Showing results by narrator "Brian Holden" in All Categories

Ashan has returned to the Vard lands, becoming what his people claim him to be: a traitor. Now that he's connected to the power of Affellah, the king will stop at nothing to bring him back. That includes attacking Ashan's home and those he cares about. Once again, he must leave the Vard lands before he can fully understand the power of Affellah. Saving his people has already meant betrayal. Can he still find a way to be their Servant?

After stopping two attacks on the kingdom, Ashan yearns to master his connection to the dragons and finally serve as a dragon mage. He has connected to a cycle of dragons, but he's still only a student and doesn't understand what it truly means to be a dragon mage.

The kingdom has warred with the Vard long enough. Having gone with the Servant of the Vard, Ashan hopes to end that violence. First, he must find himself—even if it means coming to understand the strange Vard magic. When he finds an ancient and dangerous threat unlike anything he's ever encountered that once spread throughout the Vard lands, he begins to understand his enemy. As Ashan discovers the threat might still be active, he learns the truth behind the Vard actions and their hatred of dragons. What can he do if the threat has already spread to his people?

Ashan has saved his homeland, but the threat from the king—along with Ashan's mentor—remains. The price for saving Berestal was high. His once recovered brother is now debilitated again, while his sister struggles to connect to Affelah, leaving Ashan to wonder what path he should take. When the king threatens the Wilds, Ashan must discover the truth of a land long ignored, as it might be the key to stopping the king and the spread of the dangerous power of the murtar. 

Decades of research demonstrate the transformative potential and the lasting legacies of a relationship-rich college experience. Critics suggest that to build connections with peers, faculty, staff, and other mentors is expensive and only an option at elite institutions where instructors have the luxury of time with students. But in this revelatory book brimming with the voices of students, faculty, and staff from across the country, Peter Felten and Leo M. Lambert argue that relationship-rich environments can and should exist for all students at all types of institutions.

As a new student in the Dragon Academy, Ashan wants nothing more than to understand his connection to the dragons and to harness their power, but he might have come to learn of his power too late for him to use it. Attempts to harness the magic that burns within him haven't succeeded, and he's consoled knowing that if nothing else, he can learn to be a dragon rider. 

Everyone loves hockey superstar Pierce Miller. Everyone except Lia Bailey. When the two are forced to teach a skating class to save the rink, Lia's not sure she'll survive the pressure of Nationals and Pierce's ego. Not only can't he remember her name, he signed her bottle of water like she was one of his groupies. Ugh. But if there's one thing Lia knows better than figure skating, it's hockey. Hoping to take his ego down a notch - or seven - she logs into his team website under an anonymous name to give him pointers on his less-than-stellar playing.

Perin is about to graduate from the Great Academy of Caramine. It is his school and the only home he has ever known. He discovers he has the potential for great power and suddenly finds himself a fugitive on the run. His only hope for safety is aboard a creaky old galleon with a crew of elderly misfits determined to return Caramine to its former glory by overthrowing the evil committee of rulers. They believe Perin and his newfound powers are the key. He is not so sure.

Classic fables take on new meaning as five of today’s most original bestselling authors serve up some deliciously modern twists. New reflections on evil queens, charmless princes, and star-crossed lovers branch out in provocative and enchanting directions. Follow the path and see where it leads...

Build organizations where employees feel truly safe to learn, contribute, and challenge the status quo. The proven practical guide to psychological safety is now expanded with updated research and powerful new frameworks and tools. Psychological safety—the belief that you can speak up without...

Are you or your teachers frustrated with carrots and sticks, detention rooms, and suspension-antiquated school discipline practices that simply do not work with the students entering our classrooms today? Our kids have complex needs, and we must empower and embrace them with restorative practices that not only change behaviors but transform students into productive citizens, accountable for their own actions.  

In 2004, in a small, windowless theater in then-desolate Williamsburg, Brooklyn, an eccentric family of broke art-school survivors staged an experimental, four-hour adaptation of William Faulkner’s novel As I Lay Dying inside an enormous wooden coffin that could barely fit the cast, much less an audience. The production’s cast and crew—including its sweetly monomaniacal director—poured their hearts and paychecks into a messy spectacle doomed to fail by any conventional measure. It ran for only eight performances.

Steven Montana, computer whiz and hacker extraordinaire, was attending college in Ohio when his world fell apart. A swarm of huge meteors fell all over the world, on the United States, and in particular on Steven's hometown in California. In an instant, his family and all his friends were gone. Suffering fits of deep depression, he dropped out of college and ended up working as a repairman in a video games store. When he was given a tiny piece of hardware to examine as a "test," he worked out its functions so well that he and his boss were called to Washington for a top secret meeting.

When a young teen discovers a top-secret parenting manual, it’s kids versus grown-ups in this kooky, illustrated middle grade thriller with nonstop, seat-of-your-pants action that will delight fans of Jarrett Lerner and Stuart Gibbs. When a tween boy [Codename: Furious Popcorn] picks up what...

The Shadow Club doesn't exist anymore. The group of second-best kids used to play anonymous practical jokes on their rivals, until things spiraled out of control. Now Jared and the ex-Shadow Club members are having a hard time shaking their reputation. And when the new golden boy at school is the victim of a series of nasty pranks, everyone's convinced Jared is to blame. Determined to prove his innocence, Jared soon becomes wrapped up in a nightmare worse than anything the Shadow Club ever caused.

Tristan isn't gifted or talented like his sister Jeanine, and he's always been okay with that because he can make a perfect chocolate chip cookie and he lives in the greatest city in the world. But his life takes a turn for the worse when his parents decide to move to middle-of-nowhere Petersville - a town with one street and no restaurants. His suspicions about his new town are confirmed when he's tricked into believing the local general store has life-changing chocolate cream doughnuts, when in fact the owner hasn't made them in years. 

John Clellon Holmes met Jack Kerouac on a hot New York City weekend in 1948, and until the end of Kerouac's life they were—in Holmes's words—"Brother Souls." Late one night as they sat talking, Kerouac spontaneously created the term "Beat Generation" to describe this new attitude they felt stirring around them. Brother-Souls: John Clellon Holmes, Jack Kerouac, and the Beat Generation is the remarkable chronicle of this cornerstone friendship and the life of John Clellon Holmes.

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.

Tyler, Channing, and Sammy Clauster have descended on their childhood home, with significant others and four-year-old twins in tow, for another good old-fashioned Christmas. Overwhelming holiday magic, as always, comes courtesy of their mom, Claire. They know she’s thrilled to cook, wrap gifts, decorate, accommodate, play games, overprepare every Christmas Eve Eve Eve tradition, and still let Dad be known as the Fun One. It’s her thing, right? Maybe the family should have paid closer attention. Because this year, something is a little off-key—and it’s not just the carols.

Rowan Darling, an adrift thirty-three-year-old, owns a record store on a run-down block in Philadelphia. Then news of his estranged brother’s death forces a return to Maybee, Illinois, the hometown Rowan left in the dust years ago. Rowan’s plan? Dart in for the funeral, support his mother, then disappear just as quickly. Things to avoid? Margot Beckett, his childhood sweetheart, and Skid Hall, his former best friend who stole Margot and married her. Together, they’ve become the town’s “it” couple.