Showing results by narrator "Jeff Woodman" in All Categories

Folsom, New Mexico, is young Jim Stanton’s new home. His father has been given a wonderful job at Folsom National Laboratories. The company has provided the Stantons with everything they need, including a fabulous house and even a brand-new car. The only trouble is that it all seems a little too perfect. Curious, Jim goes hiking in the nearby mountains, where he meets a strange girl and her father. Their warning about what the Stantons will have to sacrifice for their new, comfortable life sends Jim racing back to his family - and a perilous search through the lab.

Central Park is perhaps the most well-trod and familiar green space in the country. It is both a refuge from the city and Manhattan's very heart; a respite from the urban grind and a hive of activity all its own. Eight hundred forty-three carefully planned acres allow some 37 million visitors each year to come and get lost in a sense of nature. Unsurprisingly, the park also inspires a wealth of great writing, and here Andrew Blauner collects some of the finest fiction and nonfiction - 20 pieces in all.

Originally published in 1950, William Goyen's first novel is an elegy to childhood, memory, loss and love, celebrating boyhood in a small town in Texas.

Rupert P. Brown’s biggest worry about sixth grade is it might be, well, a little bit dull. After all, how can a fellow be expected to top a fifth grade year in which his best friend was kidnapped, and he found out his best teacher ever was a real, honest-to-goodness witch? But when Rupert types the word "computowitch" in an e-mail message, his screen goes all green, and then his parakeet starts giving him math lessons. He knows it can only mean one thing: Miss Switch is back!

Darek and his family and friends are returning from their dragonquest with something different: Zantor, a live baby dragon. The villagers are surprised that it is nothing like the fierce creatures the Zorians have grown up believing dragons to be. This exciting sequel to The Dragonling continues the exciting story of Darek and Zantor.

Grasshoppers, waterstriders, and fireflies light up the pages of this rib-tickling book of poetry for two voices. Written as spirited duets, the poems ring with the love songs of book lice, the serenades of moths, and a choir of cicadas. Each one is a treat, filled with busy insect life. In addition to the voices of these frisky critters, there are also fascinating tidbits about their lives and habits.

It was made like a television movie, and completed in less than three months. It killed off its star in 40 minutes. There was no happy ending. And it offered the most violent scene to that date in American film, punctuated by shrieking strings that seared the national consciousness. Nothing like Psycho had existed before, and the movie industry, even America itself, would never be the same.

It’s the week before Christmas, and Eric is already bored with his vacation. His parents have to work, his friends are out of town, and the city is snowed under. Then he opens his apartment door for an exterminator, and is dragged into the adventure of his life. Anje Gabrail carries a crossbow and lives for his work. When he discovers a rat in the basement of Eric’s apartment building, he asks the boy to help him kill it. At first Eric agrees, after all, he doesn’t have anything better to do. But as the week progresses, Eric finds himself in a fight to save not only the rat but himself as well.

When the village Elder tries to buy Darek's blue dragon for his daughter, Darek refuses to sell. The angry Elder makes Darek's father hunt down another dragon, but, knowing that dragons are peaceful and love their children, Darek sets off with his best friend, Pola, to stop the hunt. Can Darek find a way to save the baby dragons without putting his father's life in danger?

There were conjugal visits in the slave camps of the USSR. Valiant women would travel continental distances, over weeks and months, in the hope of spending a night with their particular enemy of the people, in the House of Meetings. The consequences of these liaisons were almost invariably tragic. House of Meetings is about one such liaison.

Eve is haunted by her dead cats, Willie is not content to turn a blind eye to suffering, and Maria carries on lengthy conversations with a silent caller. Theirs are the odd, but strangely realistic stories you will find in this collection. Avi’s stories address real concerns in a way young people can relate to. Always entertaining, they broach difficult topics like divorce, teenage runaways, adolescent cruelty, and homelessness.

The South Orange River (S.O.R.) Middle School is famous for its winning sports teams. That is, until the seventh grade soccer squad comes along. Led by Ed Sitrow, who has never played soccer before, this amazing team of non-jocks sets new lows in team spirit and new highs in scoring - for the other team. When they lose their first game 32-0, they’re ready to call it quits. But the teachers insist that the team keep playing through the entire soccer season.

The Gospel According to Mark is Volume 23 from Gospel & Acts, the New Testament, from the Unabridged Contemporary English Version Translation of the Holy Bible.

One of only three Sam Spade short stories, this one involves a blackmailing poet, a seductive chanteuse, her rough-hewn stage-door-johnny, and, of course, murder. Recorded before a live audience in New York.

It's the second decade of the 21st century, and terrorism has escalated almost beyond control. The Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem has been blown to bits by extremists, and, in retaliation, thousands have died in another major attack on the United States. The War on Terror has reached a deadly stalemate. Now the FBI has been dispatched to deal with a new menace: a plague targeted to ethnic groups, Jews or Muslims or both, has the potential to wipe out entire populations.

Martin longs to be a musician. But a piano wouldn't fit in his mobile home, even if his father would let him have one. Martin's father wants him to play baseball and forget about all that "sissy" music stuff. If it weren't for the harmonica he plays when he's out of the house, and the music he creates in his head when his father is yelling at him, Martin would have no music at all. Then he sees a violin for sale for $50 in a pawn shop window, and he can think of nothing else. There's just one problem: he only has $12.78.

Here are four unforgettable stories by Yann Martel, the New York Times best-selling author of Life of Pi. In the exquisite title novella, a very young man dying of AIDS joins his friend in fashioning a story of the Roccamatio family of Helsinki, set against the yearly march of the 20th century.

When Jonathan's firm sends him to Rome to discredit the testimony of a prominent U.N. antiquities official, a chance reunion leads to a hunt for the legendary Tabernacle Menorah: solid gold, eight feet high, stolen 2,000 years ago and never recovered. As Jonathan and his friend scour Rome's ancient sites for hints to its whereabouts, they quickly realize they are not alone and the precious menorah is a key to controlling history itself.

Brought to you by Penguin. When it comes to relationships, Colin Singleton's type is girls named Katherine. And when it comes to girls named Katherine, Colin is always getting dumped. Nineteen times, to be exact. On a road trip miles from home, this anagram-happy, washed-up child prodigy has ten...

Benjamin was nine years old in the spring of 1855 when his father met with the accident that changed Benjamin’s life. Called home from boarding school, his first sight of his father lying nearly lifeless in the bed petrified him. Gone was the energetic man who had held the family together when Benjamin’s mother succumbed to diphtheria. With the courage and strength that had brought the family to the Oregon Territory, Benjamin and his siblings work to build the barn their father had been excitedly planning when he was struck down.