Showing results by narrator "Beth Sarah" in All Categories

Each year, when no one is paying attention, The Dead of Night Halloween store appears in a new location with its giant sign and great low prices. No one sees them setting up or tearing down—one day it’s just there and then, two days after Halloween, it’s gone. Pepper White knows exactly how this works. For five years, ever since the last Keeper of the Store tricked her, she has been cursed—appearing when the store does, and disappearing when it goes away. People will remember The Dead of Night, but they’ll completely forget Pepper. That is, until Christina Loring walks in the door.

When Jodi Bondi Norgaard, an experienced entrepreneur, attempted to shake-up the toy industry with a sports doll that appeals to today's more athletic, adventurous girls, she came to realize the roadblocks to success weren't only reluctant toy buyers, but a patriarchal culture that perpetuates gender roles and sexism. More Than a Doll is about her mission to break gender stereotypes and challenge the status quo.

The forms of intimacy and care that we’ve been sold are woefully inadequate and problematic. In a world that treats those who are sick and traumatized as problems in need of a cure, nonbinary writer, artist, educator, and Instagram creator Margeaux Feldman offers a different story. Trauma, which all too often manifests as chronic illness, tells us that there is something deeply wrong with the world we live in. A world that promotes individualism, fractures us from community through violence and systemic oppression, and leaves us traumatized. That is what we need to cure.

Erin loves her new home in the country. She has a big bedroom that overlooks a beautiful garden, and there's even a tree house in the backyard. Everything is perfect . . . except for the ghost. At first, the ghost is nothing more than a nuisance, pulling Erin's hair, coloring on the walls, and getting Erin into heaps of trouble with her parents. But things become even stranger when Erin starts losing her memory. Sometimes it's only for a few minutes, and other times it's for a few days. It's almost as if she's fallen asleep!

Katie Ledecky began swimming competitively at age six after watching her mother and brother in the pool. By age fifteen, she was setting records and winning gold medals at the 2012 Summer Olympics. And with each year, Katie improved her skills and her times in the water! The Summer 2024 Olympics in Paris will be Katie's fourth, and the world will be watching. With over seven Olympic gold medals, nineteen World Championship gold medals, and twenty-two overall medals at the World Aquatics Championships to her name, Katie has become the most decorated female swimmer in the world.

Of all the kids in Violet's class, only one leaves her speechless: Mira, the girl with the cheery laugh who races like the wind. If only they could adventure together! But every time Violet tries to tell Mira how she feels, Violet goes shy. As Valentine's Day approaches, Violet is determined to tell Mira just how special she is.

Bighearted and observant twelve-year-old Murray O’Shea loves the ocean. Every chance she gets, she’s in it. It could be because the ocean never makes her apologize for being exactly who she is—something her family refuses to do—but it could also be because of the secret magic that Murray shares with the ocean. Though she can’t explain its presence, the electric buzz she feels from her fingertips down to her toes allows her to become one with the ocean and all its creatures, and it makes Murray feel seen in a way she never feels on land.

Since the time of its founding, the Kingdom of Gh'mia has endured an endless siege from a ceaseless horde of monsters. Every year, thousands upon thousands of soldiers and civilians are slain at the hands, teeth, and claws of the chimeric beastmen, a force of destruction that is ever fought, but never defeated. But hope remains, for though the victims of the terrible onslaught have long since accepted their fate, the right person in the right place may be all it takes to set them on the course toward salvation.

Historian Georgina Hickey investigates challenges to the code of urban gender segregation in the twentieth century, focusing on organized advocacy to make the public spaces of American cities accessible to women. She traces waves of activism from the Progressive Era, with its calls for public restrooms, safe and accessible transportation, and public accommodations, through and beyond second-wave feminism, and its focus on the creation of alternative, women-only spaces and extensive anti-violence efforts.