Showing results by narrator "Soneela Nankani" in All Categories

Eighteen-year-old Cassandra Gupta's entire life has been leading up to this - the opportunity to travel to space. But to secure a spot on this classified mission, she must first compete against the best and brightest people on the planet. Cassie is ready for the toll that the competition will take; the rigorous mental and physical tests designed to push her to the brink of her endurance. But nothing could have prepared her for the bonds she would form with the very people she hopes to beat.

A poetic and inspiring tribute to the beauty and wonder of America's history, landscape, and symbols. With wonderfully spare, deceptively simple verses, Sarvinder Naberhaus has composed a lyrical celebration of the iconic imagery of our nation, beginning with the American flag. Each spread depicts a richly evocative tableau, from the view of the Statue of Library at Ellis Island to civil rights marchers banded together, to a spacecraft at Cape Canaveral blasting off. This book is an ode to America then and now, from sea to shining sea.

Eleven-year-old Aliya Shah lives a double life in Islamabad, Pakistan - at home with her Pakistani father and Dutch mother, and at the American School, where Aliya tries to downplay that she is a "half-and-half." But when a hit-and-run driver kills the son of the family's servant, Sadiq, who is also Aliya's dear friend, her world is turned upside down. After she discovers the truth behind the tragedy - a terrible secret that burdens her heart - her conflicted loyalties are tested as never before.

Motivated by her love for the game and inspired by the legendary Jackie Robinson, Mamie Johnson is determined to be a professional baseball pitcher. But in a sport that's determined by white men, there is no place for a black woman. Mamie doesn't give up - from the time she insists on trying out for the all-male, all-white Police Athletic League until she realizes her dream and becomes one of three women to play in the Negro Leagues. Mamie Johnson's life shows that with courage and perseverance one can overcome even the greatest challenges.

Leah is living in Queens with a possessive husband she doesn't love and a long list of unfulfilled ambitions when she's jolted from a thick ennui by a call from the past. Her beloved former boss and friend, Judy, has died in a car accident and left Leah her most prized possession and, as it turns out, the instrument of Judy's death: a red sports car.

Differences are the spice of life! But cultural differences can also be the source of embarrassing gaffes and miscommunication for business and social travelers alike. No one wants to make a cross-cultural blunder--especially one that could have consequences for crucial partnerships or even your entire organization. But when you seek to understand the origins of these cultural distinctions and develop strategies to cope with them, you'll find that you can navigate any culture--whether virtually or in person--with ease.

Faerie, a novel for young people, is the fierce yet gently unfolding story of a hyperimaginative girl who is on a collision course to womanhood. She likens herself to a half-human fairy creature who does not belong in the earthly world; but in the cold light of day, she is a psychiatric patient at a hospital where she is being treated for anorexia - her sickness driven by the irrational need to undo nature and thwart the passage of time.

Based on true events, Hannah Assadi's fierce and raging debut novel tracks the shattered, illuminated psyche of a young woman seizing her own adulthood. Ahlam, the daughter of a Palestinian refugee and his Israeli wife, grows up in the arid lands of desert suburbia outside of Phoenix. In a stark landscape where coyotes prowl and mysterious lights occasionally pass through the nighttime sky, Ahlam's imagination reigns.

Generation Y faces the bleakest economic landscape in modern history. The recent spikes in unemployment and debt, alongside a drop in marriage, home-buying, and childbearing rates, will have long-term consequences for a group that had no hand in creating the financial crisis. For these young adults, the American Dream is moving farther out of reach. Worse still, leaders aren't doing anything about it.

Traditional stories endure generation after generation because, although they are not literal, they resound in truths on a human scale. Folktales remind us of wisdom so elemental it is often lost in the rush of everyday life - sometimes common sense makes no sense at all.

Gone Feral is Novella Carpenter's search for her father. Back-to-the-land homesteader, gifted classical guitarist, Korean War vet, hermit, curmudgeon, George Carpenter has been absent for most of his daughter's life. But when he officially goes missing - only to be found in a fleabag Arizona motel, escaping the brutal Idaho winter - his daughter is forced to confront the truth: Her time with her dad, now seventy-three years old, is limited, and the moment to restore their relationship is now.

