Showing results by author "Catherine Ryan Hyde" in All Categories

Something has been asleep in forty-year-old cattle rancher Aiden Delacorte for a long time. It all comes back in a rush during a hunting trip, when he's suddenly attuned to the animals around him, feeling their pain and fear as if it were his own. But the newfound sensitivity of Aiden's "wake up" has its price. He can no longer sleepwalk through life, holding everyone at arm's length. As he struggles to cope with a trait he's buried since childhood, Aiden falls in love with Gwen, a single mother whose young son bears a burden of his own.

In the summer of 1969, 14-year-old Lucas Painter carries a huge weight on his shoulders. His brother is fighting in Vietnam. His embattled parents are locked in a never-ending war. And his best friend, Connor, is struggling with his own family issues. To find relief from the chaos, Lucas takes long, meandering walks, and one day he veers into the woods.

An immediate bestseller when first published, Pay It Forward captured hearts all over the world, became a wildly popular film, and spawned a generation of increased altruism. This anniversary edition includes a new introduction by the author. It takes an inspiring and moving tale of a young boy...

1941. Steven Katz is the son of prosperous landowners in rural California. Although his parents don’t approve, he’s found true friends in Nick, Suki, and Ollie, sons of field workers. The group is inseparable. But Steven is in turmoil. He’s beginning to acknowledge that his feelings for Nick amount to more than friendship. When the bombing of Pearl Harbor draws the US into World War II, Suki and his family are forced to leave their home for the internment camp at Manzanar. Ollie enlists in the army and ships out. And Nick must flee.

Fourteen-year-old Angie and her mom are poised at the edge of homelessness...again. The problem is her little sister, Sophie. Sophie has an autism-like disorder and a tendency to shriek. No matter where they live, home never seems to last long. Until they move in with Aunt Vi, across the fence from a huge, black Great Dane who changes everything.

It’s 1970 in rural California where Shirley Bennett, a forty-year-old Vietnam War widow, lives with her two sons. It’s a routine life until she sees Cash Pierce, a scruffy eleven-year-old boy, trailing the fence alongside her Appaloosa, Phoenix. The horse never gave such a welcoming nicker to anyone but her late husband. Even her stubborn old dog Edsel takes to the boy. Out of curiosity and compassion, so does Shirley.

Russell Ammiano works on the 104th floor of the World Trade Center. On the morning of September 11, 2001, the phone rings while Rusty is rushing to work. The news is devastating: his mother has died of a stroke, leaving his brain-damaged older brother, Ben, alone. This news also saves Rusty's life. He's still at home when two planes hit the World Trade Center--and only one of his friends and colleagues survives.

Ruth and her little brother, Aubrey, are just teenagers when their older brother ships off to Iraq. When Joseph returns, uninjured, only three and a half months later, Ruth is happy he is safe but also deeply worried. How can it be that her courageous big brother has been dishonorably discharged for refusing to go out on duty? Aubrey can't believe that his hero doesn't have very good reasons.

Ella Ginsberg's brother, Simon, has disappeared. His clothing, shoes, and watch were found abandoned near a freight line track in Central California. His jockey shorts and wallet were never found. The police have no clue, and Simon's wife had no warning that anything was wrong. Ella takes off on foot across much of California and Arizona, thinking she can find Simon using nothing but her knowledge of the way he might think.

Vida is only 19, but she knows a lot about dying. Her weak heart has kept her on the edge of death her whole life. It hasn't been much of a life. Thanks to her overprotective mother, Vida's only friend is Esther, an elderly Holocaust survivor who lives upstairs. Vida's heart is finally about to give out unless she can get a donor heart in time. Richard is 36 and blissfully married until he gets the call that his beloved wife has died in a car accident. His world falls to pieces.

Seventeen-year-old Ethan Underwood is totally unprepared to search for his father in the Blythe River National Wilderness. Not only is he small, scrawny, and skittish but he's barely speaking to the man after a traumatic betrayal. Yet when his father vanishes from their remote cabin and rangers abandon the rescue mission, suddenly it's up to Ethan to keep looking. Angry or not, he's his father's only hope.

Hayden Reese has a bad habit of breaking people's jaws. Granted, he only breaks jaws that deserved some breaking, but he's starting a whole new feud, with the husband of his lover—and this time, it may cost him his life. Hayden's life has never been easy. His father tormented him, his kid brother got all the approval, and he made a fatal mistake that he's never been able to forgive himself for making. But when Hayden's future is shattered by his bad choices, he has to redeem himself in the eyes of his long-estranged daughter Allegra.

