Showing results by narrator "Susie Berneis" in All Categories

Will Rees is back home on his farm with his teenage son, his pregnant wife, their five adopted children, and endless farmwork under the blistering sun. But for all that, Rees is happy to have returned to Dugard, Maine, the town where he was born and raised and where he's always felt at home. When a man is found dead - murdered - after getting into a public dispute with Rees, Rees starts to realize someone is intentionally trying to pin the murder on him. Rees can feel the town of Dugard turning against him.

In "Mrs. Podger's Teapot", an old woman and her boarder take in an orphan on a cold winter's night. The child's natural spirit of generosity moves Mrs. Podger, and helps her find true happiness at Christmas.

When a lawyer turns up dead and Tally's cousin is implicated in the crime, Tally must clear her cousin's name before everyone's happiness melts away.

Poppy has big dreams - lots of them! But following her dreams isn't as easy as it sounds. It's a good thing Poppy's friends and family - who love her no matter what - encourage her to keep believing in herself and making her dreams come true. Kristi Yamaguchui is an ice skating Olympic gold medalist and world champion who knows about dreaming big. The motto "Always Dream" serves as Kristi's personal inspiration as well as the name of her charitable foundation for children.

The five young March sisters grew up on the East Coast during the American Civil War. Although they had very different personalities, their strong bond connected them as sisters throughout their childhoods and into their adult lives. They relied on one another as they faced struggles of growing up during the war and as they grew into young women.

In the 1930s, most girls were happy playing with dolls. But one girl, Betty Skelton, liked playing with airplanes, watching them fly around outside, and even flying airplanes herself! She lived for an adventure - in the air, the water, and on land - and nothing could stop her, especially not being a girl. When Betty Skelton was young there weren't many women flying airplanes or racing cars, but she wouldn't let that stop her. She was always ready to take on a challenge, and she loved to have fun.

In "Gwen's Adventures in the Snow", Gwen and her siblings set out on a winter evening's sleigh ride only to encounter bad weather. Taking shelter in their country house to wait out the snowstorm, the group builds a fire, makes a picnic from the house's reserves, and shares stories to allay each other's fears.

In "A Hospital Christmas" a Civil War-era hospital is the setting for a Christmas story about caring for others, thinking positively, and how sharing can make Christmas meaningful for those who have little.

In this Christmas story, a poor girl named Tilly finds an injured bird in the snow and takes it home to care for it, believing in the lessons her mother has taught her concerning the golden rule and Christ's commandment to love our neighbors. Although her friends think she shouldn't take care of the bird, her kindness is rewarded unexpectedly on Christmas Eve. This version of "Tilly's Christmas" was recorded as part of Dreamscape's The Christmas Stories of Louisa May Alcott.

A short poem that evokes the ambience and spiritual joy of the season, "A Song for a Christmas Tree" is an ode to the wonders of the Christmas season.

Ben Franklin loved to swim and, at the age of 11, he was determined to swim like a fish - fins and all! This fascinating and lively account of young Ben's earliest invention follows the budding scientist's journey as he tests and retests his swim fins. That first big splash led Ben to even more innovations and inventions.

In "A Christmas Turkey", a poor family works hard to figure out how they can celebrate Christmas. When the father is unable to provide a turkey, the children venture out into the world, working to earn enough money to pool their resources and purchase one for the Christmas table.

"A Merry Christmas" is the famous Christmas scene (Chapter Two) from the immortal Louisa May Alcott novel, Little Women. The four March sisters, Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy, and their mother, celebrate Christmas without their father who has gone to war. Newly impoverished, after father's financial loss, the sisters work outside the home for money to support the family, and rediscover the true meaning of Christmas in the process.

There's a long tradition of English Christmas stories, sometimes serious, sometimes humorous, often revolving around ghosts and apparitions. Dickens drew on it in a serious vein in A Christmas Carol; here, Jerome K. Jerome tells hilarious stories from around an English Christmas fireside.

In this set of "Uncanny Tales," Mary Louisa Molesworth deftly makes us feel the shiver of ghostly mystery without actually giving us a ghost! Or, to put it another way, she's interested in a different kind of ghostly presence. In "The Man with the Cough", it is the ghostly presence of a secret agent, and the ghostly experience of events that seem like a dream, but have real-world consequences. In "Halfway Between the Stiles", it is the ghostly presence of old memories of love that will not die away, and again, the real world responds. In "Will Not Take Place", it is a man who almost becomes a ghost.

Three great tales of meetings with ghosts, and perhaps more than ghosts: "The Vacant Lot" by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman; "On the Brighton Road" by Richard Middleton; and "Sister Johanna" by Amelia B. Edwards.

Tallulah Jones is met with another string of murders begging to be investigated, but doing so plunges her into a world of petty rivalries with a sprinkle of adultery.

Here are two terrifying and sobering stories of ghosts who will stop at nothing. In Henry James' "The Romance of Certain Old Clothes", a woman's envy of her dead sister threatens to destroy her. In "Lost Hearts", three children learn that a classical scholar's love of the past has led him into a terrible and bloody delusion.

Five wonderful stories by Ambrose Bierce, full of vivid characters, precise and evocative language, surprises, and suspense. Written more than a century ago, these stories still capture the imagination with vivid, precise language that bites - and may even draw blood! This Freshwater Seas production presents these five classic stories performed by Susie Berneis and Robert Bethune, with subtle musical underscoring to enhance and enrich Bierce's words.

This presentation of the beloved tale tells the classic story of the long night Ebenezer Scrooge spent with the ghosts of Christmas, the lessons it taught him, the change it made in his life, and the joy it brought to him and all who knew him. It tells the story the way Dickens wrote it, including scenes and descriptions other versions skip over.On this recording, the story is not merely read, it comes to life with voices and music.