Showing results by narrator "Ramón De Ocampo" in All Categories

Become your best self. Figuring out how to make friends, develop relationships, and be confident is a step-by-step process. Now help is available in Embracing the Awkward, written by the popular teen-advice YouTuber, The Josh Speaks. This isn't another dry instructional book written by a boring adult disconnected from the millennial reality; it's a guide, a workbook, an empowering step towards trying things out, discovering who you are, and becoming your best self.

Who doesn’t love a good Happily Ever After? The Cursed City is now the Blessed City, with its residents’ curses removed. Lena is now fully human, as are the rest of the giants, and together they live in peace with all the other humans in the city, all their differences now gone. And sure, Jin might have disappeared, but really, genie magic only caused trouble. At least, that’s what the magic spell in Lena’s head is telling her. But somewhere inside, she knows that this new world isn’t right, that no real Happily Ever After would take her giant heritage from her…and that Jin is in danger.

Handy Smurf takes on climate control in this Smurfy springtime story! After days of endless rain, Handy Smurf decides to smurf up a weather machine to make the rain go away. But what happens when Farmer Smurf and Poet Smurf get their hands on the machine—and can’t decide what the new weather should be?

Andi is short. And she has lots of wishes. She wishes she could play on the school basketball team, she wishes for her own bedroom, but most of all she wishes that her long-lost half-brother, Bernardo, could come and live in London where he belongs. Then Andi's biggest wish comes true and she's minutes away from becoming someone's little sister. As she waits anxiously for Bernardo to arrive from the Philippines, she hopes he'll turn out to be tall and just as crazy as she is about basketball. When he finally arrives, he's tall all right. Eight feet tall, in fact.

Marens world was shattered when her girlfriend, Kaia, was abducted by the Aurati. After a daring rescue, they've finally been reunited, but Maren's life is still in pieces: Kaia seems more like a stranger than the lover Maren knew back home; Naava, the mother of all dragons, has retreated into seclusion to recover from her wounds, leaving Maren at a loss on how to set the rest of the dragons free; and worst of all, her friend Sev has been captured by the emperors Talons.

There comes a time when offering your life for your child’s doesn’t work, when you realize that it’ll never be enough. The cold needle in his warm vein was a welcome comfort to my son at first. But then it became the monster that kept us apart. Heroin lied, and my son believed. It took him to a world where the last year didn’t happen, to a place where his father was still alive. What Beck didn’t understand was that it couldn’t bring his father back from the dead. It couldn’t take away his pain, not permanently.

In I Need a Hug, a tiny porcupine just wants a cuddle. All of the other animals turn him away because of his prickly spikes. But finally the porcupine meets an animal who's happy to hug....

While daydreaming, 11-year-old Matt Hamilton gets lost in the mysterious woods of Rathburn Park. A small white dog shows him the way out, but it seems strange that no one else has seen such a dog. It seems stranger still when Matt returns to the woods and meets a girl dressed in old-fashioned clothes. She claims her name is Amelia Rathburn, but the only Rathburn still living is nearly a hundred years old.

We can be fragile creatures. We all stumble, fall and fail. In the process, we often lose the purpose and destiny that once empowered our lives. If a failure sidelined you, Rebound is a must-listen. Whether you left your faith to pursue your own way, are struggling under the weight of bondage or addictions, or are unable to break free of past hurt - even hurt caused by those closest to you - God wants to restore you.

Samkad lives deep in the Philippine jungle, and has never encountered anyone from outside his own tribe before. He's about to become a man, and while he's desperate to grow up, he's worried that this will take him away from his best friend, Little Luki, who isn't ready for the traditions and ceremonies of being a girl in her tribe. But when a bad omen sends Samkad's life in another direction, he discovers the brother he never knew he had. A brother who tells him of a people called 'Americans'. A people who are bringing war, and destruction right to their home.

