Young Adult Fairy Tales

Turtle is scavenging a drowned town when she saves a stranger’s life. There’s something special about Kai—an attraction she’s never felt before. She would do anything to see him again. But Turtle can never truly be with Kai, because Kai is Normal, and Turtle is one of the Mer, kids whose genes were illegally hacked before birth and who now have working gills as well as lungs. Turtle lives on an old cruise ship with the other Mer in order to be close to the water she needs to survive.

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.

The glorious Crown Tournament draws hundreds of arcanists from around the world to battle in magical martial arts competitions… The prize? More riches than anyone can spend in a lifetime—and a ceremonial crown to mark the winner for an entire decade until the next tournament begins. And while most obviously want the wealth, a certain pair of arcanists want the crown instead. Master Elias is bonded to a syrocko drake, a deadly creature capable of controlling the desert winds.

Allie Rydell left her life behind to protect the world from the Goddess of Night. But after weeks of training, hunting, and learning to use the life-giving power that inexplicably chose her, saving Midgard seems more impossible than ever. Nott's followers have eyes across the realms, and they're determined to collect the bounty on Allie's soul. And the closer Allie and her protectors get to the pieces of the immortal weapon that could save them all, the more destruction Nott manages to unleash - not only on the world Allie loves, but on the friends she'd give her life to save.

Before he can be reborn, Zan has spent 499 years bound in a 500-year curse to process souls for the monstrous Ferryman—and if he fails, he dies. In Portland, Bastian is grieving. He survived a car accident that took his mother and impulse-purchased a crumbling bookstore with the life insurance money. But in sleep, death’s mark keeps dragging Bastian into Zan’s office. It shouldn’t be a problem to log his soul and forget he ever existed. But when Zan follows Bastian through his memories of grief and hope, Zan realizes that he is not ready for Bastian to die.

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.

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.

"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."

For some, the only way to possess magic is to steal it from others. Born without magic, Davis is an outcast in his own shapeshifter family. Yearning for his father’s approval, he sets down a path that intertwines with Iris, a girl whose own ambitions are hindered by a mysterious illness. Their quest leads to Yuras, one of California’s smallest towns, unremarkable until they discover a cave of magic-transferring stones. Now they have a chance to change their fates. But they’re not alone.

A missing princess. A magic flute. An adventure retold. Prince Tamric Madeus was expecting nothing more than a routine tour of the Spring Court. When an encounter with a dragon disrupts all of his carefully laid plans, his mysterious rescuers tell him the tale of a captive princess held by a powerful enchanter. As a second-born prince with a penchant for scholarship rather than physical prowess, Tamric leaps at the chance to become the hero that he’s always wanted to be. After running away from home, Princess Mina finds herself in a bit of a bind.

Being the new kid at school is hard, but Sophie has a secret weapon: her vivid imagination and her oversized, trusted Big Book of Monsters, an encyclopedia of myths and legends from all over the world. Sophie is convinced she is a monster because of the monster mark on her face. At least that's what she calls it. The doctors call it a blood tumor, and it covers almost half of her face. The Big Book of Monsters gives Sophie the idea that there might be a cure for her monster mark.

In a universe of capricious gods, dark moons, and kingdoms built on the backs of spaceships, a cursed queen sends her infant daughter away, a jealous uncle steals the throne of Kali from his nephew, and an exiled prince vows to take his crown back.

This unique treasury of in-world space tales takes listeners to the far reaches of the Star Wars universe...including to the remote outer rim world of Batuu from Galaxy's Edge.

Thanks to their enthralling narratives and relatable characters, Greek myths have captured our imagination for millennia. Despite being thousands of years old, these tales still manage to touch on something in the core of our souls, connecting humans from across all time periods and all stages of life. That is because myths speak to raw truths that are felt and observed by us all, and to study them is to study that which shapes our world and that which makes us human.

Call me Dragon. It’s the last thing you’ll ever do. Blitz the Devastator has never done a decent day’s devastating in his life. Fireless, artistic, and shunned by his Dragon Clan, he struggles to pillage even the meanest village. A future full of misery and failure beckons. This much is true until the day the burly brown Dragon successfully - imagine that - kidnaps the Princess Azania. As a black Princess of T’nagru, this spirited beauty is by definition the most unforgettable woman in the 17 realms.

“Where Mangoes Fall” unfolds the captivating journey of Ama, a young girl growing up in Paraguay, the heart of South America. Ama believes in Paraguayan myths and legends. Still, when the local card reader tells her that three people will die if she searches for her friend’s missing baby, Ama has to make difficult decisions about truth and loyalty, which is even harder when she discovers secrets about her life.

For months, there's been no sign of Alex's sister, whom she fought so desperately to rescue. She's disappeared without a trace. A werewolf is stalking Alex's once sleepy Southern town. People are dying, and Alex thinks she knows the reason: her refusal to give in to Valkos. The growing body count is a warning. He is trying to break her, and now neighboring packs - once allies - are convinced that she is a risk that needs to be eliminated before she's broken.

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.

Welcome to the big leagues. It’s time to crown a champion. It’s time to evolve. Jackson Hunt has spent countless hours training his team of monsters and battling rivals as an up and coming Djinn Tamer. All his hard work, the stunning wins, and heartbreaking losses lead to one place: The league playoffs. But what got Jackson where he is won’t be enough to take him to the top. As the season draws to a close, Jackson and his friends find themselves far away from the stadiums and crowds, searching for a means to take his Djinn to the next level.