Showing results by narrator "Jennifer Nittoso" in All Categories

A hilarious new middle grade novel from beloved and best-selling author Gordon Korman about what happens when the worst class of kids in school is paired with the worst teacher. The Unteachables never thought they’d find a teacher who had a worse attitude than they did. And Mr. Kermit never thought he would actually care about teaching again. Over the course of a school year, though, room 117 will experience mayhem, destruction - and maybe even a shot at redemption.

Isabel Lawson is standing on the balcony of her suite at the Hotel de Crillon as she gazes at the twinkling lights of the Champs-Élysées and wonders if she’s made a terrible mistake. She was supposed to be visiting the Christmas tree in the Place de la Concorde and eating escargots and macaroons with her new husband on their honeymoon. But a week before the wedding, she called it off.

In Harrow's eerie tale of madness and heartache, Patience, diagnosed with a "nervous disposition," is forced to take up residence in the rural, dilapidated Gravely House, in hopes that she will "calm down and get better" before her senior year begins. But when she discovers a girl living inside her bedroom mirror, the past comes back to haunt, in more ways than one.

Experience an edge-of-your-seat, science-fiction thriller set against the backdrop of an ambitious, high-stakes space program in Ranger 8. This exhilarating novel dives into a world where secrets are paramount, loyalty is tested, and the line between hero and villain blurs in the unforgiving vacuum of Earth’s orbit.

Maximillian Fly wants no trouble. Yet because he stands at six feet two, with beautiful indigo wings, long antennae, and more arms than you or me, many are frightened of him. He is a gentle creature who looks like a giant cockroach. This extraordinary human wants to prove his goodness, so he opens his door to two SilverSeed children in search of a place to hide. Instantly, Maximillian’s quiet, solitary life changes. There are dangerous powers after them and they have eyes everywhere. But in this gray city of Hope trapped under the Orb, is escape even possible?

Twelve-year-old Abigail (she/her/hers) is so excited to spend her summer at Camp QUILTBAG, an inclusive retreat for queer and trans kids. She can’t wait to find a community where she can be herself—and, she hopes, admit her crush on Laura Dern to kids who will understand. Thirteen-year-old Kai (e/em/eir) is not as excited. E just wants to hang out with eir best friend and eir parkour team. And e definitely does not want to think about the incident that left eir arm in a sling.

Haunted by the death of her husband and only child, Elinor Gentry’s recurring nightmares have left her exhausted. She’s crippled by debt, and only the remnants of her former life surround her: things she can’t bear to sell and wouldn’t make much profit from, if she did. Then, for no apparent reason, the nightmares transform into pleasant dreams. Dreams that lead her to take back control of her life.

The people you love are taken from you. That’s what Maddie DiMarco learned when she survived the plane crash that killed her parents. Fifteen years later, the scars remain. And the ones no can see are hardest to heal. Since the accident, Maddie’s avoided the unpredictable and uncaring outside world, including any relationships - except for the one with her devoted older sister, Kat, who has always been there for her.

Little Cindy Ann knew things no one else knew and saw things no one else saw. Ever since she'd nearly died of fever, the gift of second sight had been hers. Only, it didn't seem like such a gift when the other children called her a witch and wouldn't play with her. Or, when her visions resembled nothing so much as her worst nightmares.

Gloria Watson, an experienced private investigator, read somewhere that every seven years a life should be rebooted. Inspired by that thought, she moves from Chicago to Laughlin, Nevada. After setting her new office up, she meets with her first client. Wyatt Burns had dated a woman now convicted of murder, but he knows she’s innocent because he’s been stalking her for months. In fact, he was looking through a window and witnessed the crime. He’s come to hire Gloria to prove the woman’s innocence, but hopes she will be able to keep him from being involved.

He’s back! That was the first thought that crossed Cindy Biggs’ mind when she heard of the brutal triple-murder in her hometown of Coleman. Yes, the awful crime was nearly identical to the one performed during her hard-scrabble childhood at the time of the Great Depression. But this was 2014, not 1936. Cindy was no longer an innocent nine-year-old child, but an elderly woman who used her gift of second sight to assist the police every now and then.

Hamish Brewer (aka the Tattooed Skateboarding Principal) grew up in a home disrupted by poverty, addiction, and family dysfunction. He understands the feelings of fear, lostness, and desperation that overwhelm too many children today - because that was his life. That experience is what drives him to work relentlessly to empower people living in the toughest areas to envision and create a better future for themselves. Disrupt the norm. That is the challenge Hamish, a Nationally Distinguished Principal, calls educators, students, families, and communities to accept.

Inspired by their grandmother, cousins Elaine and Jan decide to open tea for two, a lakeside tearoom where they can serve up cups of comfort to their patrons. When they buy a teapot at a flea market, the dealer tries to buy it back, and then a woman starts snooping around their house. Is she after the teapot, or the elegant piece of jewelry the electrician found in a wall? Then a would be thief nearly gets away with stealing their property from a restorer’s shop.

March 1987. The FDA has just approved AZT as the first drug to treat AIDS. But it's too late for Iris’s dad. He’s dying, confined to a hospital bed in the apartment he shares with his boyfriend, J.R. (who Iris hates), four floors above Iris and her mom. Soon, all Iris has left of her kind, loving dad are memories, photos, and a binder full of the poems they used to exchange. As Iris navigates her rage and grief, she resolves to speak out against the rampant fear, misinformation, and prejudice surrounding AIDS—and find the pieces of Dad that she never knew before.

Eleven-year-old Joey is angry. All the time. And she doesn’t understand why. She has two loving moms, a supportive older half brother, and, as a triplet, she’s never without company. Her life is good. But sometimes she loses her temper and lashes out, like the time she threw a soccer ball—hard—at a boy in gym class and bruised his collarbone. Or when jealousy made her push her (former) best friend (and crush), Layla, a little bit too roughly.

As children, we are captivated by stories of huge fantastical creatures, such as the wooly mammoth and the pterodactyl. The prevailing wisdom is these species are long extinct, but new evidence uncovered by author Gerald McIsaac casts doubt on these widely held assumptions. McIsaac gathered stories from the elders of the First Nation, those who were formerly referred to as Indians, Native Americans, or Aboriginals.

After helping to host Tea for Two’s first “Teas Around the World” tasting, Rose Young approaches the proprietor cousins - Elaine Cook and Jan Blake - in distress. Rose’s mother died recently, and in going through her belongings, she found a death certificate - for herself! What could this document mean? What happened when Rose was a year old? The cousins search for truth behind this unsettling discovery that reaches far beyond Lancaster, Maine, to a pivotal point not only in Rose’s life but also in history.

Frog loves nothing more than to sing, and his friends love nothing more than to listen. But when he accidentally swallows the moon, Frog must make a choice: Should he let the night skies remain unlit or give up his beautiful voice forever?

Kit and Jeff move to the idyllic coastal town of Bodega Boy when he gets a postdoc fellowship at a marine lab. As a grant deadline looms at Jeff's lab, Kit begins pursuing her own professional interests while uncovering memories of her deceased father - both of which challenge her role as support to Jeff and her own notion of who she is and wants to be.

A girl betrays a longtime friend for a chance at popularity and finds she has cut off her connection to childhood forever. Set in the fog-shrouded artichoke fields of coastal California, this story won second place in the River City Writing Awards in Fiction (1997) for its attention to character and freshness of setting.