Showing results by narrator "Gail Shalan" in All Categories

Call Me Athena: Girl from Detroit is a beautifully written novel in verse loosely based on author Colby Cedar Smith’s maternal grandmother. The story follows Mary as she and her family emigrate from Greece to Detroit in the 1930s, creating a historically accurate portrayal of life as an immigrant during the Great Depression, hunger strikes, and violent riots. Mary lives in a tiny apartment with her immigrant parents, her brothers, and her twin sister, and she questions why her parents ever came to America.

I’m the crazy fun one. Pedal to the floor, balls to the wall, party all weekend guy. The guy everybody calls for laughs and a good time. And I always deliver. So, when Ainsley Winslow and I made a pact for a summer fling, I was all in. What hot-blooded college male doesn’t jump at the chance for a no-strings-attached relationship? Not this one. Then summer drew to a close, and I found myself wanting time to move slower. Ainsley Winslow is a girl of her word. When fall inevitably came, she vanished.

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.

While on the run from Rurales in Mexico, Lou Prophet stops at the familiar desert town of Chisos Springs. Except now it’s called Moon’s Well. And it appears that more than the name has changed. It’s being controlled by the scoundrel Mordecai Moon, who even charges people for water. Lou Prophet won’t stand for such shady business, but he’s never made an enemy like Mordecai...

During one unforgettable year in their twenties, best friends Emma, Fern, Carolina, and Andi make a pact to embrace whatever life throws at them, inspiring Fern to write a memoir detailing their escapades and the magical power of saying Yes. But fast forward twenty years and they have reached their bandwidth of responsibilities. Fern is a full-time writer struggling to pay the bills. Carolina is a fitness-obsessed workaholic. Andi is a disillusioned human rights lawyer. And Emma is a stressed-out divorcée in the thick of planning her daughter’s wedding.

Periods. Every person who menstruates has a different relationship with their Aunt Flow: some good, and some...not so good. This guide embraces all the icky, all the sticky, and all the confusing aspects of the monthly cycle, acknowledging that there's no cookie cutter way to manage the physical and emotional mayhem.

In the aftermath of her father’s death and the crash that killed her mother and five-year-old sister, Jess is determined to take care of her surviving brothers, teenage Frankie and nine-year-old Tom. But as the three siblings struggle through grief, ever-present questions loom: Why did their dad take his own life? Where was their mother going?

Evvie Chambers is doing her best to skate through the last month of high school to graduation. The only thing standing in her way is a biology report on foxes—and her teacher, Mrs. Audrey Dearborn. The same Mrs. Dearborn who’s been a thorn in Evvie’s side for years, refusing to acknowledge or accommodate her neurodiversity. Evvie would much rather be doing her report on Aretha, the octopus she cares for when she volunteers at the Minnesota Zoo but deviating from the exact assignment isn’t allowed—and Mrs. Dearborn isn’t going to make following the rules easy.

When Ellie accidentally overhears that her family deli is most likely going to close, she does the only thing she can think of. She makes a wish on matzo ball soup. Eleven-year-old Ellie is feisty, determined, and a little bit anxious. She considers Lukshen Deli part of the family—after all, it’s been around for four generations, ever since her great-grandmother opened it.