Showing results by narrator "Jesse Bernstein" in All Categories

The Spaghetti is a floating palace of elegance and entertainment. There's only one problem: Miss LaPasta doesn't want Barnabas Brambles to come aboard, because she's heard he's the meanest man alive. Lucky for Barnabas Brambles, his boss is Sir Sidney, the nicest man alive.

The Whippet Hotel is a strange place full of strange and mysterious people. Each floor has its own quirks and secrets. Leo should know most of them - he is the maintenance man's son, after all. But a whole lot more mystery gets thrown his way when a series of cryptic boxes are left for him... boxes that lead him to hidden floors, strange puzzles, and unexpected alliances. Leo had better be quick on his feet, because the fate of the building he loves is at stake... and so is Leo's own future!

Before a surfing accident caused 33-year-old Devon Raney to lose all but 15 percent of his vision, he had already lived an extraordinary life. Time and again, he'd gone against the grain to maximize time for his passions - surfing, skateboarding, and snowboarding - bringing him into the direct path of colorful characters, unexpected adventures, and even the occasional brush with death. Through it all, Devon's commitment to outdoor adventure never wavered.

What would you pay to cure your heartbreak? Banish your sadness? Transform your looks? The right spell can fix anything. When Ari's boyfriend, Win, dies, she gets a spell to erase all memory of him. But spells come at a cost, and this one sets off a chain of events that reveal the hidden - and sometimes dangerous - connections between Ari, her friends, and the boyfriend she can no longer remember.

When Sir Sidney, a kindly old circus owner, becomes too tired to travel with his show, he places a Help Wanted ad in the newspaper. Enter Barnabas Brambles: "I have a degree in lion taming from the University of Piccadilly Circus." But does Leo the lion need taming? Will Elsa the elephant still get her gourmet peanuts? And what will Brambles say when he discovers Bert and Gert - two mice who travel with the circus on popcorn cleanup patrol?

Abram and Juliette know each other. They've lived down the street from each other their whole lives. But they don't really know each other - at least not until Juliette's mom and Abram's dad have a torrid affair that culminates in a deadly car crash. Later, when they see each other, it's uncomfortable, to say the least. They don't speak.

Family fun takes center stage in three-time Newbery Honor winner Gary Paulsen’s hilarious novel for middle-school boys. Kevin Spencer is the glue that holds his family together. When his wacky relatives decide to have a double wedding in the backyard, Kevin takes charge. Planning two weddings is a great way to impress his girlfriend, Tina Zabinski, the Most Beautiful and Best-Smelling Girl in the World.

When Rufus, Murphy, Lurena, and their pets go camping, they meet Pedro, a shy boy who seems afraid of just about everything - especially the water. One thing leads to another and the kids go into a nearby town to buy him a pet to cheer him up - a guinea pig, naturally. Yet what they bring home may look like a guinea pig, but it can swim - like an otter.

Rufus has been dreaming of getting a dog. His best friend has one. His worst friend has one. But his dad has a few objections: They whine. They gnaw. They bark. They scratch. They beg. They drool. Rufus pays no attention when his mom offers her think-outside-the-box suggestion, because she can't be serious. She can't be. She can be. And she actually comes home with a guinea pig. And if Rufus's dad thinks dogs are a problem, he won't know what hit him when he meets the Guinea Pig that thinks she's a dog.

When his classmates learn about Fido, the guinea pig that acts like a dog, they all want a piece of Rufus, her owner. But Rufus hates the attention, the demands, the "celebrity." So he decides to make Fido learn how to be an actual guinea pig. But when she goes missing, he feels terrible. Was she lost, "dognapped," or did she run away, because he no longer liked her just the way she was? Offering the same offbeat humor and pacing of the first Guinea Dog, this novel will prove to be a listener's best friend.

Some people lead and some people get out of the way. It’s a universal rule. A cosmic inevitability. Kevin Spencer is one lucky guy. Tina Zabinski, the World’s Most Beautiful, Most Perfect, Best-Smelling Girl, is finally his girlfriend. But now that he’s got the girl, will he be able to keep her?E nter his mortal enemy, Cash Devine. Handsome, smooth-talking Cash is running for class president, and he seems to have his eye on Tina. Kev’s got to dazzle her, so he decides to exercise his great political mind and run against Cash. There’s just one little problem: Kevin has to win. Gary Paulsen continues his exploration of the quirky, inventive mind of fourteen-year-old Kevin in this hilarious companion to Liar, Liar; Flat Broke; and Crush.

Leo and Remi have saved the wacky, wonderful Whippet Hotel, but their adventures aren't over. Anything is possible on the field of wacky inventions: some are scary (like a genetically altered twelve-foot chicken); some are dangerous (like a pond full of electric eels); some are completely out of control; and somehow, Leo and Remi will take it all in stride.

Ranging in age from six to 40, 38 sons and daughters of lesbians offer brief essays that could be valuable to like offspring, as well as to relatives and friends trying to understand the problems such children face. Homophobia, visited upon the children as well as their mothers, is the most commonly cited concern; some younger contributors feel isolated from their peers, and a couple of boys endure rejection from radical lesbian acquaintances.

In three forcible disruptions, first in April 1885 and last in March-April 1886, the Knights of Labor assailed locomotive operations or stopped work on railroads which were controlled directly or influentially by Jay Gould. Though both Terence Powderly, the chief executive of the Knights, and Gould decried the strikes, they could not easily resolve their labored variance. This play is one of the Gouldium, a series of dramas on the life and times of Jay Gould. As in most of these plays there are seven scenes of dialogue and seven choral episodes.

Prince Kreon, enforcing an arbitrary mandate, is enraged that Antigone would abide by a natural law of sisterly respect in contradiction of his will. As neither can be reconciled with the other's acts, the drama grows devoutly tenebrous. This translation is iambic, as is most of the text in Greek.

Leo has explored the zany, wonderful Whippet Hotel from basement to top floor, with trains, flying goats, and mazes (among other things) in between. But even Leo doesn't know every secret of the Whippet and when he discovers that there's more beneath the hotel than he'd thought, it doesn't take long for more adventures to unfold!

All Dylan wants is mojo. What is mojo? It's power. The ability to command respect. It's everything Dylan doesn't have. He gets no respect at school, and when he finds the dead body of a classmate, even the police push him around. All the thanks he gets for trying to help the investigation with his crime-drama skills is a new nickname at school: Body Bag. So when Dylan hears about a missing rich girl from the other side of town, he jumps at the chance to dive into this mystery. Surely if he cracks a case involving a girl this beautiful and this rich, he'll get the mojo he's looking for.

Why, why are grownups so insane? That’s exactly the question that Norman, Anna and Emma (the twins), and I, Leonard, try to answer. And with the help of Norman’s new tutor, Balthazar Birdsong (also fairly nuts), we nearly do it, too. No, seriously!

In the front room of the house with two front doors, Watson Conqruent's father sells souvenirs from the long-canceled TV show, The Adventures of Captain Conquer. In the back room, his father is building a "motivator" like the one that powered the Captain's huge stratoship, the Great Auk. And out front, a mysterious excavation grows larger every day, under the direction of the sinister Charlesville Planning Commissioners. Then one day, Watson comes home from school, only to find both house and father vanished.

Beginning in 1950, and continuing for nearly a decade, my grandfather was the doctor to the head of the Jewish Mafia in New Jersey. Drawing on the stories of an unlikely friendship and the teachings of the rabbinic text, Pirkei Avot, this powerful story explores morality, legacy, and identity in America.