Showing results by narrator "Kurt Kanazawa" in All Categories

Aspiring fashion designer Adelaide Song wants to prove she’s more than just a pampered heiress. All she needs is a little courage - and the help of deliciously sexy Michael Reynolds, her childhood crush and her brother’s best friend. But when her secret crush turns into an illicit liaison, Adelaide realizes mixing business with pleasure spells trouble for all her plans....

Shermy is excited to start second grade. He has styled his hair with gel. He is making friends with the kids who play soccer at recess. And he’s being a good helper to his new teacher, Mr. Craig, who often loses track of things. When his out-of-town friend, Shake, shows up, things seem to be going even better! That is, until Shermy realizes that Shake is stealing the spotlight. But Shake’s mom and stepdad are looking to buy a house in Shermy’s neighborhood, which means these two long-distance friends will now be no-distance friends.

This modern comic take on the American Revolution puts the spotlight on the relationship between the brilliant and domineering Ben Franklin and his son William. As Ben plants the seeds of a new republic, King George III appoints William as Royal Governor of New Jersey—a change in affairs that creates a revolutionary family rift.

After the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, the US government sent thousands of Japanese American citizens to detention camps. In 1945, three Japanese-American sisters return to their farm in Stockton, California, after years in an internment camp, but the once prosperous family finds it’s not easy to pick up the pieces of their former lives. As the details of their deceased father’s final arrangements emerge, the sisters must work together to keep their dreams alive.

Growing up, Wat Misaka wasn’t the tallest kid on the basketball court, but he was fast and he loved the game! In his Japanese American basketball league, Wat dribbled with speed and shared the ball as much as he scored. Encouraged by his father to always do his best, Wat applied this mindset to every challenge in his life. As Wat spent more time on the court, his passion for the game grew. He played in college at the University of Utah during WWII, a time when many Japanese Americans were stripped of their freedoms and incarcerated by the US government.

In a world gone wrong, heroes and villains are not always easy to distinguish and every individual has the ability to contribute something powerful. In this stunning collection of original and rediscovered stories of tragedy and hope, the stars are a diverse group of students, street kids, good girls, kidnappers, and child laborers pitted against their environments, their governments, differing cultures, and sometimes one another as they seek answers in their dystopian worlds.

Peter Nguyen has achieved everything he ever wanted. So, why isn’t he happier? He goes to his high school reunion to show up all the people who didn’t give the time of day to the skinny, nerdy boy he’d been. But then, he runs into his old friend Britt.

In this dramatic and pause-resisting narrative history of Japanese Americans before, during, and after their World War II incarceration, Susan H. Kamei weaves the voices of more than 130 individuals who lived through this tragic episode, most of them as young adults.

A young, inexperienced detective from the wet, working-class side of Hawaii's Big Island, Kawika Wong faces an uphill battle to gain the respect of his more seasoned colleagues. And he has the chance of a lifetime when Ralph Fortunato, the Mainland developer of an unpopular resort on the island's tourist side, is found murdered on a luxury golf course, an ancient Hawaiian spear driven through his heart.

When a mysterious customer tells Adam great things await him in the attic of his uncle’s bakery, he brushes off the exchange. It’s 1999 in New York City—and Adam has already met his fair share of oddballs and eccentrics. But days later, in the attic, Adam makes a discovery that quickly sets him off on a whirlwind adventure. And Adam soon suspects he may not be the only one aware of his extraordinary secret when a tall man with long eyebrows and a thin mustache appears to be following his every move. …

One morning, an old woman brings the little Toymaker a candy tin she played with as a girl. The little Toymaker takes the tin and TA-DA! comes back with a sparkling new toy for the old lady. But it seems that what she truly wants was lost a long time ago. And it will take all the Toymaker's skill, magic, and empathy to bring it back for her.

When a new kid comes to stay with his grandmother at the house next door, Shermy’s plans for a quiet, relaxing summer are completely upended. That’s because Shake is nothing like Shermy. And Shermy is nothing like Shake. Shermy likes to read quietly in the shade of a tree. He knows the proper way to do a puzzle. He collects treasures in the pouch he wears around his neck, and the books on his shelves are alphabetized by author. Shake likes to play street hockey or space explorers. He gobbles up rocket ice pops and Toaster Tarts.

Secretly, a man welds steel to a bulldozer. Later, another watches a ghost walk along his dry-walled hallways. A woman raises her teenage son in a homeless encampment where the boy has to fight to survive with the help of a strange, lonely cop. In Mililani Mauka, the lives of two families, the Motts and the Krills, come together as they try to keep afloat in a changing Honolulu, a city with growing suburbs and homeless camps.