Showing results by narrator "Pete Cross" in All Categories

In a post-Trump world, a relatively unknown candidate, Ian Wrightman, is elected president to heal a nation frayed by years of extreme partisanship. When a series of coordinated terrorist attacks rock the United States, Wrightman begins to take more and more executive control in the name of protecting democracy. But DC reporter and war veteran Rollie Stone uncovers evidence that the attacks might be coming from somewhere much closer to home.

When Regionalist painter Thomas Hart Benton's corpse is discovered behind the easels of Manhattan's famed art school, whispers in the art community say he had it coming. As Benton's list of enemies lengthens to include League instructors, Vietnam War protesters, and members of Andy Warhol's entourage, one art student is ultimately pinned for the crime. The only problem? The suspect has vanished.

In a time when people believed flying was impossible, Joseph and Etienne Montgolfier proved that the sky wasn’t the limit. When most thought horseback was the only way to race, Bertha and Karl Benz fired up their engines. From the invention of the bicycle and the passenger steam locomotive to the first liquid-fuel propelled rocket and industrial robot, inventors across the world have redefined travel. Informative and celebratory, this collective biography tells the story of the experiments, failures, and successes of visionaries who changed the way the world moves.

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.

When David left home three years ago, he never looked back. Now the only connection to his tiny New England hometown is his grandmother Maggie, whose mind is unraveling as she slowly succumbs to dementia. But when her best friend turns up dead and she witnesses the crime, David has no choice but to return to a place that never accepted his trans-identity, only ever wanting him gone.

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!

Safe and cozy where he is, a tiny seed wants to remain in the drawer where he lives happily with other seeds. But one day the gardener who lives in the mansion takes him from his drawer and plants him in the ground. Faced with his biggest fear, the seed undergoes a miraculous experience that changes his life forever. Beautifully written in simple but delightful verse, The Seed Who Was Afraid to Be Planted reminds us all that no matter how small or scared we may be, God has great plans for us - plans even more wonderful than we can imagine.

On the night of August 11, 1956, in the East Hampton hamlet of Springs, Jackson Pollock crashed his car into a tree, killing himself. Pollock, the world-renowned abstract painter and notorious alcoholic, also killed his 24-year old passenger, Edith Metzger, in the crash...or did he? Metzger’s autopsy reveals that she was already dead before the crash. Murdered? Perhaps.

When the acclaimed Cuban painter Wifredo Lam turns up dead in his Greenwich Village studio, officers Juanita Diaz and Brian Fitzgerald must investigate the crime. But what they find is much more gruesome than they ever could have imagined. Suspicion soon falls on a tight-knit circle of Surrealist refugees who fled Nazi-occupied Europe during World War II, and Diaz and Fitzgerald must traverse the city, from Chinatown's underworld to Spanish Harlem's gangland, to find the truth. Did one of the artists' bizarre parlor games turn deadly? Or is there something even more sinister afoot?

On February 24, 1868, the impeachment of the United States’ 17th president was initiated. Democrat Andrew Johnson was accused of high crimes and misdemeanors that were detailed in 11 articles of impeachment and faced trial before the United States Senate. Andrew Johnson took office after John Wilkes Booth assassinated Abraham Lincoln on April 15, 1965. After months of Johnson and the Senate butting heads, oftentimes with Johnson defying the Senate and doing whatever he wanted, the final straw came when Johnson fired his Secretary of War, Edwin M. Stanton.

Every great author started out as a kid. Before the best sellers, fan clubs, and beloved stories we know today, the world's most celebrated writers had regular-kid problems just like you. Sam Clemens (aka Mark Twain) loved to skip school and make mischief, with his best friend Tom, of course! A young J. R. R. Tolkien was bitten by a huge tarantula - or as he called it, "a spider as big as a dragon." Toddler Zora Neale Hurston took her first steps when a wild hog entered her house and started chasing her!

Richard Weatherford is a successful small-town preacher in the Arkansas Ozarks. He’s a proud husband and father of five and has worked hard to grow his loyal flock with strong sermons and smart community outreach. But while Weatherford is a man of influence and power - including a big force in local politics - he’s also a man with secrets. In the lead up to the 2016 presidential election, Weatherford’s world is threatened when he’s blackmailed by a former lover. Collecting the money the blackmailer demands will be a nearly impossible feat, especially over Easter weekend.

Mister Rogers is one of the most beloved television personalities, but before he was the man who brought us Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, he was just little Freddie Rogers. Although he was often sick and had trouble making friends as a child, his mom and grandfather encouraged him to ask for help and explore the world. With their support, he learned how to better say what he was feeling and see the beauty around him. As he grew up, he realized he could spread the message of compassion, equality, and kindness through television.

Before Harry Houdini (1874-1926) became the greatest magician in the world, he was just little Ehrich Weisz, a Hungarian-born immigrant who moved to America with his family and performed stage tricks for a little extra cash. He started off with card tricks and then eventually began performing the escape acts that would make him famous. Known for his daring and death-defying illusions, he would do some of the greatest tricks ever: escaping from a milk can, being buried alive, and being locked inside a crate and thrown into a river.

The worst thing that ever happened to Craig is also the best: Amy. Amy and Craig never should've gotten together - Craig is an awkward Dungeons & Dragons-playing geek, and Amy is the beautiful, fiercely intelligent student-body president of their high school. Yet somehow they did - until Amy dumped him. Then got back together with him. Then dumped him again. Then got back together with him again. Over and over and over. Unfolding over their senior year, Amy and Craig's relationship is a kaleidoscope of joy, pain, and laughter as an uncertain future looms on the horizon.

Harry Gruber plays the role of Scrooge in his school's production of A Christmas Carol, and he is extra nervous about tonight's performance because his father is in the audience - not away for business, as usual. Will the story's message of Christmas cheer and the redemptive power of love reach his father's distracted Scrooge heart?

Born in a cabin deep in the backwoods of Kentucky and growing up in a family considered the poorest of the poor, Abraham Lincoln rose to become the 16th president of the United States. As president, he guided the United States through the Civil War, helped end slavery in America, and strengthened the federal government. This third installment in the Making of America series continues the story of the first 100 years of America's constitutional history, a story that began with Alexander Hamilton and Andrew Jackson.

Written in seclusion following the intense negative public reaction to the publication of his novel Pierre, The Piazza Tales is Herman Melville's accessible and entertaining collection of short stories and novellas concerning love, labor, and loss. The collection includes his three most important achievements in the genre of short fiction: the short story "Bartleby, the Scrivener" and the novellas Benito Cereno and The Encantadas.

At 2 a.m., the Pulse nightclub was winding down on its weekly Latino night. The building was dark, crowded, and loud. Patrons were making plans to leave when they were ambushed by a gunman, who began firing in every direction. Customers tried to escape, but the killer followed. For the next three hours, the gunman terrorized victims while playing a cat-and-mouse game with the police.

After rising to national fame as the general who defeated the British in the Battle of New Orleans, Jackson ran for president as a political outsider, championing the interest of common farmers and frontiersmen. Determined to take down the wealthy, well-educated East Coast elites, he pledged to destroy the national bank, which he believed was an engine of corruption serving the interest of bankers and industrialists. A staunch nationalist, he sought to secure and expand the nation's borders.