Showing results by narrator "Ramon de Ocampo" in All Categories

A young writer, living abroad, returns home to his native Argentina to say goodbye to his dying father. In his parents' house, he finds a cache of documents - articles, maps, photographs - and unwittingly begins to unearth his father’s obsession with the disappearance of a local man. Suddenly he comes face to face with the ghosts of Argentina's dark political past and long-forgotten memories of his family’s resistance against an oppressive military regime.

Middle school is off to a rocky start for Marvin Watson. Doomed to misfit status, his only friends are a girl with major orthodontics, the smelliest boy in school, and the trio of sarcastic man-size moths that live in his attic. No one said middle school would be easy! Also, no one said that Marvin's town would be threatened by mutant bugs, including a very hungry Shakespeare-quoting spider. But life in the suburbs is full of surprises.

A three-thousand-year-old man named Grimluk appears in the boys' bathroom to deliver some startling news: Mack is one of the Magnificent Twelve, called the Magnifica in ancient times, whatever that means. An evil force is on its way, and it's up to Mack to track down eleven other twelve-year-olds in order to stop it. He must travel across the world to battle the wicked Pale Queen's dangerous daughter, Ereskigal - also known as Risky. But Risky sounds a little scary, and Mack doesn't want to be a hero.

Ranging in age from six to 40, 38 sons and daughters of lesbians offer brief essays that could be valuable to like offspring, as well as to relatives and friends trying to understand the problems such children face. Homophobia, visited upon the children as well as their mothers, is the most commonly cited concern; some younger contributors feel isolated from their peers, and a couple of boys endure rejection from radical lesbian acquaintances.

A literary jigsaw puzzle of a debut novel set in Colombia during the peak of its decades-long conflict, and in New York City. While her parents are away, a teenager finds herself home alone, with the household staff mysteriously gone, no phone connection, and news of an insurgency on the radio - and then she hears a knock at the door.

Oregon teenager and tennis champ Jeff McKenzie can’t wait for summer vacation. But when he decides to take his Bronco for a joyride on the Hamptons’ farm land, he gets into real hot water. As punishment Jeff is ordered to work on the farm for the first few weeks of summer. Getting up early and working with Mexican immigrants just doesn’t appeal to him. The only thing he looks forward to is seeing the Hamptons’ eldest daughter Alexa, who he is quickly falling for. Gradually he comes to appreciate the hardworking people....

While daydreaming, 11-year-old Matt Hamilton gets lost in the mysterious woods of Rathburn Park. A small white dog shows him the way out, but it seems strange that no one else has seen such a dog. It seems stranger still when Matt returns to the woods and meets a girl dressed in old-fashioned clothes. She claims her name is Amelia Rathburn, but the only Rathburn still living is nearly a hundred years old.

Chris Brabson hates the Union troops. Yankee riders in the Tennessee mountains have stolen his family's newly harvested crops and their only horse. In spite of this, Chris' brother joins the Union army, and his parents refuse to take either side. But Chris has no doubts, he would fight for the Confederacy. The Perilous Road, a Newbery Honor book, powerfully illustrates the senseless waste of war and the true meaning of courage and tolerance.

After the king of Damask dies, Bad Prince Charlie is put on the throne to divert attention from his uncles' plan-to procure Weapons of Magical Destruction.

Westly is a caterpillar who is destined to be a monarch butterfly, but when he emerges from his cocoon, he is not what he expected. He's a spider! Westly flees his home among the butterflies and is eventually adopted by the "dirt eaters".

Higgs Boson Bing has seven days left before his perfect high school career is completed. Then it's on to Harvard to fulfill the fantasy portrait of success that he and his parents have cultivated for the past four years.

The ad promised you'd be able to see into the spirit world. But they couldn't work for real... could they? A short story from Guys Read: Thriller, edited by Jon Scieszka.

Set at the height of the Roman Empire, in the last half of the first century AD - about the time of the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem, when Christianity was still an unimportant Jewish sect - these stories chronicle the cases of one of the few actual crimesolvers that we know of in ancient Rome. The stories are fictional, but the character of Quintilian is based on a real Roman barrister whose writings on rhetoric and on the education of the young are still read today.

Tor is adjusting to life with the power of the Night Witch, especially with his best friends, Engle and Melda, by his side. But when a mysterious girl washes up on shore claiming a band of cursed pirates is on their way to Emblem Island, life changes fast. The girl, Gemma, is from an underwater city that was destroyed by the terrible Calavera pirates, and she warns Tor they are now on their way to his home. The trio of friends must come up with a plan to stop the pirates from getting an ancient relic that would give them the ability to control the high seas.

Marens world was shattered when her girlfriend, Kaia, was abducted by the Aurati. After a daring rescue, they've finally been reunited, but Maren's life is still in pieces: Kaia seems more like a stranger than the lover Maren knew back home; Naava, the mother of all dragons, has retreated into seclusion to recover from her wounds, leaving Maren at a loss on how to set the rest of the dragons free; and worst of all, her friend Sev has been captured by the emperors Talons.

Immune to the consequences of immorality, five privileged young men in Bogotá bond over a shared code: worship drugs and drink, exploit women, and scorn the underclass. As males, they declare the right to freedom of pleasure. As friends, only disloyalty to each other is forbidden. When a little girl from the slums disappears, the limits of a perverse and sacred bond will be tested in ways none of them could have imagined.

Alex Harmon prefers running over sitting still reading. But when his aunt offers to pay him to point out the boring parts in her children's book, he figures it's an easy way to make 10 bucks. The problem is that her book is about a grumpy frog and a prize-winning zucchini. It doesn't have only a few boring pages...the whole thing is a lost cause.

What’s the problem? Sixteen-year-old Filipino American Angelo Rivera will tell you flat out. Life sucks. He’s been uprooted from his San Diego home to a boring landlocked town in the middle of nowhere. Behind him, ocean waves, his girlfriend, and the biggest skateboarding competition on the California coast. Ahead, flipping burgers at his parents’ new diner and, as the only Asian in his all-white school, being trolled as “brown boy” by small-minded, thick-necked jocks. Resigned to being an outcast, Angelo isn’t alone.

Become your best self. Figuring out how to make friends, develop relationships, and be confident is a step-by-step process. Now help is available in Embracing the Awkward, written by the popular teen-advice YouTuber, The Josh Speaks. This isn't another dry instructional book written by a boring adult disconnected from the millennial reality; it's a guide, a workbook, an empowering step towards trying things out, discovering who you are, and becoming your best self.

Ever wonder what goes on behind closed board room doors when organizations pick their top leaders? It can be a contentious, secretive, even brutal process. Most of our leaders look good on paper - they have charisma, credentials, and confidence - yet they lack the real qualities that are necessary to succeed. In Why Are We Bad at Picking Good Leaders?, Cohn and Moran share the same insights and ideas they use to help organizations make better choices.