"Aren't you a terrorist?" "There are no roles for people who look like you." "That's a sin." "No girls allowed." They've heard it all. Actress Alia Shawkat reflects on all the parts she was told she was too "ethnic" to play. Former NFL player Wade Davis recalls his bullying of gay classmates in an attempt to hide his own sexuality. Holocaust survivor Fanny Starr tells of her harrowing time in Aushwitz, where she watched her family disappear, one by one. What made them rise up through the hate? What made them overcome the obstacles of their childhood to achieve extraordinary success?

Mira is a teacher living in the heart of Suryam, a modern, bustling city in India and the only place in the world the fickle Rasagura fruit grows. Mira lives alone and with only the French existentialists as companions, until the day she witnesses a beautiful woman having a seizure in the park. Mira runs to her to help and becomes quickly drawn into the lives of this mysterious woman named Sara, who suffers myriad unexplained illnesses, and her husband, Rahil, striking up intimate, volatile, and fragile friendships with each of them that quickly become something more.

Jean is the young wife of an American businessman searching for oil near the Persian Gulf in 1952. In the bustle of the market and the dark eyes of her husband’s colleague, Jean is searching for something else: a life far from the one she knows. Then, after one wrong step in a desert gully, Jean finds herself trapped in a cave-in - and she’s not alone. When a legend comes to life and offers a path forward into the unknown, for Jean there is no going back. 

Born into slavery, Dahlia never knew her mother - or what happened to her. When Dahlia’s father, the owner of Vesterville plantation, takes her to work in his home as a servant, she’s desperately lonely. Forced to leave behind her best friend, Bo, she lives in a world between black and white, belonging to neither. Ten years later, Dahlia meets Timothy Ross, an Englishman in need of a wife. Reinventing herself as Lily Dove, Dahlia allows Timothy to believe she’s white, with no family to speak of, and agrees to marry him.

Maple Mehta-Cohen has been keeping a secret: she can’t read all that well. She has an impressive vocabulary and loves dictating stories into her recorder - especially the adventures of a daring sleuth who’s half Indian and half Jewish like Maple herself - but words on the page just don’t seem to make sense to her. Despite all Maple’s clever tricks to hide her troubles with reading, her teacher is on to her, and now Maple has to repeat fifth grade. Maple is devastated - what will her friends think? Will they forget about her?

Clara and Henrik are married and living in a beautiful inherited villa in Oslo. She is a single-mindedly ambitious child-rights activist at the Ministry of Justice. Having grown up in rural Western Norway, she is also an Oslo outsider. Henrik is a doctor from a well-to-do Oslo family. Though their marriage is under serious strain, they share a devotion to their twin sons and their work. Then a Pakistani Norwegian child is admitted to Henrik’s hospital and dies in his care. The boy had clearly been the victim of child abuse. Soon after, a related murder rocks the city.

Emma has always lived her life according to a plan. But after turning down her boyfriend’s proposal, everything starts to crumble. In an effort to save the one thing she cares about - her job - she must recruit her colleague, Rishi, to be on her development team...only she may or may not have received the position he was promised. (She did.)

Ever since her mother's death, Princess Una has suffered through years of loneliness in the royal palace, where girls are treated as an afterthought. She yearns for a different life but is unsure how to make anyone notice her. Then her father announces a special contest: Whoever finds the rare Silva Flower can present it to Una for her 12th birthday and receive a reward. Frustrated by her father's grand but empty gesture, Una decides to take her fate into her own hands.

If 17-year-old Kareena Thakkar is going to alienate herself from the entire Indian community, she might as well do it gloriously. She’s landed the chance of a lifetime, an invitation to the US Muay Thai Open, which could lead to a spot on the first-ever Olympic team. If only her sport weren’t seen as something too rough for girls, something she’s afraid to share with anyone outside of her family. Despite pleasing her parents, excelling at school, and making plans to get her family out of debt, Kareena’s never felt quite Indian enough, and her training is only making it worse.