Der Highschool-Lehrer August Schroeder hat nach dem Tod seines siebzehnjährigen Sohnes nur ein Ziel: Er will die gemeinsam geplante Reise nun allein unternehmen, um etwas von der Asche seines Sohnes im Yellowstone-Nationalpark zu verstreuen. Doch schon bald sieht es ganz so aus, als wollte ihm das Schicksal einen Strich durch die Rechnung machen. Sein Wohnmobil bleibt mitten im Nirgendwo liegen, und die Reparaturkosten würden sein Budget für diese ihm so wichtige Reise sprengen.

Shortlisted for the British Book Awards, Richard and Judy Best Read, 2007.
A Richard and Judy Book Club Selection.
Leonard is an eerily wise five-year-old boy with the ability to captivate everyone he meets. Pearl is Leonard's devoted teenage mother, desperately trying to hide a violent secret from her past. Mitch is Leonard's 25-year-old next-door neighbour.

Michael Steeb is an aimless 21-year-old pot farmer in Central California in the 1980s. He has no real plans or interests...until the day he connects with memories of a life that seems to belong to someone else. That "spirit" is Walter, a young American soldier killed in World War II. Michael's task is the near-impossible: to lead Walter's family to closure and peace, to deliver the real truth behind Walter's Purple Heart, and to somehow achieve the forgiveness absent for so many years so Walter can move on.

Grace, dieci anni, vive nella periferia degradata di Los Angeles con una madre tossicodipendente che la trascura e il rischio di essere affidata ai servizi sociali. C'è solo una persona che può aiutarla a uscire fuori da questa situazione e donarle una nuova speranza: Billy Shine, il suo vicino di casa. Un tempo ballerino di Broadway, Billy è ora un uomo solitario, in preda a continui attacchi di panico, spaventato dalla gente e dal mondo fuori le quattro mura della sua casa.

Der ehemalige Broadway-Tänzer Billy Shine leidet an Agoraphobie und hat seit fast einem Jahrzehnt keinen Fuß mehr vor die Tür seines Appartements gesetzt. Seine Nachbarn sind die attraktive Nagelpflegerin Rayleen, die einsame alte Mrs Hinman, der engstirnige und übellaunige Mr Lafferty, der gutherzige Felipe und die neunjährige Grace - und ihre mit der Drogensucht kämpfende Mutter Eileen. Billy hat nur kurze Blicke auf sie erhascht - aber die meisten von ihnen haben ihn nie gesehen.

Die vierzehnjährige Angie kümmert sich rührend um ihre kleine autistische Schwester Sophie. Deren stundenlange laute Schreie machen es jedoch fast unmöglich, längerfristig eine Wohnung zu behalten. Erst als sie als ungeliebte Untermieter bei ihrer Tante Vi die Deutsche Dogge Rigby als Nachbarin bekommen, findet Sophie etwas Ruhe. Der Kontakt zu der großen schwarzen Hündin beendet die ewigen Schreiattacken und macht so auch Angies Leben einfacher.

Der junge Ethan ist gezwungen, die Sommerferien bei seinem ungeliebten Vater Noah in der Nähe des Blythe-River-Naturschutzgebietes zu verbringen. Ethan teilt weder die sportlichen Ambitionen seines Vaters noch dessen Vorliebe für die ungezähmte Natur; ihr Verhältnis ist angespannt. Doch als Noah eines Tages von einem langen Lauf nicht nach Hause zurückkehrt, macht sich Ethan auf die Suche nach seinem Vater.

Als Nathan McCann ein halbvergrabenes Baby im Wald findet, geht er davon aus, dass es tot ist. Doch dann bewegt es sich, und in einem einzigen kurzen Moment ändert sich Nathans Leben für immer. Der kleine Junge wird zu seiner Großmutter geschickt, um bei ihr aufzuwachsen, aber Nathan kann ihn nicht vergessen, und er stattet der alten Frau einen Besuch ab. Er bittet um ein einfaches Versprechen: dass sie Nathan irgendwann dem Jungen vorstellen und ihm erzählen wird, dass er der Mann ist, der ihn im Wald gefunden hat.