Showing results by narrator "Ramon de-Ocampo" in All Categories

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.

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.

Gideon hates the idea of moving to Nevada from the East Coast. It's so empty and hot in his new neighborhood. Only one person his age lives nearby: the girl next door, Roona. Gid notices right away that Roona is...different. She wears roller skates and a blanket as a cape when she needs to feel strong. What he doesn't bargain for, however, is how far outside his comfort zone Roona will take him as she enlists his help in finding her long-gone father. For a kid who's not allowed to ride his bike more than a few blocks from home, this will be the adventure of a lifetime.

In the epic conclusion to Alex and Ren's quest, they must face off against the Death Walkers, The Order, and an army raised from the dead. Can Alex put an end to the chaos and send these evil spirits back where they belong without putting an end to his own life?

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.

Alex and Ren's hunt for the Lost Spells takes them on a twisty and magical path, through false doors, and deep into underground tombs where they discover that The Order is planning something bigger than they'd ever anticipated....

It's a typical night for high-school senior Jack Danielson. A star football player, he just broke the league rushing record, celebrated at the local diner, and got shot down (again) by his girlfriend. Jack feels he's having "the most normal senior year a guy could have" in "the most normal little town in America". He couldn't be more wrong.

Fraternal twin brothers Darryl and Kanga are just like any other teenagers trying to make it through high school. They have to deal with peer pressure, awkwardness, and family drama. But there’s one closely guarded secret that sets them apart: They are robots. So long as they keep their heads down, their robophobic neighbors won’t discover the truth about them, and they just might make it through to graduation. But when Kanga becomes the star of the basketball team, there’s more at stake than typical sibling rivalry.

Angelica Marie Hutcherson only agreed to write 250 words on the Academic Battle for the Homecoming Edition of the school's newspaper because the editor won't accept any of her other stories. But as Angelica starts to do her research, she comes to a startling realization: The Academic Battle, the Homecoming game, and the class election have all accidentally been scheduled on the same day, and it's too late to do anything about it!

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.

A collection of 15 beloved Chinese myths, legends, and folktales that are rich in tradition and culture. Each story transports the listener back to ancient times and is filled with excitement, adventure, magic, and laughter.

Higgs Boson Bing has seven days left before his perfect high school career is completed. Then it's on to Harvard to fulfill the fantasy portrait of success that he and his parents have cultivated for the past four years.

Sure enough, the competitors are intimidating, and the monsters terrifying - though neither more so than blossoming friendships with two determined swordswomen. Spurred by pure-hearted altruism alone, Pavel joins their quest to find the Storm’s Breath: an artifact that bestows magic powers - and real-world riches - upon the first player to find it. And with a ruthless mage on their heels, he’ll find plenty of opportunities for bravery.

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.

A trip to Washington, DC, turns into a perilous scramble through dark alleys and secret passages as Jake, Lucy, and TJ race to find the lost letters of Mary Lincoln before they fall into the hands of the Order of the Dark Lantern. What makes these letters so valuable to the Lantern? And how did the White House fall under control of this dark and powerful group? Another fast-paced, adrenaline-pumping thriller with all of the action, humor, and historical trivia that make the Jake and the League Series such a riveting adventure.

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.

Norman Mailer Fellow Alex Gilvarry delivers a witty satirical gem with his debut novel From the Memoirs of a Non-Enemy Combatant. Boyet Hernandez aspires to be a high-end fashion designer. But the night before he’s set to make it big, he hears a knock on his door. Shortly after, he finds himself in a Gitmo prison cell - locked up as a suspect in a deadly terrorist plot.

Sociologist Albert Amao analyzes the accuracy of self-help and positive-thinking claims in this groundbreaking - and wholly unexpected - exploration of what works, what doesn't, and why. Contrary to the critics who blithely dismiss self-help methods, or the New Age gurus who sell them as miracles, Amao - writing with sobriety and scholarship and drawing on deep personal experience - explores the conditions under which self-help is authentic.

In August of 2019, Donald Trump finished building his border wall - at least a portion of it. In San Diego, the Army Corps of engineers completed two years of construction on a 14-mile steel beamed barrier that extends 18 feet high and cost a staggering $147 million. As one border patrol agent told reporters visiting the site, "It was funded and approved and it was built under his administration. It is Trump’s wall." 14 Miles is a definitive account of all the dramatic construction, showing listeners what it feels like to stand on both sides of the border.

Eli Frieden lives in the most perfect town in the world: Serenity, New Mexico. In this idyllic place, every lawn is perfectly manicured, and everyone has a pool and a treehouse. Honesty and integrity are valued above all else in Serenity. The 30 kids who live there never lie - they know it's a short leap from lying to the awful problems of other less fortunate places.