Showing results by author "Bruce Coville" in All Categories

For sixth-grader Nina Tanleven, trying out for a part in a play is pretty scary. But nothing can compare to seeing a ghost, a woman in white, sitting in the audience! Nina senses that she has nothing to fear from this apparition, but she is intrigued. Nina learns that 50 years ago, a beautiful actress was murdered - on this very stage! According to legend, she has haunted the theater ever since.

Ranging from the hilarious to the horrifying, this acclaimed collection of nine short stories - five of them read by full casts - showcases the remarkable variety of Bruce Coville's work. Listeners will meet a ghost who haunts a kitchen after a tragic baking accident, visit the goblin world with an unconventional princess, and fly with Justin Jones to an enchanted island that requires a heartbreaking decision. A rich, varied, and dazzling set of listening experiences!

Pleskit Meenom, the first alien to go to school on Earth, is starting to fit in with his new class. It's not easy, given how slippery the language is. (Just how many meanings does the word "cool" have, anyway?) But the biggest problem is Jordan Lynch, the class bully who just can't resist picking on the new kid. Finally Pleskit and his new best friend, Tim Tompkins, decide to take action. But taking action when you have alien technology at your disposal can mean taking things just a little too far...and we do mean little!

Purple and perplexed, Pleskit Meenom needs advice on how to deal with the challenges of his new life on Earth. Normally he would ask his best friend, Tim Tompkins, but the two boys have been tricked into a feud. So instead he turns to his Grandfatherly One - or, at least, the brain of that wise old man, which is all the family has left of him. But perhaps the Grandfatherly One is not as wise as they all would like to believe, since he convinces Pleskit to take him to school in the portable Brain Transport Device. And that's when things really start to go wrong.

It's not easy being the only kid in your class who doesn't have six arms and an extra eye in the middle of your forehead. But that's the situation Jacob faces when his dad takes him to the planet Kwarkis. The situation gets worse when Jacob makes a ghastly blunder that just may cost him the thing he loves most.

Benjie Perkins' parents make their living by buying old houses and fixing them up to sell, so Benjie is used to odd noises in the night. But this time, it's different. This time what he hears is the ghost of Elvira Thistledown, who is kept from moving on to glory by a truly strange curse. Can Benjie free her restless spirit?