Showing results by narrator "Karen White" in All Categories

Celeste and Marla are the type of friends who know each others' thoughts without having to hear them spoken. So as the two friends sit and enjoy their weekly tradition of drinking tea in their favorite cafe, Marla knows that Celeste is particularly troubled by the mysterious woman who has appeared at the abandoned train station outside of the cafe, as is her habit. Celeste loses herself in her thoughts about the strange woman, not knowing why, but wanting to know everything about her and developing an inexplicable connection to her.

There was a family of three brothers. The older two were very intelligent and much beloved by their parents; the youngest however was considered to be a dunce and a pest and was always getting in his mother's way. One day, the king announced that he was offering his daughter's hand in marriage to whoever could build a flying ship. The older two brothers were immediately sent on their way to try to construct the flying ship, while the youngest was left behind.

The miller had always led a very prosperous life, but one day found himself down on his luck and without any money. While he is fretting, a nixy (a sirenlike being) emerges from the millpond and strikes a deal with him - he can become prosperous once more, but he must give to her the youngest thing in his house.

Shortly after the queen and her new husband are married, he is forced to leave to fight in a war. He advises her that she must always remain inside and never to trust any visiting women. She listens at first, but when an old woman appears at her window and entices her to sit in her garden, she gives in and goes outside.

The King and Queen, getting older in years, found it important that their son, Prince Sigurd, find a lady to marry. His father had a certain princess in mind and Sigurd set off to find her. This king eagerly granted his daughter's hand to Sigurd, but he made the condition that Sigurd must stay to help him govern his kingdom, as he was failing in health. Sigurd agreed, but said that he must return home when he received news of his father's death.

When Georgia Quillian returns to her hometown of Miami, her husband, Graham, and their young son in tow, she is hoping for a fresh start. The family has fled Illinois trailing scandal and disappointment, the fallout from Graham's severe sleep disorder and Georgia's failed business. To make...

Young Claribel was a girl taught goodness by her parents and lived a happy life, especially when she went to school. Claribel loved her teacher, a kindly woman who taught her students the importance of honesty above all else. Her teacher taught them of the Beautiful City where the Good and Honest children would go one day, and Claribel wanted nothing more. One day in class, whilst working on her math, she became bored and distracted and began to draw a lily that she saw out the classroom window.

A New York family rents a house in California hoping for tranquil summer. Mark Banner is a young, successful publisher, and his wife Evelyn is afraid of losing him. When the owner of the house returns, Evelyn recognizes the enemy at first sight.

When three poor soldiers found themselves unable to live on their meager pay, they decided to try to desert the army. The three men are forced to hide, trapped because the army is not moving on from the camp. While stuck in a ditch, the men encounter a dragon who offers to take them into his service for seven years. They layer find out the dark side of the deal, when the dragon tells them they will only be released if they can solve a riddle. One of the soldiers stumbles across the grandmother of the dragon....

In 1901, President Theodore Roosevelt invited Booker T. Washington to have dinner at the executive mansion with the First Family. The next morning, news that the president had dined with a Black man-and former slave-sent shock waves through the nation. Although African Americans had helped build the White House and had worked for most of the presidents, not a single one had ever been invited to dine there. Fueled by inflammatory newspaper articles, political cartoons, and even vulgar songs, the scandal escalated.

Jennifer Silence reads between the lines. A psycholinguistic analyst, she studies documents written by murderers, teasing out hidden clues. But nothing in her life has prepared her for the document that is now in her hands. A leather-bound diary from a crumbling crypt. The diary of Jack the Ripper.

If it is genuine, it suggests a troubling connection between Jennifer's family and history's most infamous serial killer. A connection that may explain her father's suicide...and her brother's mental illness.

With a head more suited to bookkeeping than a bridal veil, Ida’s dreams include big business- not beaus. Ida Sinclair has joined her sisters, Kat and Nell, in the untamed mining town of Cripple Creek, Colorado for one reason: to work for the infamous but undeniably successful businesswoman...

Americans call Niagara Falls a natural wonder, but the falls aren't very natural anymore. In fact, they are a study in artifice. Water diverted, riverbed reshaped, brink stabilized, and landscape redesigned, the falls are more a monument to man's meddling than to nature's strength.

In historian Lottie Albright’s western Kansas community, false accusations threaten senatorial candidate Brian Hadley’s political career. Secrets whispered to Lottie as editor of the county history books spur her into a personal search for his aunt’s murderer.

A classic story from one of the most beloved children's book authors! Mary Poppins meets Nanny McPhee in Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle's Magic, a hilarious and charming book about a magical problem solver that has been delighting readers for generations. Parents love Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle because she can cure...

Long before the United States was a nation, it was a set of ideas, projected onto the New World by European explorers with centuries of belief and thought in tow. From this foundation of expectation and experience, America and American thought grew in turn, enriched by the bounties of the Enlightenment, the philosophies of liberty and individuality, the tenets of religion, and the doctrines of republicanism and democracy.

Uprooting ourselves and putting down roots elsewhere has become second nature. Americans are among the most mobile people on the planet, moving house an average of nine times in adulthood. Mobile Home explores one family's extreme and often international version of this common experience. Inspired by Megan Harlan's globe-wandering childhood, Mobile Home maps the emotional structures and metaphysical geographies of home. 

Between the years 1918 and 1920, influenza raged around the globe in the worst pandemic in recorded history, killing at least 50 million people, more than half a million of them Americans. Yet despite the devastation, this catastrophic event seems but a forgotten moment in our nation's past. American Pandemic offers a much-needed corrective to the silence surrounding the influenza outbreak. 

In Finding Truth in Fiction, two media psychologists reveal that there's much more to our desire to seek out stories in film, TV, and books than simple diversion - fiction can help us find truth in our real lives. Whether you consider yourself a fan of popular media or whether you find yourself thinking of a particular fictional scene for inspiration, you are not alone. Though some assume that interest in a fictional world is a sign of psychological trouble, the authors enthusiastically disagree.

Retirement insecurity is an increasingly serious manifestation of the vast inequality that risks destroying the social fabric in America. The nearly inevitable consequence of lifetime wage discrepancies, security in retirement is linked to the kinds of jobs we hold during our work lives. That, in turn, is a product of all the forces leading to historic levels of inequality, forces that have protected the very wealthy, destroyed any hold on stability for the poor, and gradually eroded the security of the vast middle class.