Showing results by publisher "Listening Library" in Geography & Cultures

Twelve-year-old fraternal twins Phoebe and Dexter Bae are polar opposites in every way except for their love of the ice. Phoebe is hyperfocused on pairs figure skating, and Dex loves his hockey team. But when Phoebe’s partner injures his knee just two months before competitions and Dex gets cut from his team in favor of a new hotshot goalie from Canada, they’re both left spinning.

Esperanza Ortega possesses all the treasures a young girl in Aguascalientes, Mexico could want. But a sudden tragedy shatters that dream, forcing Esperanza and Mama to flee to California and settle in a Mexican farm labor camp. There they confront the challenges of hard work, acceptance by their own people, and economic difficulties brought on by the Great Depression. Pam Munoz Ryan eloquently portrays the Mexican workers' plight in this abundant and passionate novel.

Lost in a new world, Lyra finds Will—a boy on the run, a murderer—a worthy and welcome ally. For this is a world where soul-eating Specters stalk the streets and witches share the skies with troops of angels. Each is searching—Lyra for the meaning of Dark Matter, Will for his missing father—but what they find instead is a deadly secret, a knife of untold power. And neither Lyra nor Will suspects how tightly their lives, their loves, their destinies are bound together...until they are split apart.

Lyra and Will, the two ordinary children whose extraordinary adventures begin in The Golden Compass and The Subtle Knife, are in unspeakable danger. With help from Iorek Byrnison the armored bear and two tiny Gallivespian spies, they must journey to a dank and gray-lit world where no living soul has ever gone.

Nothing’s gone right for Lawrence since he had to move from Charlotte to Larenville, North Carolina, to live with his granny. When Lawrence ends up in one too many fights at his new school, he gets expelled. The fight wasn’t his fault, but since his pop’s been gone, it feels like no one listens to what Lawrence has to say. Instead of going to school, Lawrence starts spending his days at the rec center, helping out a neighbor who runs a chess program. Some of the kids in the program will be picked to compete in the Charlotte Classic chess tournament. Could this be Lawrence's chance to go home?

Mia Tang has a lot of secrets. Number one: She lives in a motel, not a big house. Every day, while her immigrant parents clean the rooms, 10-year-old Mia manages the front desk of the Calivista Motel and tends to its guests. Number two: Her parents hide immigrants. And if the mean motel owner, Mr. Yao, finds out they've been letting them stay in the empty rooms for free, the Tangs will be doomed. Number three: She wants to be a writer. But how can she when her mom thinks she should stick to math because English is not her first language?

Isaiah is now the big man of the house. But it's a lot harder than his dad made it look. His little sister, Charlie, asks too many questions, and Mama's gone totally silent. Good thing Isaiah can count on his best friend, Sneaky, who always has a scheme for getting around the rules. Plus, his classmate Angel has a few good ideas of her own - once she stops hassling Isaiah. And when things get really tough, there's Daddy's journal, filled with stories about the amazing Isaiah Dunn, a superhero who gets his powers from beans and rice. Isaiah wishes his dad's tales were real.

When Halt and Crowley discover that the ambitious Morgarath has been infiltrating the Rangers in order to corrupt the Corps, the young Rangers travel north to find Prince Duncan, seeking a royal warrant to stop Morgarath before it is too late. By weakening the Rangers, the most powerful force in support of the King, Morgarath plans to steal the throne.

San Francisco, 1900. The Gilded Age. A fantastic time to be alive for lots of people...but not 13-year-old Lizzie Kennedy, stuck at Miss Barstow's snobby school for girls. Lizzie's secret passion is science, an unsuitable subject for finishing-school girls. Lizzie lives to go on house calls with her physician father. On those visits to his patients, she discovers a hidden dark side of the city - a side that's full of secrets, rats, and rumors of the plague.

