Showing results by narrator "Robin Miles" in All Categories

Set against the burgeoning Civil Rights movement of the 1960s, and then just before the outbreak of the Civil War, The Freedom Maze explores both political and personal liberation, and how the two intertwine. In 1960, 13-year-old Sophie isn't happy about spending the summer at her grandmother's old house in the Bayou. But the house has a maze Sophie can't resist exploring once she finds it has a secretive and mischievious inhabitant.

In 1949, jazz pianist Sonny-Rhett Payne left New York for Paris, to be free from racism and his family’s disapproval. Now Sonny’s grandson has come to New York for a memorial concert. There, the 8-year-old begins to understand the forces that drove Sonny into exile. Paule Marshall is an award-winning author and distinguished professor of creative writing at New York University.

Though the land of Kun used to be lush and green, Amara has only ever known her homeland as a dry, dusty desert. When the griots vanished more than a decade ago, they took their magic with them, along with goddess Oala’s gifts of rain and plenty, leaving Kun controlled by a powerful and uncaring king. And though her foster mother, Zirachi, assures her that Kun is not under a curse, Amara can’t help but wonder if her own origin, which is shrouded in mystery, is somehow linked to the broken kingdom.

At the start of 2020, in what felt already like an age of disorder, our world faced one of the gravest global challenges in a century. Yet in the midst of this crisis, billions of human beings responded with love. Tim Shriver saw an opportunity for those hungry for community to answer a call to heal, a call to hope, a call to unite. He asked monks and nuns, artists and activists, nurses and doctors, ex-presidents and ex-cons to come together to share messages of inspiration, transformation, and love. This book captures the spirit of that 24-hour event.

Zeus, Athena, Apollo, Aphrodite, and the other denizens of Mount Olympus feel almost as present and larger than life today as they did when they were worshipped as gods. Humanity has been telling and retelling stories about the characters from Greek and Roman myth for centuries—heck, the Romans liked the Hellenic originals so much, they remade them faster than Marvel remakes Spider-Man movies. And from Virgil's Aeneid to Xena: Warrior Princess to Percy Jackson to The Song of Achilles, the obsession has never waned.

On the verge of adulthood, Rafi attends the Lyceum, a school for the psionically gifted. Rafi possesses mental abilities that might benefit people . . . or control them. Some wish to help Rafi wield his powers responsibly; others see him as a threat to be contained. Rafi’s only freedom at the Lyceum is Wallrunning: a game of speed and agility played on vast vertical surfaces riddled with variable gravity fields. Serendipity and Ntenman are also students at the Lyceum, but unlike Rafi they come from communities where such abilities are valued.

Mary Willis has always been an outcast, an abolitionist in a town of bounty hunters and anti-Union farmers. After college she dreams of exploring the country but is obligated to take over the household duties and management of her family's farm while her brother, Leander, avoids his own responsibilities. Helping runaways is the only thing that makes her life in Town Line bearable. When escaped slave Joe Bell collapses in her father's barn, Mary is determined to help him cross to freedom in nearby Canada.

The stories in this anthology range from quietly strange to ambitiously speculative. Humans transform into cosmic energy or sentient algae. A man wakes up in a new body in a world with continents cut out, months absent from the calendar year, and souls misplaced. Students at a high school regularly vanish without a trace. A woman descends into the depths of the ocean and encounters all-knowing creatures who may have the answers to her deepest questions.

In 1353, Giovanni ​Boccaccio wrote The Decameron: one hundred nested tales told by a group of young men and women passing the time at a villa outside Florence while waiting out the gruesome Black Death, a plague that killed more than 25 million people. Some of the stories are silly, some are bawdy, some are like fables. In March 2020, the editors of The New York Times Magazine worked to create a collection of stories written just as the pandemic first swept the globe.

Dr. Miranda Ecouvo, forensic therapist of the City, just helped put a serial killer behind bars. But she soon discovers that her investigation into seven unusual murders is not yet complete. A near-death experience throws her out of time and into a realm of labyrinths and spirits. There, she encounters brothers Chance and the Trickster, who have an otherworldly interest in the seemingly mundane crimes from her files.

