Showing results by narrator "Pete Cross" in All Categories

The Metamorphosis is a story that follows the life of Gregor Samsa, a traveling salesman. The story begins when one morning Gregor wakes to find himself transformed into a large insectlike creature. His family and colleagues have growing concern at his absence from work but, upon checking on him, are horrified by his grotesque appearance. The story then follows Gregor's thought process, since the family can no longer understand his language.

Captain Delano is approached on the open sea by a battered-looking ship led by Captain Benito Cereno. Cereno, always accompanied by his personal slave, Babo, explains that his crew was transporting a group of slaves from Africa when their ship was caught and damaged in severe weather. He is polite but always timid and requests supplies for his ship's remaining journey. Captain Delano agrees to help but begins to notice the strange social interactions and atmosphere of Cereno's crew and the slaves.

When Mark Zuckerberg announced in front of a cheering Oprah audience his $100 million pledge to transform the Newark Schools - and to solve the education crisis in every city in America - it looked like a huge win for then-mayor Cory Booker and governor Chris Christie. But their plans soon ran into a constituency not so easily moved - Newark's key education players, fiercely protective of their billion-dollar-per-annum system.

Every president started out as a kid! Forget the legends, tall tales, and historic achievements - before they were presidents, the future leaders of the United States had regular-kid problems just like you. John F. Kennedy hated his big brother. Lyndon Johnson pulled pranks in class. Barack Obama was bothered by bullies. And Bill Clinton was crazy clumsy (he once broke his leg jumping rope). Kid Presidents tells all of their stories and more in these hilarious biographies. History has never been this much fun!

In academic journals and on internet message boards, certain thinkers are laying siege to one of the great taboos. Could it be, they ask, that racism has a rational basis in science? These ideas are no longer limited to the fringe: race-based studies of intelligence have been discussed by thinkers such as Steven Pinker, Sam Harris, and Jordan Peterson. If true, it would provide an intellectual foundation for so many of the attitudes that characterize the right wing, justifying inequality and discrimination. Skin Deep demolishes the pernicious myth that our race is our destiny.

In The Great Great Wall, architectural historian and critic Ian Volner takes a deep dive into the story of Donald Trump’s wall. Volner follows the conception, selling, design, and construction (or lack thereof) of this expensive and consequential barrier, giving listeners a detailed description of what’s happening in Washington, DC - and along the border. He also travels far afield, to China, the Middle East, northern England, and back to our border to examine the barriers we’ve been building for centuries.

In the dying cornfields of his family's farm, 17-year-old Cade finds a girl broken and bleeding. She has one request: Hide me. Tucked away in an abandoned barn on the edge of the farm, the mysterious Jane Doe starts to heal, and details from her past begin to surface. A foster kid looking for a way out, Jane got caught up in the wrong crowd and barely escaped with her life. Cade has a difficult past of his own. He's been trapped in the border town of Tanner, Texas, his whole life. And Cade is focused on one thing: a football scholarship - his only chance....

What keeps objects from floating out of your hand? What if your feet drifted away from the ground? What stops everything from floating into space? Gravity. Author Jason Chin takes this complex subject and makes it brilliantly accessible to young listeners in this innovative book. His expansive but simple narrative does justice to the subject at hand, looking at the concept of gravity in a whole new way. From the redwoods to the oceans to a small island, he now takes us to outer space in this thoroughly researched, exceptional addition to his body of children's nonfiction.

Pint-sized Seattle middle-school teacher and gay dating blogger Hayden McCall and his best friend Hollister are invited to a fundraiser for Bakers Without Borders. The celebrity performer, Kennedy Osaka, is the artistic director of Mysterium, an upscale circus arts show combining magic, acrobatics, and a Michelin-star dinner. But Kennedy is a no-show—until she’s found dead in her hotel suite. When frenemy Sarah Lee is discovered in the room with the body, Hayden and Hollister are on the case to find the real culprit before Sarah Lee is charged with the crime.

