Showing results by narrator "Elin" in All Categories

From David Levithan’s story about a non-binary kid collecting pieces of other people’s collections to Jenny Torres Sanchez's tale of a girl gathering types of fire while trying not to get burned to G. Neri's piece about 1970's skaters seeking opportunities to go vertical—anything can be collected and in the hands of these award-winning and bestselling authors, any collection can tell a story. Nine of the best YA novelists working today have written fiction based on a prompt from Printz-winner A.S. King (who also contributes a story) and the result is itself an extraordinary collection.

Shyima Hall was born in Egypt on September 29, 1989, the seventh child of desperately poor parents. When she was eight, her parents sold her into slavery. Shyima then moved two hours away to Egypt's capitol city of Cairo to live with a wealthy family and serve them eighteen hours a day, seven days a week. When she was ten, her captors moved to Orange County, California, and smuggled Shyima with them. Two years later, an anonymous call from a neighbor brought about the end of Shyima's servitude - but her journey to true freedom was far from over.

Alice and Daphne, both successful and accomplished working mothers, harbor the same secret: obsession with their weight overshadows concerns about their children, husbands, work - and everything else of importance in their lives. The two women meet at Waisted. Located in a remote Vermont mansion, the program promises fast, dramatic weight loss. Alice, Daphne, and five other women are desperate enough to leave behind their families for this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. The catch? They must agree to always be on camera; afterward, the world will see Waisted: The Documentary.

In her mid-20s, at the height of tech industry idealism, Anna Wiener - stuck, broke, and looking for meaning in her work, like any good millennial - left a job in book publishing for the promise of the new digital economy. She moved from New York to San Francisco, where she landed at a big-data startup in the heart of the Silicon Valley bubble: A world of surreal extravagance, dubious success, and fresh-faced entrepreneurs hell-bent on domination, glory, and, of course, progress.

This is not how soccer-star Zack Martin thought his summer would go. When the captain's prank means trouble for the whole squad, Zack’s left with no choice but to take one for the team and cover for him. Now he’s trading parties and beach days for community service at a seaside conservation center—fair enough. But thanks to his new reputation, the cute intern, Chip, won’t even give him a shot. Still, Zack finds himself falling for Chip between dolphin encounters and shark costume disasters, which means he suddenly has way more on the line than he ever expected.

With today's focus on technology and digital communication, face-to-face small talk is becoming increasingly difficult. How do you start a conversation with a stranger? What do you need to do to make a great first impression? What should you do when the conversation starts to drift off? In How to Make Small Talk, you'll learn the art of small talk for all types of situations. With simple advice and brief exercises, this book makes it easy to improve your casual chitchat skills.

Ten years ago, I broke the heart of the girl I loved, and she ran from me, never giving me a chance to explain, leaving me devastated. Now Lottie is back and working in my club. Which gives me the chance to put things right. I know she's hiding a secret, but I can't walk away. When she enters an auction to sell her body, I refuse to let another man touch what is mine. I offer her a way out, a marriage of convenience that will benefit us both. The contract says we'll stay married for a year. But she was mine then, she's mine now, and I'm never letting her go again.

An explosion on the moon base has me careening into space. If it weren't for the hot alien pilot Brokdar, I'd still be floating amongst the debris. But now, we've been sucked through a wormhole to an unknown planet. We'll have to rely on each other to survive. But with his barred emotions and tight-lipped demeanor, I don't know how to break down his walls—even if the chemistry between us is set to ignite.

As an immigrant who came to the West, El Akkad believed that it promised freedom. A place of justice for all. But in the past twenty years, reporting on the War on Terror, Ferguson, climate change, Black Lives Matter protests, and more, and watching the unmitigated slaughter in Gaza, El Akkad has come to the conclusion that much of what the West promises is a lie. That there will always be entire groups of human beings it has never intended to treat as fully human—not just Arabs or Muslims or immigrants, but whoever falls outside the boundaries of privilege.

A BWWM romance collection full of your favorite authors from the Scribble XO Book Club! Hunky billionaires, bad boys, models, military men and more!

In a not-too-distant America, abortions are prosecuted and the right to choose is no longer an option. But best friends Laylah and Noor want to change the world. After graduating high school, they’ll become an OBGYN and a journalist, but in the meantime, they’re working on an illegal guide to abortion in Texas. In response to the unfair laws, underground networks of clinics have sprung up, but the good fight has gotten even more precarious as it becomes harder to secure safe medication and supplies.

The bewitching second book in the Witches of Brooklyn series captures what it means to be a friend, and how growing up can be a little less scary if you throw some magic in the mix.

An exciting series, especially for readers new to the Forgotten Realms! Thazienne Uskevren, the only legitimate daughter of the wealthy Uskevren family, has suffered blow after blow to her body and spirit. Even as she struggles to mend her fractured soul, Tazi finds herself on a journey that will take her far from the safety of Selgaunt and into the deadly heart of the Calim Desert. There the shifting sands hide an old foe, who holds the key to Tazi's salvation - or the doom of Sembia.

Chanequa Walker-Barnes offers a compelling argument that the Christian racial reconciliation movement is incapable of responding to modern-day racism. She demonstrates how reconciliation’s roots in the evangelical, male-centered Promise Keepers’ movement has resulted in a patriarchal and largely symbolic effort focused upon improving relationships between men from various racial-ethnic groups.

Emily didn’t join the cast of The One for fame or for a relationship. She simply didn’t have anything better to do. Newly fired from her dead-end job, it doesn’t take much convincing when she’s recruited as a last-minute contestant for the popular reality dating show. Emily has been performing her entire life—for her family and friends, former boyfriends, and coworkers. How different could it be playing herself in front of cameras? But the moment Emily arrives, it becomes clear she’s been tapped to win it all.

As a child, Sarafina El-Badry Nance spent nearly every evening with her father gazing up at the flickering stars and pondering what secrets the night sky held. The daughter of an American father and Egyptian mother who both pushed her toward academic excellence, Sarafina dreamed of becoming an astronomer and untangling the mysteries of the stars overhead. But it wasn’t long before she was told, both explicitly and implicitly, that girls just weren’t cut out for math and science.

Larajin, the unacknowledged daughter of Thamalon Uskevren and a half-elf, finds herself embroiled in a bitter war between elves and humans. In an effort to bring peace to both Sembia and the Dalelands, Larajin must confront the twin brother she doesn't know and save a half-brother whose fate hangs in the balance.

When Lumen Fowler looks back on her childhood, she wouldn't have guessed she would become a kind suburban wife, a devoted mother. In fact she never thought she would escape her small and peculiar hometown. When We Were Animals is Lumen's confessional: As a well-behaved and overachieving teenager, she fell beneath the sway of her community's darkest, strangest secret. For one year, beginning at puberty, every resident "breaches" during the full moon.

A Heian-era mansion stands abandoned, its foundations resting on the bones of a bride and its walls packed with the remains of the girls sacrificed to keep her company. It’s the perfect venue for a group of thrill-seeking friends, brought back together to celebrate a wedding. A night of food, drinks, and games quickly spirals into a nightmare as secrets get dragged out and relationships are tested. But the house has secrets too. Lurking in the shadows is the ghost bride with a black smile and a hungry heart.

From African American to Asian American, indigenous to immigrant, "multiracial" to "mixedblood," the diversity of cultures in this world is matched only by the diversity of stories explaining our cultural origins: stories of creation and destruction, displacement and heartbreak, hope and mystery.