June can't tell a lie - and that made for a lot of drama even before she joined her school musical! An enchanting middle grade series that listeners won't want to miss. Honestly. June has a hard time telling the truth when it isn't what people want to hear. But she's trying to be honest with herself, and auditioning for the school musical is what she really wants -- even if her parents have other ideas.

Mike and Kate arrive in Colorado to a ballpark covered in snow! Luckily, the stadium has a heater that can melt the fluffy flakes in time for next day's game. But when the ballpark engineers get a mysterious note saying that someone may tamper with the scoreboard, the snow becomes the least of the cousins' problems. It's time for Mike and Kate to switch into sleuth mode and solve a mystery that will take them underground, a mile above sea level, and even face to face with a dinosaur!

When a tiger cub escapes from a nature reserve near Neel's island village, the rangers and villagers hurry to find her before the cub's anxious mother follows suit and endangers them all. Mr. Gupta, a rich newcomer to the island, is also searching - he wants to sell the cub's body parts on the black market. Neel and his sister, Rupa, resolve to find the cub first and bring her back to the reserve where she belongs.

When a terrible drought struck William Kamkwamba's tiny village in Malawi, his family lost all of the season's crops, leaving them with nothing to eat and nothing to sell. William began to explore science books in his village library, looking for a solution. There, he came up with the idea that would change his family's life forever: he could build a windmill. Made out of scrap metal and old bicycle parts, William's windmill brought electricity to his home and helped his family pump the water they needed to farm the land.

A girl from the forest arrives in a bustling kingdom with no name and no idea why she is there, only to find herself at the center of a world at war. She enlists at Pennyroyal Academy, where princesses and knights are trained to battle the two great menaces of the day: witches and dragons. There, given the name "Evie," she must endure a harsh training regimen under the steel glare of her Fairy Drill sergeant, while also navigating an entirely new world of friends and enemies.

Alvin, an Asian American second grader who's afraid of everything, has started to notice his mother getting bigger...and bigger. Alvin's sure it's all the mochi cakes she's been eating, but it turns out she's pregnant! There are lots of scary things about babies, as everybody knows. There's learning CPR for the newborn and changing diapers (no way). But the scariest thing of all is the fact that the baby could be a GIRL. As a result of the stress, Alvin puts on a few pounds and - in one hilarious misunderstanding - worries that he might actually be pregnant, too!

Madeleine wants nothing more than to save money for college, but her impractical, ex-hippie parents are broke. When the family unexpectedly inherits a sweet shoppe in England that has the potential to earn serious profit, they see an answer to all their problems.... Meanwhile, Mr. and Mrs. Bunny - formerly of the detecting persuasion - are looking for new professions, and Mrs. Bunny decides she would like to be queen. Soon they, too, are headed across the pond.

Lula Viramontes aches to one day become someone whom no one can ignore: a daring ringleader in a Mexican traveling circus. But between working the grape harvest in Delano, California, with her older siblings under dangerous conditions; taking care of her younger siblings and Mamá, who has mysteriously fallen ill; and doing everything she can to avoid Papá’s volatile temper, it’s hard to hold on to those dreams.

When Charlie begins to experience freaky bodily manifestations - ones all too similar to those described by his grandma in his favorite legend - he is suddenly swept up in a world where the mythical beings he's spent his entire life hearing about seem to be walking straight out of the pages of Hispanic folklore and into his life. Even stranger, they seem to know more about him than he knows about himself.

When guerrilla soldiers strike Santiago's village, they destroy everything in their path -- including his home and family. Santiago and his four-year-old sister escape, running for their lives. But the only way they can be truly safe is to leave Guatemala behind forever. So Santiago and Angelina set sail in a sea kayak their Uncle Ramos built while dreaming of his own escape.

Ana Rosa is a blossoming young writer growing up in a poor seaside village in the Dominican Republic. At the young age of 12, she finds herself faced with turning points that will make up who she is, watching her brother's search for a future, learning to dance and to love, and finding out what it means to be a part of a community.