Showing results for "childrens audio books" in Coming of Age

Elphie is a girl like any other and no other. Nothing like her parents - one beautiful, the other pious - nor her saintly sister, Nessarose. Her skin is green, her mind is cunning. One day she will command this strange and wonderful world. For now, her journey is just beginning. The road ahead is full of lessons and heartbreak, the first bruising attempts at friendship - and tantalising whispers of magic. It will lead Elphie to the doors of Shiz University, and to the girl who will change her life forever.

Beginning in 1950s Liverpool, Violet's Children is a warm and nostalgic story of a young woman who must adopt her sister's children after tragedy strikes.

In 1218 an extraordinary princess is born. Her mystical powers and unquenchable spirit will alter the course of history. Raised by her fiercely Welsh nurse to support the Celtic cause against the predatory English king, Princess Eleyne is taught to worship the old gods and to look into the future and the past. However, unable to identify time and place in her terrifying visions, she is powerless to avert forthcoming tragedy.

Left on the steps of an orphanage when she was just days old, Nancy Sunday was brought up in hardship—until the kindly Rosalind Carey took her in. Now 18 years old, Nancy is an adopted member of the Carey family. But she can’t help wondering who her parents really were. When Nancy is sent away to finishing school, she finds herself in the midst of London society. There she meets Freddie Ashton—kind and warm-hearted, he might just be the man of Nancy’s dreams. But she knows his wealthy parents would never let him marry a penniless foundling.

Based on true events, a heartbreaking story of love, family, hope, and survival set in post-World War II Italy - crafted with the heart of Orphan Train and Before We Were Yours - about poor children from the south sent to live with families in the north to survive deprivation and the harsh winters.

Twenty years ago, Oona left the island of Inis for the very first time. A wind-blasted rock of fishing boats and turf fires, where girls stayed in their homes until they became mothers, the island was a gift for some, a prison for others. Oona was barely more than a girl, but she promised herself she would leave the tall tales behind and never return. Rich, haunting, and rooted in Irish folklore, The Island Child is a spellbinding debut novel about identity and motherhood, freedom and fate, and the healing power of stories.

This fictionalized portrait of Joyce's youth is one of the most vivid accounts of the growth from childhood to adulthood. Dublin at the turn of the century provides the backdrop as Stephen Dedalus moves from town and society, towards the irrevocable decision to leave. It was the decision made by Joyce himself which resulted in the mature novels of Ulysses and Finnegans Wake.

Living among full-blooded elves his entire life, he’s been spurned and looked down on. Things take a turn for the worse when he discovers his heritage has cursed him with human magic. But is it truly a curse? Magic, after all, could be useful among the Rangers who protect the borderlands. The Elf King seems to think so. With a mission from the Elf King, Ralnor Twicebane becomes a Ranger, but his journey is only just beginning.

Carson McCullers was all of 23 when she published her first novel, The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter. She became an overnight literary sensation, and soon such authors as Tennessee Williams were calling her "the greatest prose writer that the South [has] produced." The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter tells an unforgettable tale of moral isolation in a small southern mill town in the 1930s.

The first installment of a page-turning trilogy set against the backdrop of the English Civil War. September 1625: Plague-cart driver Matthew Neave is sent to pick up the corpse of a baby. Yet on the way to the plague pit, he hears a cry - the baby is alive. A plague child himself and now immune to the disease, Matthew decides to raise it as his own. Fifteen years on, Matthew's son, Tom, is apprenticed to a printer in the city.

Hard times prove who’s a survivor and who’s not. Me? I’m a survivor. The plan was perfect: steal one of his cars for a payout to set us up for life. All while getting back at him for tormenting me from the moment I first stepped foot in stuck-up Silver Lake High School. But he caught me red-handed. What’s worse, a jail sentence or becoming the devil’s favorite toy? My devious monster made me an offer I couldn’t refuse. Now I’m selling everything to him. Even my soul.

Schoolboy Luke runs away to London, far from the abusive orphanage where he grew up. He’s desperate not to end up as a petty criminal and forced to beg for scraps on the street. Luke wanders the East End docks, struggling to find honest employment and morsels of food to fill his grumbling stomach. Longing to be a part of the close-knit community, Luke volunteers to work with the local doctor and his wife. Their kind words and welcoming home is everything he’s ever wished for. But not everyone wants the best for Luke and his new friends.

You know what's best for your child. Don't you? Riley Pieterson is an adventurous girl with lots of questions. There's plenty she doesn't know yet: What a human brain looks like. All the constellations in the night sky. Why others can't see her the way she sees herself. When Riley confides in her parents - Sally and Theo - that she feels uncomfortable in her own skin, a chain of events begins that changes their lives forever. Sally wants to support her daughter by helping her be who she dreams of being. Theo resists; he thinks Riley is a seven-year-old child pushing boundaries.

The heartbreaking and compelling new audiobook set in a Victorian workhouse from the author of The Orphans of Halfpenny Street. When Lucy and her brother, Joshua, are orphaned, it falls to Joshua to provide for them both, but he is barely into his teens and, in his naivety, falls prey to bad influences and drink. Lucy is desperate to avoid the workhouse, but when Joshua loses their meagre savings they are thrown out onto the street, and, in dire poverty, it isn’t long before Lucy finds herself at its gates - almost a fate worse than death.

Seventeen-year-old David Balfour's villainous uncle has him kidnapped in order to steal his inheritance. David escapes only to fall into the dangerous company of rebels who are resisting British redcoats in the Scottish highlands.

Becky’s father is not just absent: he’s a total mystery, a hole in her life. He died before she was born and for her mother, Laura, the subject is strictly off-limits. When Laura books a spontaneous trip to Greece, Becky decides to join her, determined to get closer to her mother - and to the truth. But as they make their way to the island of Santorini, it becomes clear that this holiday is not as impulsive as Becky thought. Laura’s hiding something from her daughter - and she’s been hiding it for Becky’s whole life.

All it takes is one message for Gemma’s life to fall apart. A confirmation of all she’s feared these last few months. Jack was supposed to be preparing for their new start in Australia, building their home, building their life together. And now this. Gone. Without a trace. Leaving their perfect world – all that their two-year-old daughter, Poppy, knows – shattered. Crystal comes into Gemma’s life at the opportune moment. This new friend, who’s been through it before, who knows how it feels for all of your hopes and dreams to suddenly implode, who wants to help, who will do anything…

A brand-new housing estate is being built in North Tyneside and a new family takes over one of the first properties to be completed. The 'Geordie Boy' of these stories is the first child of an unlikely pairing between a world-weary, already married piano player cum soldier—unwillingly posted to the North East and many miles away from his own London-based family, and a very young, somewhat prim and naïve nurse who, having become pregnant by him, decides to risk all and try to make a go of things.

Meet Hickey, an American school teacher in his late 30s, an American school teacher who burns his bridges with the school board and goes to Africa as an aid worker. Working for an agency in Nairobi, one of his jobs is to drive food and medical supplies to Southern Sudan to an aid station run by Ruth, a middle-aged woman, who acts as nurse, doctor, hospice worker, feeder of starving children, and witness. Ruth is gruff but efficient, and Hickey, who is usually drawn to youth and beauty, is struck by her devotion. Returning to Nairobi, he can’t forget what he has seen.

Flight is the hilarious and tragic story of an orphaned Indian boy - "Zits" - who travels back and forth through time in a charged search for his true identity. With powerful, swift prose, Flight follows the troubled teenager as he learns that violence is not the answer.