Fairy Legends

My name is Melany Richmond, and for my entire life, I’ve been an outcast, an orphan tossed around like a ship in a storm. I don’t think that gods really exist. I never even received my Shadowbox when I turned 18. Maybe, because nobody knows my true birth date or because not even the gods care about me. After all, I'm a blue-haired rebel and a troublemaker with tattoos all over my arms.

When 17-year-old Lilliana Young enters the Metropolitan Museum of Art one morning during spring break, the last thing she expects to find is a live Egyptian prince with godlike powers who has been reawakened after 1,000 years of mummification. And she really can't imagine being chosen to aid him in an epic quest that will lead them across the globe.

The cruelty of the capital and the power-hungry King Arden have scattered Bleak and her companions across the continents. On the run in a foreign land, Bleak finds herself tied to some unexpected strangers. When the answers she yearns for are finally within reach, she must face the hard truths of her past and take her fate into her own hands before it’s too late. Meanwhile, secrets and magic unravel as a dark power corrupts the realm. Bleak’s friends are forced to decide where their loyalties lie, and who, if anyone, they can trust.

When Hunter Cassidy exposed the true identity of the underground's brutal leader, she also uncovered the devastating truth about her own life. With her time running out, Hunter must ally herself with her mortal enemy - the only woman with the power to destroy Hunter and everything she loves, including Slade Baines. Determined not to lose Hunter, Slade will do anything to find the final Realm that holds the secret to saving Hunter and destroying their enemies once and for all.

Here are the great stories of the Heroic Age, from the myths of the making of the universe to the death of Heracles. Set against the colorful background of Greece and the Aegean, the adventures of heroes such as Perseus the Gorgon-slayer, Dionysus, Theseus, and Jason and the Argonauts once again come to life.

Princess Ying Yue believed in love...once upon a time. Yet when she’s chosen to wed the crown prince, Ying’s dreams of a fairy tale marriage quickly fall apart. Her husband-to-be is cold and indifferent, confining Ying to her room for reasons he won’t explain. Worse still are the rumors that swirl around the imperial palace: whispers of seven other royal brides who, after their own weddings, mysteriously disappeared. Left alone with only her own reflection for company, Ying begins to see things. Strange things.

Fable Prescott believes two lies. The first, that she was chosen at random for the summer study abroad program at her university. And the second, that she came to the wind-whipped Isle of Skye to research her family's mysterious ancestry. She never expected to find herself embroiled in a cold case that's kept a tiny seaside village on edge for years. When another woman vanishes, Fable begins to wonder if there is more to the dark legends that cling to the island; and if her brooding, devastatingly handsome new neighbor is the only one that holds the key to her family's tragic past.

She’s headstrong, stubborn, and perfectly content in her palace. He’s a penniless minstrel with no intention of proposing. But one fateful song changes everything . . . Princess Liesel never planned to leave her palace—especially not to marry a nobody. But after turning away one too many suitors, her father issues a shocking decree: she must marry the next man who asks, regardless of his rank or fortune. When that man turns out to be a wandering minstrel—who never meant to propose in the first place—Liesel suddenly finds herself cast out and engaged to a commoner.

For 17-year-old actress Kelley Winslow, faeries are just something from childhood stories. Then she meets Sonny Flannery, whose steel-gray eyes mask an equally steely determination to protect her. Sonny guards the Samhain Gate, which connects the mortal realm with the Faerie's enchanted, dangerous Otherworld. Usually kept shut by order of icy King Auberon, the Gate stands open but once a year.

Ever hear of a feller named John Henry? They say he was born with a 10 pound hammer in his hand! As a man, John was the fastest steel drivin' man helpin' to build the railroad. So when a stranger challenged mighty John to take on a steam drill, what do you think that John Henry did? Kick off yer' boots and listen to this fascinatin' tale of John Henry and the steam drill.

A Cherokee couple spends their days fishing and making cornmeal. When a giant dog steals their cornmeal, the neighbors all gather to help. Find out how this Cherokee legend explains the creation of the Milky Way.

One of America's most beloved storytellers tells of spirits that have nurtured her in these four tales: "The Accidental Angel", "Wilbur Martin: God's Maintenance Man", "The Water Lilies", and "Angels in Disguise". Jackie Torrence, a frequent headliner at the National Storytelling Festival, is known to audiences nationwide as The Story Lady. She has performed at the Kennedy Center, Wolftrap, the International Children's Festival, and Lincoln Center.

Growing up in North Carolina, Donald Davis heard stories that came to America through Scots-Irish immigrants about a fellow named Jack who was so real that young Davis thought he was a distant relative or otherside-of-the-mountain neighbor. Now Davis knows that Jack is a universal legendary figure who, by various names, is found in nearly every culture.

These shivery tales were collected from the oral tradition, from people all over the Southwest, and represent the rich cultural diversity of the region, from the Ozarks to the Rio Grande, California to the Big Thicket.

When the Southern Bells brought the telephone to rural North Carolina, it looked like a "big black daffodil". What the telephone company had not counted on in conceiving its eight-party line service was a pair of "past-middle-age, unmarried sisters", the chatty Misses Lucy and Lena Leatherwood. Once the Leatherwood sisters were connected by the Southern Bells, nobody else on that line had a chance!

Mama believed the woman who dies with the most fabric scraps wins. She saved scraps from odd sewing jobs for neighbors. She saved buttons from old winter coats and birthday dresses. Mama had a button from Daddy's first uniform and another from Grandma's cloth coat, and every button in the box came with a story. In her trademark Texas twang, award-winning storyteller Barbara McBride-Smith recounts stories from her family that speak to all of us.

Here are a baker's dozen of Paul Laurence Dunbar's poems brought to life in the medium he always wrote for - the spoken word. As narrated by Bobby Norfolk, these poems evoke the range of moods, from elegy to wonder to celebration, that the poet is remembered for.

In this story from India, a farmer's three lazy sons don't want to work. They sit around dreaming of making a lot of gold. When their mother tells them of gold buried in a field, they ask her how to bring the gold to the surface. Through clever suggestions, their mother explains how to thed the fields as they discover the true riches offered by hard work. Illustrated by Tom Wrenn.

Scary stories help children face fear and master it, by portraying the elements of conflict in clear, good-versus-evil terms with good triumphant in the end.

"Years later," Donald Davis remember of his childhood," I came to realize that when you come from a long-dammed-up Scots-Irish gene pool it is an okay thing to wish for something, but it is not an OK thing to get it."