Showing results by narrator "Katie Schorr" in All Categories

Bound by a shared destiny, a teen bursting with scientific curiosity and a former boy-genius inventor embark on a mission to unearth the secrets of a place somewhere in time and space that exists in their collective memory.

Aristotle "Aris" Thibodeau is 12 and a half years old and destined for greatness. Ever since her father's death, however, she's been stuck in the small town of Kanuga, Georgia, where she has to manage her mother Diane's floundering love life and dubious commitment to her job as an English professor, not to mention coparenting a little brother who hogs all the therapy money. Luckily Aris has a plan. Following the advice laid out in Write a Novel in Thirty Days!, she sets out to pen a best seller using her charmingly dysfunctional family as material.

Being the new girl is tough—just ask sixteen-year-old Rio Jones. A New York transplant, Rio has no clue how she's going to fit in at her fancy new private school in Southern California. Plus, being late, overdressed, and named after a Duran Duran song doesn't make the first day any easier for her. Then Rio meets Kristi. Beautiful, rich, and a cheerleader, Kristi is the queen bee of Newport Beach. And Kristi isn't friends with just anyone, so Rio is thrilled when she's invited to be part of the most exclusive, popular clique.

Winnie Friedman has been waiting for the world to catch on to what she already knows: She's hilarious. It might be a long wait, though. After bombing a stand-up set at her own bat mitzvah, Winnie has kept her jokes to herself. Well, to herself and her dad, a former comedian and her inspiration. Then, on the second day of 10th grade, the funniest guy in school actually laughs at a comment she makes in the lunch line and asks her to join the improv troupe. Maybe he's even...flirting? Just when Winnie's ready to say yes to comedy again, her father is diagnosed with ALS.

When Gabby Duran moves to quiet Havensburg with her successful mom and overachieving little sister, she’s recruited by her school principal for a special babysitting gig. The fearless and unapologetically bold new girl in town soon discovers her young charges aren’t your standard unruly kids. They are very important extra-terrestrial children hiding on Earth with their families, and it’s her job to protect them and their secret identities, and prove she’s the best babysitter in the galaxy!

My name is Kenna. No one ever told me the truth about cutting. How scars multiply like freaking rabbits. How cutting turns you into a pathological liar. How getting caught lands you in a psych ward with no way out for 72 hours. But that's exactly what happens. To me anyway. And I bet you wonder how anyone could ever change - in just three days, in a place like this where everybody's broken. Trust me. I wonder that myself.

Battered, bruised, but alive, Helicity Dunlap rides out a hurricane in the Bolivar Peninsula Lighthouse in Texas. She somehow manages to keep herself safe, and to even rescue a lost dog in the process. After a day in the hospital, she, her mom, and Sam make the two-day drive back to Western Michigan. They leave Andy and their dad behind, as Andy is finally going to get the help he needs in an addiction rehabilitation facility. Much to her dismay, Helicity ends up in the spotlight

Twin sisters Claire and Poppy are accidental social media stars thanks to Mom going viral when they were babies. Now, as teens, they're expected to contribute by building their own brand. Attending a NY fashion week and receiving fan mail is a blast. Fending off internet trolls and would-be kidnappers? Not so much. Poppy embraces it. Claire hates it. Will anybody accept her as "just Claire"? And what should Claire do about Mom's old journals?

Trapped and isolated in small-town Wisconsin, Sarah wants nothing more than to blend in and lead a normal life away from her abusive brother. Weighing five hundred pounds and having no job or formal education, however, makes this almost impossible. When Sarah commits an unthinkable act, she seizes the only opportunity available to escape the consequences of her actions. She contacts the carnival man who previously offered her a job as a sideshow act. Burying her guilt, Sarah leaves home and begins performing under the stage name Lola Rolls.

Spring has arrived, and yet an unyielding winter freeze has left Louisa snowed into her apartment building for months with parents coping with extreme stress, a little brother struggling with cabin fever, and—awkwardly—her neighbor and former close friend, Luke. The new realities of this climate disaster have not only affected Louisa’s family, but when Luke’s dad has an ice-related accident and it’s unclear if he’ll recover, both families’ lives are turned upside down.

