
The Labors of Hercules Beal
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Narrated by:
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Fred Berman
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By:
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Gary D. Schmidt
About this listen
From award-winning author Gary D. Schmidt, a warm and witty novel in the tradition of The Wednesday Wars, in which a seventh grader has to figure out how to fulfill a seemingly impossible school assignment—and learns about friendship, community, and himself along the way.
Herc Beal knows who he's named after—a mythical hero—but he's no superhero. He's the smallest kid in his class. So when his homeroom teacher at his new middle school gives him the assignment of duplicating the mythical Hercules's amazing feats in real life, he's skeptical. After all, there are no Nemean Lions on Cape Cod—and not a single Hydra in sight.
Missing his parents terribly and wishing his older brother wasn't working all the time, Herc figures out how to take his first steps along the road that the great Hercules himself once walked. Soon, new friends, human and animal, are helping him. And though his mythical role model performed his twelve labors by himself, Herc begins to see that he may not have to go it alone.
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Story
Twelve-year-old Dory Byrne lives with her brothers on New York City's Lower East Side, waiting impatiently through the darkest hours of World War II for her pop to come home from fighting Hitler. Legally speaking, Dory's brother, Fish, isn't old enough to be in charge of Dory and her younger brother, Pike, but the neighborhood knows the score and, like Pop always says, "the neighborhood will give you what you need." There's the lady from the bakery, who saves them leftover crullers. The kind landlord who checks in on them.
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Refreshingly positive
- By Renetta Ruedemann on 09-26-23
By: Kate Albus
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The Wild Journey of Juniper Berry
- By: Chad Morris, Shelly Brown
- Narrated by: Stephanie Willing
- Length: 6 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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Eleven-year-old Juniper Berry lives in a cabin with her family deep in the wild woods. Living off the grid is usually exciting, like the time she chased off three growling raccoons with a tree branch and some acorns, or when she thought she glimpsed the legendary Bigfoot. But her happy life in the wild ends abruptly when her younger brother gets sick, and the family moves to the city to be closer to the hospital. Juniper and her older sister are sent to live with cousins they hardly know and attend a public school for the first time, which is harder to navigate than the wild woods ever were.
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Fascinating, thoughtful perspective.
- By W. Swore on 03-25-24
By: Chad Morris, and others
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The Mona Lisa Vanishes
- A Legendary Painter, a Shocking Heist, and the Birth of a Global Celebrity
- By: Nicholas Day
- Narrated by: Carlotta Brentan
- Length: 4 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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On a hot August day in Paris, just over a century ago, a desperate guard burst into the office of the Director of the Louvre and shouted, La Joconde, c’est partie! The Mona Lisa, she’s gone! No one knew who was behind the heist. Was it an international gang of thieves? Was it an art-hungry American millionaire? Was it the young Spanish painter Pablo Picasso, who was about to remake the very art of painting?
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Fascinating true thriller!
- By Katrina on 11-26-23
By: Nicholas Day
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What Happened to Rachel Riley?
- By: Claire Swinarski
- Narrated by: Ferdelle Capistrano, Alexandra Hunter, Karla Serrato, and others
- Length: 5 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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Anna Hunt may be the new girl at East Middle School, but she can already tell there’s something off about her eighth-grade class. Rachel Riley, who just last year was one of the most popular girls in school, has become a social outcast. But no one, including Rachel Riley herself, will tell Anna why.
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It was a very interesting book that felt like it could happen in a regular school and addressed a real issue
- By Dan on 03-28-25
By: Claire Swinarski
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Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy
- By: Gary D. Schmidt
- Narrated by: Sam Freed
- Length: 6 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Not only is Turner Buckminster the son of the new minister in a small Maine town, he is shunned for playing baseball differently than the local boys. Then he befriends smart and lively Lizzie Bright Griffin, a girl from Malaga Island, a poor community founded by former slaves. Lizzie shows Turner a new world along the Maine coast from digging clams to rowing a boat next to a whale. When the powerful town elders, including Turner’s father, decide to drive the people off the island to set up a tourist business, Turner stands alone against them.
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Boring
- By Bob on 08-27-16
By: Gary D. Schmidt
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Trouble
- By: Gary D. Schmidt, S. D. Schindler
- Narrated by: Jason Culp
- Length: 9 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Henry Smith's father told him that if you build your house far enough away from Trouble, then Trouble will never find you. But Trouble comes careening down the road one night in the form of a pickup truck that strikes Henry's older brother, Franklin. In the truck is Chay Chouan, a young Cambodian from Franklin's preparatory school. The tragedy sparks racial tensions in the school.