Set in 1959, the year the music died, The Smoke in Our Eyes is a cinematic, clock-ticking saga set in a small Montana town. When a fatal car accident shatters ten-year-old Lucas's world, he finds himself confronting crime and vengeance, humor and heroism, all against the backdrop of growing up.

Follow Lumos, an adorable facility dog, as he brings comfort to a child who broke her arm. Facility dogs are specially trained to help kids through medical experiences—from lifting spirits, motivating movement, modeling the power of play, and more.

Follow Lumos, an adorable facility dog, as he helps a child through getting stitches. Facility dogs are specially trained to help kids through medical experiences—from lifting spirits, motivating movement, modeling the power of play, and more.

Athletes throughout history have dreamed of competing in the Olympics—and some were kids themselves when those dreams and plans began! In Kid Olympians: Summer, discover the childhood stories of legends. Featuring kid-friendly wording, this book will inspire you to dream bigger, faster, and higher than ever before! The diverse and inspiring group also includes Dick Fosbury, Ibtihaj Muhammad, Gertrude Ederle, Nadia Comaneci, Ellie Simmonds, Tommie Smith, Wilma Rudolph, and Megan Rapinoe.

After leveling up from basement roleplaying games to saving an entire magical realm, 12-year-old Ben isn’t happy returning to his ordinary life of homework and chores. So when his very un-magical LARP session is crashed by monstrous frog-men from another dimension, he can't wait to get back into hero mode. Someone is after all the Spellbinder’s books, which grant the users—including Ben—epic reality-shifting powers. Ben, Niara, Merv, Drake, and their new friend Agnes must embark on an epic quest to save the books and their owners.

In this new collection, Patrick Barb explores themes of family found and lost, media consumption and the dangers of runaway nostalgia, the supernatural in our lives, and the impact of violence in both the long- and short-term. From rural backwoods to Park Slope brownstones, Barb's characters face impossible, awful situations, testing their inner strength and understanding of reality. Covering quiet horror, weird fiction, supernatural horror, slasher horror, topical dark fiction, and more, these stories spotlight supposedly familiar terrors and fears in new and unexpected ways.

He sees the world differently than most, and he feels like he has no idea what he’s doing when it comes to raising his fifteen-year-old daughter, Cleo. She also feels like he has no idea what he’s doing, especially now that her mom is gone. They were both better off when Jana was around—Dave's wife, Cleo's mother. But now she's not, and they are left to figure out life on their own.

We know that eating animals is bad for the planet and bad for our health, and yet we do it anyway. Ask anyone in the plant-based movement and the solution seems obvious: stop eating meat. But, for many people, that stark solution is neither appealing nor practical. In Meat Me Halfway, author and founder of the reducetarian movement Brian Kateman puts forth a realistic and balanced goal: mindfully reduce your meat consumption.

In 1851, Father Jean Marie Latour becomes the Apostolic Vicar to New Mexico. While the area is American by law, it's still Mexican and Indian by custom and belief. During the years that follow, Latour tirelessly but gently spreads his faith while facing external and internal obstacles. Loosely based on the life of Jean-Baptiste Lamy and the construction of the Cathedral Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi, this novel chronicles the events that occur after the capture of the southwest by American forces during the Mexican-American war.

Imagine over three million square miles of sand dunes that are as tall as a ten-story building. That place is real—it's the Sahara Desert! Vast, yes! And home to fascinating creatures such as ostriches and fennec foxes as well as amazing plant life. The shallow roots of the mesquite tree can grow almost 200 feet across to absorb water.

Alexsi Smirnoff, a Russian orphan, is trained as an agent by the Russian Secret Service and inserted into Nazi Germany, where he rises to a position in German intelligence services. As the war grinds on, trapped between two brutal dictatorships, Alexsi betrays both sides in a desperate ploy that succeeds...and fails. His false identities burned, his life at risk, Alexsi attempts to disappear in the hills—but is caught by the British. Sequel to A Single Spy, The Double Agent is a fast-paced, compelling novel of espionage set in the most momentous and dangerous of times.