Showing results by narrator "Cassandra Morris" in All Categories

Mori and her friends Julia, Benji, and Theo have never seen the world beyond the walls of their utopian community, Old Harmonie. That changes when their new friend Ilana is threatened by the rules that are supposed to keep them all safe. Together, they escape, hoping to find help in Boston with Dr. Agatha Varden, one of Old Harmonie's pioneering founders. But as they encounter kids from the outside and face challenges they never expected, Mori and her friends begin to understand the complicated reality of their supposedly perfect world.

The author of more than 100 books for young people, Cynthia Rylant has charmed countless readers with her award-winning tales. In this entry from her popular Annie and Snowball series, Annie makes a new friend who likes dainty things as much as she does. When Annie goes to Sarah’s house to play, she is amazed by all the frilly stuff. Sarah and her mom have pretty lamps andteacups and flowery chairs. And the best part of all is the garden, which is filled with beautiful flowers. It’s the perfect place to have a tea party for fairies!

Autumn is looking forward to summer vacation. She and her best friend plan on going to all the best ice cream places their stomachs can handle—and in NYC, the possibilities can’t get any sweeter. Linnea is still not over the fact that her dad has found love after her parents' divorce. Luckily, she can take out all her feelings on the tennis courts for a winning summer. But then Autumn and Linnea discover the news: their parents are getting married. Devastated, the two of them come up with an idea: if they can split up their parents, their lives can go back to normal.

Magnolia Grace never wanted to leave Georgia. She never wanted to move with her mama to the farm her daddy owned before he died. But now here she is - in a tiny Vermont town where everybody sings the praises of the father she never knew. Then Maggie meets the Parker family - two moms, six kids, plus a pony. The Parkers are loud and wild, ask lots of questions, and don't follow any of the rules Maggie grew up with in Georgia.

Why has their grandmother bothered keeping a menu from a restaurant that closed years ago, a restaurant that never served very good food in the first place? Three cousins listen to Gee's own story, set in the early days of lunch counter sit-ins in Nashville, a time when a black child could sit up front in a city bus but still could not get a milk shake at a downtown restaurant.

Years ago, Tula Bane was beaten and left for dead on a remote space station far from Earth, her home planet. She started with nothing and had no one, but over time she found a home, a family, and even love. When it's discovered that the abandoned planet beneath the station is abundant with a rare and valuable resource, aliens from across the galaxy race over to strike it rich.

It's fall in Winter Garden, Virginia, and business at the Down South Cafe has never been better. So when struggling beekeeper Stuart Landon asks Amy to sell some of his honey, she's happy to help. The jars of honey are a sweet success, but their partnership is cut short when she discovers his body outside the cafe early one morning. It seems unlikely that someone would have wanted to harm the unassuming beekeeper, so Amy worries that she might have been the intended target.

In this WellieWishers™ early chapter book, when Camille loses two teeth in one day, Ashlyn decides to cheer up her friend by throwing a party. The party is meant to be a secret so the other WellieWishers will be surprised too, but a rainstorm and other woes are on the horizon! Will Ashlyn accept help from her friends in order to get everything done? This story tells how Ashlyn learns to rely on others, and that good friends can be the best surprise of all!

For 18-year-old Becca Torrence, the chance to finish high school in a new town, where no one knows her or the secrets of that night, should be a dream come true. But when the first day of school rolls around, something is wrong. Instead of being greeted with warm smiles and reassuring hellos, Becca finds herself on the receiving end of icy stares and cruel whispers. Putting it down to her status as an outsider, she holds her head high, because they can't know. They can't. Can they?

The Down South Cafe is open and flourishing, and Amy Flowers is busy making pies and cakes for the holiday. The only thorn in her side is the chamber of commerce director George Lincoln, who is trying to buy the cafe so he can tear it down and build a B and B on the site. When George collapses while eating at the Down South, everybody assumes it's a heart attack - until the autopsy declares it to be poisoning.

In the tradition of Every Soul a Star and Inside Out & Back Again, Just Like Me is a funny, uplifting summer camp story about unlikely friendships and finding your place in the world from the award-winning author of This Journal Belongs to Ratchet. Told through a mix of traditional narrative and journal entries, don't miss this funny, surprisingly sweet summer audiobook!

For one brief hour on a sunny Texas morning, amateur baker Rosie Hart glimpses the life she’s always dreamed about - thanks to a surprise inheritance from the late Miss Alice. But her benefactor is barely cold in the ground when Rosie is accused of her murder. As the only stranger in the tight-knit Airlie Falls community, and the only person with an obvious motive, all eyes turn to Rosie. Especially when more bodies begin to pile up and mysterious letters from the grave start circulating faster than Rosie can pull a tray of cherry nut clusters out of the oven.

Elsie Mae has long treasured summers with her grandparents in the Okefenokee Swamp, so she is devastated to hear that a shipping company plans to build a canal right through it. What will that mean for the people and animals that call the swamp home? So she writes a letter directly to President Franklin Roosevelt himself and sets off to enjoy what may be her last happy summer there with her new dog, Huck. But when she arrives, she discovers a team of hog bandits who have been stealing from the swamper families.

Escaping to Credence was supposed to be Becca's shot at a new life, but some secrets refuse to stay hidden, and now that the truth is out, everything changes. Everything. The people she thought she could trust lied. The guy she thought cared about her kept her in the dark. And with no one to turn to, Becca finds it hard to unravel the truth. When she finally does, her past and present collide in a way no one saw coming.

Being optimistic doesn’t come naturally to Grace Manning, especially not these days. Her family life has just been turned upside down, and things are getting weird with her best friend Eric. But at least she’s happy at her after-school job at a nursing home, thanks to Mr. Sands, a resident with Lou Gehrig’s disease who keeps up with Grace’s sarcasm, teaches her how to cheat at poker, and even lets her give him a Mohawk. And then one day, Mr. Sands asks Grace to help him die.

Every year, tens of thousands of children write to Highlights magazine, sharing their hopes and dreams, worries and concerns, as if they were writing to a trusted friend. From the beginning, the editors at Highlights have answered every child individually. Longtime editor in chief Christine French Cully has curated a collection of this remarkable correspondence (letters, emails, and poems) in Dear Highlights - revealing an intimate and inspiring 75-year conversation between America’s children and its leading children’s magazine.

Sixteen-year-old Waverly Fishwater believes that people who act suspicious are asking for her to spy on them. When she eavesdrops on one of her dad's clandestine meetings, she learns that mermaids are being abducted. Fearing no one else will save them, Waverly swaps her tail for legs and heads to the site of the disappearances, but it doesn't go as planned. After exposing mermaidkind to humanity, Waverly has to come to terms with leaving the home, friends, and school she loves.

When Allison's best friend, TJ, convinces her to come along for an epic game of LARP (live-action roleplaying), she reluctantly agrees, despite her reservations about the geeky pastime. TJ's weekends are filled with powerful wizardry, mystical creatures, and intense battles with his LARP group. Each adventure is full of surprises, but the goal is always the same - to defeat the monsters and find the treasure. Not long after their quest begins, the friends discover that something has gone wrong.

Jules doesn't want to ruin the opportunity of a lifetime, and she's willing to turn to anyone for help - even her know-it-all ex-best friend! If only that lovely new girl in class would turn out to be the new best friend of her dreams, maybe, just maybe, Jules will be ready for her close-up...

It's not easy being best friends with a celebrity...I'm invisible at my high school and I'm fine with it. It's kind of inevitable with a name like Jane Smith. But when the school newspaper staff insisted that I write a cover story, I decided to find out just how much scandal one geeky girl could uncover.