Showing results by narrator "Stephanie Willing" in All Categories

All Pineda Matlage wants is to get through the school year and maybe pull an epic prank or two with his friends Junior, Ernesto, and Patsy. But class is disrupted when a slew of American soldiers descends upon their rural Texan town of Soledad. They’ll be carrying out a training exercise and taking over everything, from Pineda’s school to the local government. But Pineda knows why they’re really here. For days, he’s hidden the strange creature who fell from the sky in his parents’ barn. He promised her he’d find her family and help them return home.

Great horned owl Rufus is eight months old and still can’t hunt. When his mother is hit by a car, he discovers just how dangerous the forest can be. Reenie has given up on adults and learned how to care for herself - which is a good thing since she’s been sent to live with an aunt she’s never met. Yet this aunt has a wonderful secret: She’s a falconer who agrees to help Reenie catch an injured passage hawk in the wild and rehabilitate it. When Reenie traps bedraggled Rufus, his eyes lock onto her heart, and they form a powerful friendship.

It’s the west end of Toronto, the apartments are small, and everybody is twenty-seven and making some kind of art. In the wake of her mother’s death, Sophie pays rent by making stained glass mosaics for rich people and plays house with her childhood friend and sometimes-lover, the beautiful boy Alex. Both are from Newfoundland but move easily in this world of crowded patios and DIY movie shoots. When Sophie meets the glamorous poet Maggie, who is the downtown product of a hundred cool queer bars, she falls into a bewildered infatuation.

Do you love Texas so much that you want to tell your friends and family all about it? We know the feeling! Take them on a tour of the best things about Texas! From Big Bend National Park, to the Texas State Fair, to the Dallas Farmers Market, to the Alamo, all audiences will learn fun facts showing them how much they, too, will love Texas!

Lemon Ziegler wants to escape rural Devil’s Elbow, Pennsylvania to attend college—but that’s impossible now that she’s expected to impersonate the town’s lake monster for the rest of her life. Her family has been secretly keeping the tradition of Old Lucy, the famed (and very fake) monster of Lake Lokakoma, alive for generations, all to keep the tourists coming. Without Lemon, the town dies, and she can’t disappoint her grandparents . . . or tell her best friends about any of it.

Zoomi and Zoe were proud to conquer their first Tricky Turnaround together, but the second book in the series brings more changes for the new friends: Zoomi and Zoe are both going to be big siblings! Zoomi thought her family was pretty great as it was, but then her parents bring home a new baby. (In Zoomi’s humble opinion, Fizzle is very boring and kind of rude.) Meanwhile, Zoe’s dads have a wonderful surprise: Zoe is going to be a big sister, too! But Zoe’s new brother doesn’t seem to like her very much. Why does he keep crying when Zoe is around?

Zoe loves routine, her stuffed rhino Zoomi, and her best friend Kyla. When Kyla moves away, Zoe feels alone. Until somehow, she’s transported to a magical new world with just one sort-of-familiar face: Zoomi, who is suddenly very much real. Zoomi loves adventure, zooming, and her best friend Moo. In her world, life is full of happy surprises, but one ritual is certain: when something hard happens, she’ll have a Tricky Turnaround. And when she does, a Happy Helpful Human from the “real” world will arrive to help her through it.