep her parents from realizing just how bad things are. But she can't keep her ruse up forever.

Felicity Becker loves watching an event come together. There’s something magical about crafting an experience people will remember. So when her mom gets engaged, Felicity sees the wedding as the perfect opportunity to show off her skills. After Felicity’s friend Nancy offers up her family’s apple orchard as a venue, wedding planning gets even better. But the more time Felicity and Nancy spend together dress shopping and hunting for mismatched china, the more it starts to seem like there might be something besides friendship between them.

Eight-year-old Maggie has a keen eye for noticing things in the Enchanted Forest that no one else does - like tiny flying horses with wings. One day Maggie stumbles upon an injured flying horse. The only way to help the horse is to take it to a kindly stableman named Bob, who cares for magical animals. But in order to do so, Maggie must set out on a journey through the Enchanted Forest, which is full of dangers.

Sidney and Asher should have clicked. Two star swimmers forced to spend their summers on a lake together sounds like the perfect match. But it's the same every year - in between cookouts and boat rides and family-imposed bonfires, Sidney and Asher spend the dog days of summer finding the ultimate ways to prank each other. And now, after their senior year, they're determined to make it the most epic summer yet.

In this clever YA rom-com debut perfect for fans of Kasie West and Ashley Poston, a teen obsessed with 19th-century literature tries to cull advice on life and love from her favorite classic heroines to disastrous results - especially when she falls for the school's resident Lothario.

A year ago, Katie and her cousin Aster survived a night that left their world and easy friendship fractured. Desperate to heal and leave the past behind them, they tackle four days of hiking in the Utah backcountry. But the desert they’ve loved for years has tricks up its sleeve.

In this authentic and heartfelt middle-grade novel, Maple uses her artwork to help sort through sibling relationships, school drama, and her parents’ increasingly fraught marriage. Ten-year-old Maple can’t wait for summer: No more math! Adventures with her friends! Best of all, she and Dad are finally going to build a real treehouse. Or are they? Lately Dad has been quick to storm off when he argues with Mom, which happens more and more. Maple seeks refuge in her sketchbook, filling it with comics and other drawings and posing the questions she can’t bring herself to ask anywhere else.

"No one gets something for nothing. We all should know better." Teenagers at Wisconsin's Nottawa High School are drawn deeper into a social networking site that promises to grant their every need...regardless of the consequences. Soon the site turns sinister, with simple pranks escalating to malicious crimes. The body count rises.

Carolyn Mackler's Printz Honor book - starring the unforgettably funny, body-conscious Virginia Shreves - returns in this 15th anniversary edition featuring text updates and never-before-heard material from the author. Fifteen-year-old Virginia feels like a plus-sized black sheep in her family, especially next to her perfect big brother Byron. Not to mention her best friend has moved, leaving Virginia to navigate an awkward relationship with a boy alone. In order to survive, Virginia decides to follow a "Fat Girl Code of Conduct", which works, until the unthinkable causes her family's facade to crumble.

At birth, Violet and Rose Flowers were identical, save for a tiny bluish-purple mark gracing Violet’s slender neck. By nineteen, their temperaments distinguish them, as different as the flowers their mother named them for—Violet, wild and outgoing, and Rose, solitary and reserved. Still, they are each other’s world. Then, on a sweltering, terrible August night in 1928, an explosion rocks Lamb’s Dance Hall in Possum Flats, Missouri, engulfing it in flames, leaving one twin among the dozens dead, and her sister’s life forever changed.

After Avalyn nearly died from an asthma attack, her parents moved her to the clear, dry air of Clear Canyon City, Arizona. And for the last ten years, she’s been able to breathe. That is, until Adam showed up. Quiet and unkempt, Adam is an instant target for the bullies who have plagued Avalyn and her friends. As Avalyn gets to know him, she begins to suspect that the sudden, strange increase in dust storms around town are somehow connected to his emotions.

Poppy Pullman has her life all planned out. Her social media is carefully curated. Her list of extracurriculars is flawless. All so she can achieve her ultimate goal: Stanford. Her best friends say she’s missing out. But Poppy’s playing a long game. And the morning of her Stanford alumni interview, she’s positive everything is going to work out.

Girls in New America must have a chaperone with them at all times. Because of this, Stella is never alone. She can't go out by herself or learn about the world. She can't even spend time with boys except at formal Visitations. Still, Stella feels lucky that her chaperone, Sister Helen, is like a friend to her. And then the unthinkable happens. Sister Helen dies suddenly, and Stella feels lost. Especially when she's assigned a new chaperone just days later.

Monreith, Massachusetts, was once a small community of whalers and farmers. These days it’s a well-to-do town filled with commuters drawn to its rugged coastline and country roads. A peaceful, predictable place—until popular restaurateur Laurel Thibodeau is found brutally murdered in her own home. Suspicion naturally falls on Laurel’s husband, Simon, who had gambling debts that only her life insurance policy could fix. But there are other rumors too. Among the group of six friends gathered for Alice Stone’s fortieth birthday, theories abound concerning Laurel’s death.

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.

Chronically ill seventeen-year-old Ivy has stayed inside baking all summer—pies are better than people, and they don’t trigger her social anxiety. So when her (also) chronically ill mom and sister cook up a plan to get Ivy out of the house and into a support group, Ivy doesn’t expect to say more than a few words. And she certainly doesn’t expect Grant. Grant is CUTE: class-clown cute, perfectly-messy-hair cute, will-always-text-you-back cute. There’s an instant connection between them. He has the same illness as her—juvenile rheumatoid arthritis—and he actually understands Ivy’s world.