It’s been only a few weeks since Van uncovered a magical secret - that wishes really can come true, and that a mysterious society called the Collectors protects us from the dire consequences even the smallest wish can have. Van knows only too well how wishing can go awry: His mother is recovering from a broken leg, his friend Pebble has been stolen away by the evil wish collector Mr. Falborg, dozens of dangerous creatures called Wish Eaters have escaped into the world, and Van himself has almost died - twice - all because of wishes.

Benny's friend Ray come up with his craziest invention idea yet: a machine that grants wishes. But when Benny realizes he has some wishes that need granting, he starts to wonder if it might just work. A short story from Guys Read: Thriller, edited by Jon Scieszka.

Five running backs were selected in the first round of the 2008 NFL Draft. Jamaal Charles was not among them. Despite piling up the fourth-most rushing yards at the University of Texas in just three seasons, he waited for eight other running backs to get selected ahead of him. The Middle School Rules of Jamaal Charles features the stories and lessons of Jamaal’s childhood, defined by people overlooking him.

Copper Inskeep holds Windydown Vale’s deepest and darkest secret: He is the ghoul who haunts the Vale, donning a gruesome costume not only to scare travelers away from the dangers of the surrounding swamps, but also to keep them from discovering Windydown Vale’s best-kept secret. When a terrified girl claims she and her father were attacked by a creature, one that could not have been Copper, her accusation threatens Copper’s secret, his closest friendship, and the fate of all Windydown.

Guillermo Lozano is getting a fresh start. New town, new school, and no more reckless behavior. He's done his time, and now he needs to right his wrongs. But when his work at the local community center throws him into the path of the one girl who is off-limits, friendship sparks and maybe more. Regan London needs a fresh perspective. The pressure to stay in her "perfect" relationship and be the good girl all the time has worn her down. But when the walls start to cave in and she finds unexpected understanding from the boy her parents warned about, she can't ignore her feelings anymore.

Alcatraz Smedry, practically the world champion of breaking things, never thought his most boring birthday present - a bag of sand - would get him into this much trouble. Yet now he's fleeing from evil Librarians, releasing dinosaurs to create a diversion in the Fiction section, and learning that clumsiness can be a powerful talent! The first in a gripping and action-packed adventure series featuring an unlikely but immensely likeable hero.

Darken Wood...even the name brings dread to humans. But it is home to Ansalon's centaur tribes, where they have dwelt for ages in peace under the Forestmaster's watchful eye. Now, 10 years after the Summer of Chaos, strife is tearing the centaurs apart. A mad chieftain seeks to overthrow his enemies, and an even darker presence is changing the forest itself. Trephas, a brave young warrior, sets out for Solace to seek aid agasint these enemies. He finds more than he bargained for in Caramon Majere, Hero of the Lance, and his spitfire daughter Dezra.

When he was four years old, Sam Abernathy was trapped at the bottom of a well for three days, where he was teased by a smart-aleck armadillo named Bartleby. Since then, his parents plan every move he makes. But Sam doesn’t like their plans. He doesn’t want to go to MIT. And he doesn’t want to skip two grades, being stuck in the eighth grade as an 11-year-old with James Jenkins, the boy he’s sure pushed him into the well in the first place. He wants to be a chef. And he’s going to start by entering the first Blue Creek Days Colonel Jenkins Macaroni and Cheese Cook-Off.

What’s the problem? Sixteen-year-old Filipino American Angelo Rivera will tell you flat out. Life sucks. He’s been uprooted from his San Diego home to a boring landlocked town in the middle of nowhere. Behind him, ocean waves, his girlfriend, and the biggest skateboarding competition on the California coast. Ahead, flipping burgers at his parents’ new diner and, as the only Asian in his all-white school, being trolled as “brown boy” by small-minded, thick-necked jocks. Resigned to being an outcast, Angelo isn’t alone.

In Turbo Racers: Trailblazer, 12-year-old Mace Blazer gets the chance to pilot a state-of-the-art vehicle that transforms at the touch of a button from race car to jet plane to single-person sub in the biggest race in the world.