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THE BEST
- By A User on 03-07-13
By: Gary D. Schmidt, and others
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The Firefly Summer
- By: Morgan Matson
- Narrated by: Mia Jenness
- Length: 8 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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For as long as Ryanna Stuart can remember, her summers have been spent with her father and his new wife. Just the three of them, structured, planned, and quiet. But this summer is different. This summer, she’s received a letter from her grandparents—grandparents neither she nor her dad have spoken to since her mom’s death—inviting her to stay with them at an old summer camp in the Poconos.
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Great Characters
- By Nicole Gilliam Lesher on 04-18-25
By: Morgan Matson
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The Mysterious Affair at Styles and The Murder on the Links
- Agatha Christie's First Two Hercule Poirot Novels
- By: Agatha Christie
- Narrated by: Justin Longbourn
- Length: 11 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Agatha Christie's first two Poirot novels, narrated with a general-American accent. The Mysterious Affair at Styles: Someone has poisoned wealthy Emily Inglethorp. But who? And how? Everyone suspects Emily's young husband, Alfred...and Alfred seems to be actually trying to get arrested and charged.... The Murder on the Links: Poirot comes to France in response to a desperate plea for help to find his client already murdered - stabbed in the back and lying in an open grave. Brusque, arrogant Inspector Giraud thinks he knows who did it.
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Love Agatha Christie
- By Anonymous User on 03-29-25
By: Agatha Christie
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The First State of Being
- By: Erin Entrada Kelly
- Narrated by: Ramon de Ocampo
- Length: 5 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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It's August 1999. For twelve-year-old Michael Rosario, life at Fox Run Apartments in Red Knot, Delaware, is as ordinary as ever—except for the looming Y2K crisis and his overwhelming crush on his sixteen-year-old babysitter, Gibby. But when a disoriented teenage boy named Ridge appears out of nowhere, Michael discovers there is more to life than stockpiling supplies and pining over Gibby.
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Great, diverse, very different plot!
- By pamela miller on 04-16-24
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Good Different
- By: Meg Eden Kuyatt
- Narrated by: Sue Ann Pien
- Length: 3 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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Selah knows her rules for being normal. She always, always sticks to them. This means keeping her feelings locked tightly inside, despite the way they build up inside her as each school day goes on, so that she has to run to the bathroom and hide in the stall until she can calm down. So that she has to tear off her normal-person mask the second she gets home from school, and listen to her favorite pop song on repeat, trying to recharge.
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Amazing and wonky
- By Andrea on 07-25-24
By: Meg Eden Kuyatt
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Four Eyes
- Four Eyes, Book 1
- By: Rex Ogle
- Narrated by: Benjamin Valic
- Length: 2 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Sixth grade isn't as great as Rex thought it would be. He's the only kid who hasn't had a growth spurt, and the bullies won't let him forget it. His closest friend is unreliable, at best. And there's a cute girl in his class who he can't stop thinking about. With so much going on, everything is a blur—including Rex's vision! So when he discovers that he needs glasses, and his family can only afford the ugliest pair in the store, any hope Rex had of fitting in goes completely out of focus.
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(READ THIS REVIEW) DO NOT BUY! THIS BOOK IS TOO GOOD FOR ANYONE!
- By asdf on 05-28-25
By: Rex Ogle
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Not Nothing
- By: Gayle Forman
- Narrated by: Dion Graham, Gayle Forman
- Length: 6 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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Alex is twelve, and he did something very, very bad. A judge sentences him to spend his summer volunteering at a retirement home. He hasn’t seen his mom in a year, and Shady Glen’s geriatric residents seem like zombies to him. Josey is 107 and ready for his life to be over. He has evaded death many times, having survived ghettos, dragnets, and a concentration camp—all thanks to the heroism of a woman named Olka and his own ability to sew. But now he spends his days in room 206 at Shady Glen, refusing to speak and waiting (and waiting and waiting) to die. Until Alex knocks on Josey’s door…
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Loved this book! Listened with my 13 year old!
- By Autumn K. Pingel on 04-25-25
By: Gayle Forman
I did not want this book to end! “The Labors of Hercules Beal” is my first book by the author, Gary Schmidt! I am a new huge fan!!!
Best of the Best!
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The labors and how bad Hercules had hardships.
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Loved the consistency of the narrative.
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Gary D Schmidt is a brilliant writer!
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Truly a wonderful story.
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Laughed and cried
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Clever, Easy Read
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Great Book
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This book is so eventful and full of surprises
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Schmidt does it again...
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