Showing results by narrator "Michael Crouch" in All Categories

Alexandra Jennings might be the hero of The Medoran Chronicles, but she would be lost without her three closest friends. They are her heroes, and like all heroes, they each have their own story. Meet the real D.C. in 'Crowns and Curses' and discover how she becomes the princess Alex once despised but now adores. Follow Jordan on his healing journey in 'Scars and Silence' as he struggles in the wake of being rescued from his living nightmare. Walk beside Bear in 'Hearts and Headstones' as he faces an unspeakable trauma while helping his world prepare for the coming war.

A dark wind gathers on Chaco Navajo reservation, deep in the heart of New Mexico. Grant Romer, the Keeper of the secret bell, can feel it pulling at his soul. Caroline and Owen work as hard as they can to treat the Navajo, but the dark wind brings a desperation to their clinic that is beyond western medicine.

Fifteen-year-old Ilya arrives in Louisiana from his native Russia for what should be the adventure of his life: a year in America as an exchange student. But all is not right in Ilya's world: He's consumed by the fate of his older brother, Vladimir, the magnetic rebel to Ilya's dutiful wunderkind, back in their tiny Russian hometown. Just before Ilya left, the murders of three young women rocked the town's usual calm, and Vladimir found himself in prison. With the help of Sadie, who has secrets of her own, Ilya embarks on a mission to prove Vladimir's innocence.

If we’re lucky, we all encounter at least one person whose life elevates and inspires our own. For acclaimed novelist Daniel Wallace, he had one hero and inspiration for so much of what followed: his longtime friend and brother-in-law William Nealy. Seemingly perfect, impossibly cool, William was James Dean, Clint Eastwood, and MacGyver all rolled into one, an acclaimed outdoorsman, a famous cartoonist, an accomplished author, a master of all he undertook, William was the ideal that Daniel sought to emulate.

It’s 1989 in New York City. Reza is an Iranian boy who has just moved to the city with his mother to live with his stepfather and stepbrother. He’s terrified that someone will guess the truth he can barely acknowledge about himself. Reza knows he’s gay, but all he knows of gay life are the media’s images of men dying of AIDS. Judy is an aspiring fashion designer who worships her uncle Stephen, a gay man with AIDS who devotes his time to activism as a member of ACT UP. Art is Judy’s best friend, their school’s only out and proud teen.

Bubblegum is set in an alternate present-day world in which the internet does not exist and has never existed. Rather, a wholly different species of interactive technology - a "flesh-and-bone robot" called the Curio - has dominated both the market and the cultural imagination since the late 1980s. Belt Magnet, who as a boy in greater Chicago became one of the lucky first adopters of a Curio, is now writing his memoir, and through it we follow a singular man out of sync with the harsh realities of a world he feels alien to but must find a way to live in.

It’s the summer of 1959 in the seemingly tranquil suburbs of Washington, DC. But our young narrator, John, and his best friends, Ivan and Max, know the truth: Every door on their street could be hiding an escaped Nazi or a spy. The entire city is being plagued by an inexplicable spider infestation - surely evidence of "insect warfare" by the Russians! So when a rare vinegaroon - a whip scorpion - is discovered and sequestered for museum study, the boys, along with their tomboy accomplice, Beatriz, hatch a risky midnight plan to steal the poisonous creature.

Kevin Wilson’s characters inhabit a world that moves seamlessly between the real and the imagined, the mundane and the fantastic. “Grand Stand-In” is narrated by an employee of the Nuclear Family Supplemental Provider—a company that supplies “stand-ins” for families with deceased, ill, or plain mean grandparents. And in “Blowing Up On the Spot,” a young woman works sorting tiles at a Scrabble factory after her parents have spontaneously combusted. These wonderfully inventive stories explore the relationship between loss and death and the ways we try to cope with both.

Welcome to Chain-Gang All-Stars - the highly popular, highly controversial profit-raising program inside America's private prison system. Harkening back to the time of gladiators, but watched by millions of live-stream subscribers, prisoners compete for the ultimate prize: their freedom.