You’re excited about your school project on the solar system, but thinking about presenting it to the class makes you really nervous. Now, you can use mindfulness to stop those feelings from taking over. Mindfulness means paying attention to what’s happening in your body, your head, and your environment. Learning the fun mindfulness skills in this audiobook gives you the power to tackle your anxiety. Mindfulness for Kids Who Worry will show you ways to beat nervousness and keep worry from rearing its ugly head in the future.

In Amelia Bedelia Gets a Break, Amelia Bedelia is left in charge of her class pet—a hamster named Harry—over school break, and she's excited to learn all about caring for an animal. But when Harry goes missing, Amelia Bedelia is upset. Her friends Dawn and Clay help her search the house and make "lost pet" signs, but it seems hopeless, until Amelia Bedelia puts herself in Harry's shoes and finds him hiding in her favorite spot in the house.

I will avenge my husband and children. Former Marine Corps colonel Amanda Collins and her lethal team of women warriors have vowed to avenge her family's murder. And they have nothing left to lose....

For too long, the Southern woman has been synonymous with the Southern belle, a "moonlight and magnolias" myth that gets nowhere close to describing the strong, richly diverse women who have thrived because of - and in some cases, despite of - the South. No more. Garden & Gun’s Southern Women: More Than 100 Stories of Trail Blazers, Visionaries, and Icons obliterates that stereotype by sharing the stories of more than 100 of the region’s brilliant women, groundbreakers who have embraced the South’s proud traditions and overcome its equally pervasive barriers.

Twelve-year-old Ann Maria Weems works from sunup to sundown, wraps rags around her feet in the winter, and must do whatever her master or mistress orders—but she has something that many plantation slaves don't have. She has her wonderful family around her. To Ann, her teasing brothers, her older sister, and her protective and loving parents are everything. And then one day, they are gone. Separated from her family by her master and shipped off as a housemaid, Ann learns something about independence and about love before the opportunity for escape arrives.

Margaret Cezair-Thompson's second novel is a hit with book clubs across the country. A moving tale of discovery and reconciliation, The Pirate's Daughter follows a mother and daughter struggling with a difficult legacy. Living in tropical Jamaica, adventurous Ida dreams of a place outside of her small island town. And her 26-year-old daughter May - the illegitimate offspring of legendary actor and notorious playboy Errol Flynn - searches for an identity of her own.

“Kids always search for heroes, so we might as well have a say in it”, Brad Meltzer realized, and so he envisioned this friendly, fun approach to biography - for his own kids, and for yours. Each book tells the story of one of America’s icons in a vivacious, conversational way. Each book focuses on a particular character trait that made that role model heroic. For example, Rosa Parks dared to stand up for herself and other African Americans by staying seated, and as a result she helped end public bus segregation and launch the country’s Civil Rights Movement.

Pinduli's mama has always told her that she's the most beautiful hyena ever. But Dog, Lion, and Zebra don't think so. Why else would they make her feel so rotten about her big ears, her fuzzy mane, and her wiggly stripes? Poor Pinduli just wants to disappear. But then a case of mistaken identity lets her show the creatures of the African savanna how a few tiny words can create something enormous.

Gordon Tilson is a lonely widower who befriends a young woman online. When her sister is injured in a car accident, he sends her thousands of dollars to cover the hospital bill and runs off to Ghana to surprise his new love. But he soon disappears without a trace. Frustrated by the inadequacies of the local police in Accra, his son Derek turns to a PI agency for assistance where there is a new detective on the scene determined to prove her worth.

The intersection of motherhood and creative life is explored in these writings on mothering that turn the spotlight from the child to the mother herself. Here, in memoirs, testimonials, diaries, essays, and fiction, mothers describe firsthand the changes brought to their lives by pregnancy, childbirth, and mothering.