Showing results by narrator "Robert Ramirez" in All Categories

New York Times best-selling author Carl Hiaasen teamed up with journalist Bill Montalbano for this gripping thriller. Powder Burn stars Chris Meadows, a successful Miami architect who's leaving a meeting with an ex-girlfriend when he sees a car strike his ex, killing her. But the nightmare is only just beginning. As a witness to the crime, Chris knows the car's passengers - thugs linked to Miami's deadliest drug lords - are sure to come after him next. But what can he do if the police refuse to give him protection?

Booted from one exclusive school to the next since his foster mom's death three years ago, 16-year-old Seph McCauley knows he's different. But he doesn't understand why he can summon menacing ravens, freeze summer ponds, and torch all he touches. And then Seph makes the mistake of trusting his new headmaster. If you like Harry Potter, you'll love Seph McCauley.

Sixth-grader Milo Neal plans to do a science project on "The Complete Life Cycle of a Link in the Food Chain". But when he brings his specimen - a baby chick - to class, everyone falls in love with the cute ball of fluff. Soon she has a name: Henrietta. Not only is Henrietta the class pet, she's even chosen as mascot for the school hockey team! How can Milo finish his project, which calls for frying up his specimen and serving it to the judges of the science fair?

When young Pablo is given some poppy seeds, he dreams of spreading color and beauty throughout his dusty Mexican village. Daring to enter Old Antonio's walled yard to plant the seeds, he is chased away with angry words and a stick. The stingy old man thinks Pablo has come to steal his precious spring water. Poor Pablo becomes sick from staying too long in the hot sun and cannot leave his bed. Meanwhile, the seeds he dropped by the spring have grown into beautiful red poppies.

Lincoln is happy to be going to Japan as a martial arts exchange student. So is Tony, his barrio brother from San Francisco. They're excited about living in a dojo, or school for martial arts, and practicing the art of kempo. When Lincoln arrives in Japan, he is surprised to find that the dojo is a vacant lot. He will be living on a small farm with the Ono family, whose mother reminds him of his own. The father likes to play practical jokes, and the son, Mitsuo, likes baseball.

Adept at portraying Latino teenage culture, author Gary Soto has won many honors, including an ALA Best Book Award for his young adult novels. After an East Fresno student is murdered, his mind leaves his body. Now he must get used to being an invisible spirit, one who watches his friends and family deal with his death.

As a young boy, Cesar lived happily on his family’s ranch in Arizona. But when a severe drought lost them the entire crop, his family also lost their home. With thousands of other unlucky families, the Chavez’s moved to California where they lived in poverty and worked as migrant workers. It bothered Cesar greatly that the workers were treated like slaves by the landowners. So he organized the workers and marched to the state capital in protest.

This collection of short poems from Newbery Award-winning author Paul Fleischman delightfully celebrates the essence of birds. The companion to Joyful Noise: Poems for Two Voices, its poems feature two voices speaking sometimes together and sometimes in turn. Experience the magic and magnificence of the immortal phoenix. Enjoy the fluttering elation of finches at dawn and the swiftness of swallows at dusk. And empathize with the loneliness of the pigeon in the Cincinnati Zoo.

All Eddie wants is to find a way out of the dangerous life he's living, where his friends are lost in a world of drugs and violence. Even his aunt wants to give him a gun so he can avenge the death of her son. But no matter how hard he works, Eddie can't seem to pull himself away from the sweltering sadness of the city. It's as if giant onions had been buried beneath him, Eddie thinks, releasing shimmering vapors off the black asphalt all around.

This bold Southwestern tale by award-winning author C.W. Smith comes from the TCU Press’ Texas Tradition Series. Raised by an Anglo family after being orphaned, Méndez has been given the chance to succeed. His cousin Manuelo, however, is struggling just to survive. When Manuelo breaks the law, Méndez must decide whether to continue living a comfortable life or to risk it all and fight for his kin.

The 300 dogs of Steamboat Springs, Colorado, all know their places. At the top is McKinley, a malamute who’s head dog of the whole town. All of the dogs - and McKinley’s human family - rely on him to protect them and maintain order. Avi, the Newbery Medal author of Crispin: The Cross of Lead, peeks into the secret lives of dogs in this thrilling adventure tale. Robert Ramirez’s narration gives voice to a dog willing to risk any peril to do the good thing.

Eighth-grader Linc Mendoza has moved from a dusty San Francisco barrio to a well-groomed suburb and a new junior high school. Suddenly he's in the minority, a Mexican-American in a mostly white school. The basketball coach is tough on him. Classes are even tougher. And his best friend is back in the old neighborhood. To make things worse, the basketball team is scheduled to play against Linc's old school in a league game. How can Linc play his best when he's shooting against his former teammates?

After Manuel Rodrigo de Guzmán González disappears, his lover Wendell Apogee searches through New York City's "Darktown" to find him. Along the way, he encounters everything from black market dealers to alien assassins.

A heartbreaking novel that offers no easy answers, Give a Boy a Gun addresses the growing problem of school violence. Although it is a work of fiction, it could tragically be the leading nightly news story in any community. After a high school shooting at her alma mater, a college journalism student returns home to interview students, teachers, parents, and friends of the suspects. Intermingled with her interviews are journal entries written by the two troubled boys responsible for the shooting.

To get away from his chaotic, often violent parents, 17-year-old Jesse has moved into an apartment with his brother. They are both taking community college courses in Fresno. But to pay for them, they must take whatever jobs they can find, even backbreaking field work. The path to a good education isn't going to be an easy one for these two young Mexican-Americans. As Jesse absorbs information in his classes, he learns harsher lessons from the people around him.

In books like Buried Onions and Boys at Work, Gary Soto displays a gift for revealing the tough, heart-breaking life of contemporary urban kids. In Petty Crimes, Soto offers 10 stories about the risky situations and dangerous little scams faced by young people growing up on the harsh streets of the city.

Growing up Mexican-American in Fresno, California in the 1950’s and 60’s might not have been easy, but it was certainly never boring for young Gary Soto, his brother Rick and sister Debra. As this compilation of 21 short stories and articles illustrates, there is no limit to the amount of fun a child can have, or how much he can terrorize siblings and neighbors if his imagination is active.

After young Carlo Chuchio is dismissed from the service of his merchant uncle for daydreaming too much, he finds a treasure map and plunges headlong into an unimaginable adventure across Asia.

One of the most critically acclaimed books of 2001, Lord of the Deep is a vivid fishing adventure that takes place off of the great blue island of Hawaii. Since Bill married Mikey’s mom, Mikey’s life has become truly incredible. At age 13, Mikey is the youngest deckhand on the whole island, working hard on Bill’s deep-sea charter fishing boat. It’s his second week out on the boat, and he’s busy trying to prove himself to both Bill and the disrespectful charter guests. But after making a mistake at a crucial moment, Mikey begins to feel more and more alone.

The "Hollywood" where Sammy Santos and Juliana Rios live is not the West Coast one, the one with all the glitz and glitter. This Hollywood is a tough barrio at the edge of a small town in southern New Mexico. Sammy and his friends, members of the 1969 high school graduating class, face a world of racism, dress codes, war in Vietnam, and barrio violence.