Showing results for "Clay" in Coming of Age

Random House presents the audiobook edition of Bridge of Clay by Markus Zusak. From the internationally acclaimed, prize-winning, best-selling author of The Book Thief, here is a story told backwards and inside out. The five Dunbar brothers are living - fighting, dreaming, loving - in the perfect squalor of a house without grownups. Today, the father who abandoned them is about to walk back in. But why has he returned, and who have the boys become since he left?

Vincent Appleton smiles at his daughters, raises a gun, and blows off his head. For the Appleton sisters, life had unraveled many times before. This time it explodes. Eight-year-old Hariet, known to all as Ari, is dispatched to Cape Breton and her Aunt Mary, who is purported to eat little girls. With Ari on the journey is her steadfast companion, Jasper, an imaginary seahorse. But when they arrive in Pleasant Cove, they instead find refuge with Mary and her partner Nia.

Fueled by tomato sandwiches and green milkshakes, and obsessed with cars, Philbet struggles with life and love as a gay boy in rural Georgia. He’s happiest when helping Grandaddy dig potatoes from the vegetable garden that connects their houses. But Philbet’s world is shattered and his resilience shaken by events that crush his innocence and sense of security; expose his misshapen chest skillfully hidden behind shirts Mama makes at home; and convince him that he’s not fit to be loved by Knox, the older boy he idolizes to distraction.

Vincent Appleton smiles at his daughters, raises a gun, and blows off his head. For the Appleton sisters, life had unravelled many times before. This time it explodes. Eight-year-old Hariet, known to all as Ari, is dispatched to Cape Breton and her aunt Mary, who offers an unexpected refuge to Ari and her steadfast companion, Jasper, an imaginary seahorse. Yet the respite does not last, and Ari is forced back to her twisted mother and her brutal boyfriend, Dick Irwin.

It's 1958 in rural Connecticut, and three boys between 10 and 11 years old - Tommy (from a stable, "normal" family), Jose (Hispanic, Catholic), and Jimmy (underfed child of a poor single alcoholic mother, has a severely retarded sister) - have been pals since first grade. But it's September, and the safe, cozy innocence of elementary school is behind them. Now they must enter the scary, new world of junior high school.

Grandma's last will and testament names Ray to inherit the trailer park. It's a million-dollar estate with one hitch: To prove he's not as aimless as he seems, Ray must discover the meaning of life by the end of the month. (She left the answer in an envelope.) If he fails, the camp goes to his estranged family.