Showing results by narrator "Todd Haberkorn" in All Categories

His uncle wanted him to stay home and work the farm. But the boy knew there was a world out there he had to see. Yet being a runaway meant you were outside the law - fair game. That’s how he got caught on the farm gang. There was no way out, until Tiltawhirl John picked him up and taught him how to be a carnie, how to stay one step ahead of the suckers. But there was one man from the past even T-John couldn’t keep ahead of. How could the kid keep him from destroying his future?

When Sir Sidney, a kindly old circus owner, becomes too tired to travel with his show, he places a Help Wanted ad in the newspaper. Enter Barnabas Brambles: "I have a degree in lion taming from the University of Piccadilly Circus." But does Leo the lion need taming? Will Elsa the elephant still get her gourmet peanuts? And what will Brambles say when he discovers Bert and Gert - two mice who travel with the circus on popcorn cleanup patrol?

The Flying Lion, filled with subtexts of leadership, drug abuse and vivid sexual encounters is enriched by the author's experience as a martial artist, raconteur and spiritual leader. In a future world divided into tribes and clans, possessing a late Iron Age technology, we meet the Zenites, AKA the Boxers; a loose confederation of in-fighting tribes, led by warlords and linked by a heritage of Asian tradition and martial arts.

In a sprawling estate, willfully secluded, lives Morgan Fletcher, the disfigured heir to a fortune of mysterious origins. Morgan spends his days in quiet study, avoiding his reflection in mirrors and the lake at the end of his garden. One day, two children, Moira and David, appear. Morgan takes them in, giving them free reign of the mansion he shares with his housekeeper Engel. Then more children begin to show up.

Sixth grader Spencer Lemon is rapidly losing his eyesight. So he has no idea why he was chosen to guard Pandora’s Book. When Ed, the old guy at a nursing home, hands over the book, there’s no time to explain the rules to Spencer. Spencer only knows that the book contains famous dead people - who can be brought back to life. Then Ed disappears, and a strange man shows up on Spencer’s doorstep - and he seems to know a lot about Pandora’s Book. Is he a bad guy? Or can he help Spencer unravel the secrets of the book?

As members of the yearbook committee, Nick, Zola, Matt, and Christina are eager to capture all the memorable moments of their junior year at Lewis and Clark High School - the plays and football games, dances and fund-drives, teachers and classes that are the epicenter of their teenage lives. But how do you document a horrific tragedy - a deadly school shooting by a classmate?

An artist takes us through his day, from his own particular perspective. A short story from Guys Read: Other Worlds, edited by Jon Scieszka.

Seven square miles of paradise, surrounded by an eight-foot chain-link fence: this is Nodd, the land of the Grace. It is all seventeen-year-old Jacob knows. Beyond the fence lies the World, a wicked, terrible place, doomed to destruction. When the Archangel Zerachiel descends from Heaven, only the Grace will be spared the horrors of the apocalypse.

Tony’s mom, Al, is a terrific single mother who works as a dancer at the Kitty Kat Club. Twelve-year-old Tony is a budding artist, inspired by backstage life at the club. When some of his drawings end up in an art show and catch the attention of the social services agency, Al and Tony find themselves in the middle of a legal wrangle and a media circus. Is Al a responsible mother? It’s the case of the stripper vs. the state, and Al isn’t giving Tony up without a fight.

Slingshot and Burp - two pea-shootin', slingshot-totin' cowhands on two wheels - are on the lookout for action. Bleached bones? Bring 'em on! Lost outlaws? Let's go! Hidden loot? Yee haw! Rattlesnakes! Scorpions! Ghost cats! Wait, what...? Whoa! Saddled up to battle the boredom of summer, these two double cousins, best friends, and next-door neighbors have fitted themselves out like Old West cowboys to charge boldly (and sometimes bravely) into the southwestern desert that is their backyard.

Wisconsin. Summer. Late at night. Two teenage girls are picked up by two boys, who invite them back to their place to party. But an innocent mistake turns the party into a nightmare, where nothing is what it seems....

This previously rare, out-of-print collection is being republished with a new prefatory meditation by the author. Featuring Fowler's characteristic imagination, sly wit, and penetrating insight, Black Glass will be a welcome treat for fans new and old.

To keep the light of his life, he'll have to do some dark things. After Matt Caine loses his wife in a car accident, all he has left is his daughter, Anna. But just as the little girl - who survived the accident - finally starts thriving, Matt's former in-laws threaten to take her away via a bitter custody battle. Desperate to keep Anna and in debt to some dangerous local thugs, Matt has no good options. But he does have Jay, one very bad friend.

In John Rector’s dark and fascinating psychological thriller, The Grove, farmer Dexter McCray becomes both detective and suspect. He is a man fighting to escape a troubled past, but after waking from an alcoholic blackout to discover his tractor stuck in a ditch and the body of a teenage girl in the cottonwood grove bordering his cornfield, he wonders if it’s a fight he cannot win. In the hopes of proving his innocence, he sets out to find the truth.

Amateur sleuth and restless spirit Pascha gets the chance of a post-lifetime when a reporter turns up dead. Detective Gregor Kreidler - a friend of Pascha's crime-fighting partner, coroner Martin Gänsewein - tops the list of suspects for the murder of Susanne Hauschild, who also happens to be Gregor's ex-wife. Martin already has his hands full with his girlfriend - who's ready to give birth any day - and he's too distracted to comb the streets, so Pascha decides to play ghost cop with gusto.

Some people die heroically, others accidentally. Some people die for a cause, while others die from making a single bad choice. When Daniel Anderson’s older brother is killed in Iraq, he wonders which category Eli’s death falls into. To deliberately put himself at such risk, to leave Danny - who always depended on him - Eli must have died heroically, to make the world a better place, right? In an attempt to puzzle out this crushing loss, Danny creates a Book of the Dead - an old binder that he fills with details about dead people.

August DuPont has spent his whole life inside a dilapidated house with his aunt Hydrangea. His lonely existence ends abruptly with the arrival of an invitation to meet an aunt - and cousins - he didn't even know existed. When Aunt Orchid suggests that August attend school with his cousins, it's a dream come true. But August has scarcely begun to celebrate his reversal of fortune when he is confronted by a small problem on his way home. So begins an adventure filled with a wild child, a zombie, a fabled white alligator, and an unimaginable family secret.

It started out as a small zombie problem. Then four more zombies tagged along. Now there are too many to count! From the acclaimed illustrator of Flora & Ulysses comes the exciting conclusion to the Zombie Problems trilogy.

Cí, a young scholar-turned-gravedigger in medieval China, has survived enough horrors and pain to last several lifetimes. He finally has the chance to return to his studies - only to receive orders from the Imperial Court to find the sadistic perpetrator of a series of brutal murders. With lives in jeopardy, Cí finds his gruesome investigation complicated by his old loyalties - and by his growing desire for the enigmatic beauty haunting his thoughts. Is he skilled enough to track down the murderer? Or will the killer claim him first?

Max Stark is a trained circus clown whose tricks can be downright terrifying - especially for his ex-wife. News anchor Laura Stark thought she’d seen the last of her devious ex-husband, but a series of sinister pranks has her convinced Max is back - and hell-bent on turning her life upside down. After she broke a controversial story that left her unable to rely on New York’s finest, Laura turns to a pair of eccentric private investigators for help.