Showing results by narrator "Janet Metzger" in All Categories

In The Last Stargazers, Emily Levesque reveals the hidden world of the professional astronomer. She celebrates an era of ingenuity and curiosity and asks us to think twice before we cast aside our sense of wonder at the universe.

Sheriff Guy Trident doesn't have much to do with off-worlders; he has his hands full keeping his own planet safe. But he'll do anything, go anywhere to save Jewel Quinn. She broke his heart years ago when she left to marry a Terraloft aristocrat. Now she's run away from her husband, only to fall into the clutches of slavers.

A seven-year-old girl breaks through the hysteria and violence of a dysfunctional mother in this story of small triumphs.

Thaisa Frank works with what the New York Times has called "a tantalizing sense of indirection," in this short work of surrealistic fiction, as she writes about a couple who begin to spin the most mundane topics into fantastical bedtime stories for one another. Their narratives reveal what neither will say to each other directly and end in a surprising admission of truth.

In this 2010 Pushcart Prize-nominated essay, Thaisa Frank describes a cultural clash between a Muslim student and her professor. Though the misunderstanding at first seems poised to derail one life, if not two, it yields an empathic glimpse into a different culture.

Mr Watanabe is a victim of one of the largest collective traumas of the last century and a fugitive from his own memory. A survivor of the atomic bombs dropped in Nagasaki and Hiroshima, he has evaded the trauma of those experiences for most of his adult life. When the earthquake which precedes the Fukushima nuclear disaster strikes, the past becomes present and Mr Watanabe begins a journey that will change everything.

Twelve-year-old Mary Frances “Frankie” Jackson has been sent to California for the summer to live on a houseboat with her Aunt Roxy. There’s one catch—she can’t get in trouble, or it’s back to New Jersey and juvenile detention camp. Too bad that days after arriving at the houseboat community, Frankie is accused of animal cruelty (killing a cat) and has two weeks to prove her innocence. In the process, she gets to know all the eccentrics on the dock.

Trapped in no man's land in the final days of World War I, Private Ransom James MacTavish consoles a dying Lieutenant by reading to him the letters of his fiancee, Elizabeth, a high born Charleston Lady. When the officer dies, Ransom is stranded alone between the American and German trenches. His sole comfort is reading the elegant letters from the officer's fiancee. Although he is penniless, Ransom comes home determined to win Elizabeth's heart but soon discovers he must compete with a wealthy suitor.

A mystery for young adults and anyone else who's been wrongly accused. A year ago Frankie was a middle-school baseball star. Now, she's been banned from pitching and accused of killing a cat. Frankie didn't do it, but who amongst her houseboat neighbors did? Can she catch the culprit with the help of a former TV star and a not-so-friendly German shepherd?

As far as 12-year-old Frankie Jackson is concerned, mermaids are like Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny—stuff made up by grown-ups so that they can sell movies and toys. At least that’s what Frankie’s dad once told her. But one day, while staying on a houseboat for the summer, Frankie finds herself face-to-face with a mermaid. Convinced that it is a dream, Frankie can’t shake the vision of the blue-haired sea creature. Meanwhile, the town of Sausalito is buzzing with rumors about a wealthy woman who disappeared into the Bay wearing a million-dollar necklace (shaped like a mermaid).

Not the easiest choice for Ana Moreno, who has a history of B and E convictions and a problem with authority. But it's a decision she and four other felons are willing to make to stay out of a jail cell.