Showing results by narrator "Viola Davis" in All Categories

Celebrate 50 years of America's favorite teddy bear with brand-new recordings narrated by Academy Award-winner Viola Davis! 

Don Freeman's classic character, Corduroy, is even more popular today then he was when he first came on the scene in 1968. This story of a small teddy bear waiting on a department store shelf for a child's friendship has appealed to young fans generation after generation.

When Lisa takes Corduroy to the theater for the very first time, it’s so magnificent and exciting that he just can’t help heading out on his own to explore. From the orchestra pit to the prop table to the dressing rooms, Corduroy sees it all. Could there be a place for Corduroy on stage, too? Fifty years after this lovable, inquisitive teddy bear was first introduced, he’s now the star of the show. Author Viola Davis uses her own experience as an Emmy, Tony, and Oscar award-winning actress to imbue Corduroy’s adventure with all the magic of the stage. 

Hardship, sacrifice, determination, and ultimate triumph make up Blind Faith, the frank and compelling biography of Lula Hardaway, mother of superstar musician and singer Stevie Wonder. A motherless child born in a sharecropper's shack in Alabama, Lula was passed from relative to relative, unwanted and unloved. As a teenager she was sent to Chicago where she married a much older man who abused her and forced her to work as a prostitute. Determined to build a better life for her children, she eventually made her escape to Detroit.

Corduroy, the beloved, bear slips out very early one morning to get a birthday present for Lisa. He spies what he thinks is a yellow balloon up in the sky, thinking that would be perfect for her. But when the sun rises, the balloon (really the full moon) disappears. And now Corduroy is lost. Lisa finds him, but not before Corduroy succeeds in getting just the right gift - a lollipop as yellow and round as the moon. 

Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis loved literature, especially poetry. "Once you can express yourself," she wrote, "you can tell the world what you want from it.... All the changes in the world, for good or evil, were first brought about by words." Now Caroline Kennedy shares her mother's favorite poems and the inspiration behind her strong belief in the power of literature.