Frances Turner has a confession to make: her sister, Crosby, who has built her life on good luck and good looks, drives her crazy. The woman wakes up in the morning with perfect hair. Men flock to her. And she somehow managed to jump out of the frying pan and into fame, writing a blockbuster novel—and making a zillion bucks—without even trying. And Frances, who has followed every rule, is stuck in pause.

Here's a totally twisted take on the alphabet that invites listeners to look at it in a whole new way: An A is an H that just won't stand up right, a B is a D with its belt on too tight, and a Z is an L in a tug-of-war fight! Twenty-six letters, unique from each other - and yet, every letter looks just like one another! Kind of like...one big family.

Libby comes from a long line of bullies. She wants to be different, but sometimes that doesn’t work out. To bolster herself, she makes a card with the message You are amazing. That card sets off a chain reaction that ends up making a difference in the lives of some kids who could also use a boost - be it from dealing with bullies, unaccepting families, or the hole that grief leaves.

After seven years of faithfully following her spiritual teacher, Renee Linnell finally realized she was in a cult and had been severely brainwashed. But how did that happen to someone like her? She had graduated magna cum laude with a double degree. She had started five different companies and had an MBA from NYU. The Burn Zone is an exploration of how we give up our power - how what started out as a need to heal from the loss of her parents and to understand the big questions in life could leave a young woman fighting for her sanity and her sense of self.

Sasha has always loved the Cirque, a place filled with sequined costumes, dazzling spotlights, and magnificent tents. But when she starts fifth grade with the Islanders - the ordinary folk from the other side of the Island - for the first time, she’s not so sure she wants to be a Cirque kid. She starts to question her home and her Cirque family. Is the magic real? Are the stories even true? As the bullying by the Island kids gets worse, swirling blue-gray Smoke appears. One night in the big tent, Sasha’s dad performs, twisting his body through the air as the lights dance.

Sixteen year-old Echo Stone awakens in a cold sweat in a dark room, having no idea where she is or how she got there. But she soon finds out she’s in Middle House, an orphanage filled with mysteriously troubled kids. There’s just one problem: she’s not an orphan. Her parents are very much alive. She explains this to everyone, but no one will listen. After befriending a sympathetic (and handsome) boy, Echo is able to escape Middle House and rush home, only to discover it sealed off by crime scene tape and covered in the evidence of a terrible and violent crime.

Sarah has had her happy ending: She is at the party of the year with the most popular boy in school. But when that boy turns out to be a troublemaker who decided to throw a party at a cottage museum dedicated to renowned poet Rufus Baylor, everything changes. By the end of the party, the whole cottage is trashed - curtains up in flames, walls damaged, mementos smashed - and when the partygoers are caught, they're all sentenced to take a summer class studying Rufus Baylor's poetry...with Baylor as their teacher.

When Helicity Dunlap flies for Texas to spend time with her best friend Mia, she hopes to leave the tragedies of the devastating tornado and flash flood back in Michigan - at least for a little while. Her responsibilities at Mia's Aunt Suze's beachfront bed-and-breakfast are pretty simple and leave her lots of time to enjoy hunting for sea glass, sunbathing, and exploring a summer romance. But Helicity comes by her name honestly - helicity means to spin - and her troubles from home follow her south.

The town of Eden Grove has a legend: In the center of a pine forest there is an aspen grove, and in the center of the aspen grove is an ancient, magnificent tree. A tree that grants wishes. Mayberry and Marshall have heard the stories about the Wishing Tree, but they know nothing like that could really exist near their dreary town. Misunderstood and restless, the teenagers wish for a lot of things, including being on another planet altogether. Somewhere with magic and adventure - someplace where they can be heroes.

Twelve-year-old Bertie Blount is great at causing trouble. When she’s forced to leave behind her dad and friends in North Carolina so her mom can marry the most boring optometrist in the world, Bertie has a chance at a fresh start. But when Bertie arrives in Pennsylvania, she doesn’t just bring trouble; she brings disaster. In a moment of anger, Bertie unwittingly triggers an accident that puts her future stepbrother in a coma.