Sky Baker may be openly gay, but in his small, insular town, making sure he was invisible has always been easier than being himself. Determined not to let anything ruin his senior year, Sky decides to make a splash at his high school’s annual beach bum party by asking his crush, Ali, to prom - and he has thirty days to do it.

The Yeerks are finally starting to realize that the "Andalite bandits" are probably not aliens at all. That maybe they've been dealing with humans all along. And no one—especially the newly appointed Visser One—is happy about this revelation. When Tobias and the other Animorphs realize that the Yeerks are about to find them, it's by accident. But that doesn't make the discovery any less serious. Because in a war, one side wins and one side loses...

It started with the letters… For actress Meribel Mills, disturbing fan mail is part of the price of fame. So when she starts getting creepy letters written in fruit-scented marker she’s mostly unfazed. But there’s something different about Marker Man…

In the newest novel by beloved National Book Award finalist Lisa Graff, kids have turned the tables on their parents, and all the rules have been tossed out the window. But does Winnie have what it takes to hold her ground and keep everyone happy? This story, with a pitch-perfect middle grade voice and zany yet poignant situation, is perfect for fans of Sharon Creech, Louis Sachar, and Jack Gantos.

When a pair of young lovers abscond from a Puritan colony, little do they know that their humble cabin in the woods will become the home of an extraordinary succession of human and inhuman characters alike. In his transcendent fourth novel, Pulitzer Prize finalist Daniel Mason delivers a magisterial and highly inventive tale brimming with love and madness, humor and hope. Following the cycles of history, nature and even language, North Woods shows the myriad, magical ways in which we're connected to our environment, to history and to each other.

I've promised myself that this was going to be the year to finally buckle down. I'm a junior, and I’ve settled on a major. I've got focus and determination. The one thing I haven't figured out yet? How to deal with the massive crush I've been harboring on the guy in study carrel six. I don’t know his name, and some of my friends think it’s time for me to move on, but he has this whole sexy, broody, dark eyes and messy hair thing going for him. And yeah, he seems like he could be my polar opposite.

Eleven-year-old Alex Petroski loves space and rockets, his mom, his brother, and his dog, Carl Sagan - named for his hero, the real-life astronomer. All he wants is to launch his golden iPod into space the way Carl Sagan (the man, not the dog) launched his Golden Record on the Voyager spacecraft in 1977. From Colorado to New Mexico, Las Vegas to LA, Alex records a journey on his iPod to show other lifeforms what life on Earth, his Earth, is like.

Grad student Will Dillard has largely buried memories of the summer he spent at a camp intended to "cure" homosexuality. But when he finds out a horror movie based on the camp is hitting theaters, he's forced to face his past - and his role in another camper's death. As he recounts the events surrounding his "failed rehabilitation", Will strikes out on an impromptu road trip back home to Mississippi, eventually returning to the abandoned campgrounds to solve the mysteries of that pivotal summer.

Ross Maloy just wants to be a normal seventh grader. He doesn't want to lose his hair, or wear a weird hat, or deal with the disappearing friends who don't know what to say to "the cancer kid". But with his recent diagnosis of a rare eye cancer, blending in is off the table. Based on Rob Harrell's real life experience, this incredibly personal and poignant novel is an unforgettable, heartbreaking, hilarious, and uplifting story of survival and finding the music, magic, and laughter in life's weirdness.

They say revenge is a dish best served cold. I’d had four years to stew on what Daria Followhill did to me...now my heart was completely iced. I took her first kiss. She took the only thing I loved. I was poor. She was rich. The good thing about circumstances? They can change. Fast. Now, I’m her parents’ latest shiny project. Her housemate. Her tormentor. The captain of the rival football team she hates so much. Yeah, baby girl, say it. I’m your foster brother. There’s a price to pay for ruining the only good thing in my life. She’s about to shell out some serious tears.

Thirteen-year-old Anna Ballinkay has never been normal. Her family uses their psychic abilities to help run the Ravenfall Inn, a magical B&B between the human world and the Otherworld. But it’s hard to contribute when your only power is foreseeing death. So when fourteen-year-old Colin Pierce arrives at Ravenfall searching for his missing older brother, Anna jumps at the chance to help. But the mysteries tied to Colin go much deeper than either of them expects...