The Labors of Hercules Beal
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Narrated by:
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Fred Berman
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By:
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Gary D. Schmidt
About this listen
From award-winning author Gary D. Schmidt, a warm and witty novel in the tradition of The Wednesday Wars, in which a seventh grader has to figure out how to fulfill a seemingly impossible school assignment—and learns about friendship, community, and himself along the way.
Herc Beal knows who he's named after—a mythical hero—but he's no superhero. He's the smallest kid in his class. So when his homeroom teacher at his new middle school gives him the assignment of duplicating the mythical Hercules's amazing feats in real life, he's skeptical. After all, there are no Nemean Lions on Cape Cod—and not a single Hydra in sight.
Missing his parents terribly and wishing his older brother wasn't working all the time, Herc figures out how to take his first steps along the road that the great Hercules himself once walked. Soon, new friends, human and animal, are helping him. And though his mythical role model performed his twelve labors by himself, Herc begins to see that he may not have to go it alone.
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- Narrated by: Chris Fabry
- Length: 10 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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For as long as she can remember, June Bug and her father have traveled the back roads of the country in their beat-up RV, spending many nights parked at Walmart. One morning, as she walks past the greeter at the front of the store, her eyes are drawn to the pictures of missing children, where she is shocked to see herself. This discovery begins a quest for the truth about her father, the mother he rarely speaks about, and ultimately herself.
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Get Out The Box Of Tissues
- By 20eagle16 on 07-03-21
By: Chris Fabry
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Lena, the Sea, and Me
- By: Maria Parr, Guy Puzey - translator
- Narrated by: Luke Daniels
- Length: 4 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Trille and Lena may be getting older, but they still find everyday adventure - and trouble - in their coastal village, including sinking every raft they build, getting little sisters stuck up flag poles, and attending those dreaded music lessons. But that’s not all. The arrival of a less-than-encouraging new soccer coach is putting twelve-year-old Lena's goalkeeping career in doubt. And Trille is wondering how to impress the girl who has just joined his class.
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Great story!
- By Caroline Floyd on 02-19-23
By: Maria Parr, and others
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Caterpillar Summer
- By: Gillian McDunn
- Narrated by: Cassandra Morris
- Length: 6 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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Cat and her brother Chicken have always had a very special bond. When Chicken has a meltdown, Cat’s the one who scratches his back and reads his favorite story. She always knows what he needs. Since their mom has had to work double-hard to keep their family afloat after their father passed away, Cat is the glue holding her family together. When a summer trip doesn’t go as planned, Cat and Chicken end up spending three weeks with grandparents they’ve never met. With their help, Cat can be a kid again for the first time in years.
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Great!!!!!😆
- By G. Stiller on 04-10-20
By: Gillian McDunn
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Took
- A Ghost Story
- By: Mary Downing Hahn
- Narrated by: Nick Mondelli
- Length: 5 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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After Daniel's young sister disappears in the woods, he starts to believe the myth about a witch and her terrifying hog who take little girls and keep them for 50 years....
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A good read
- By Janelle Scarberry on 05-10-22
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The Voice of the Night with Short Story, "Silence"
- By: Dean Koontz
- Narrated by: Pavi Proczko, Kirby Heyborne
- Length: 9 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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No one could understand why Colin and Roy were best friends. Colin was so shy; Roy was so popular. Colin was fascinated by Roy - and Roy was fascinated by death. Then one day, Roy asked his timid friend: “You ever killed anything?” From that moment on, the two were bound together in a game too terrifying to imagine - and too irresistible to stop.
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can not believe dean koontz wrote this book
- By Anonymous User on 10-05-21
By: Dean Koontz
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The Story of Arthur Truluv
- A Novel
- By: Elizabeth Berg
- Narrated by: Elizabeth Berg
- Length: 6 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Three people find their way back from loss and loneliness to a different kind of belonging in this deeply moving novel. Arthur, an old widower struggling to overcome his grief, meets Maddy, a troubled teenage girl who avoids school by hiding out where Arthur goes every day for lunch. The two strike up a friendship that draws them out of isolation.
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Sickly Sweet
- By Amazon Customer on 01-19-18
By: Elizabeth Berg
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Growing Things and Other Stories
- By: Paul Tremblay
- Narrated by: Sean Crisden, Graham Halstead, Cassandra Campbell, and others
- Length: 11 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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A chilling collection of psychological suspense and literary horror from the multiple award-winning author of the national best seller The Cabin at the End of the World and A Head Full of Ghosts. A masterful anthology featuring 19 pieces of short fiction, Growing Things and Other Stories is an exciting glimpse into Paul Tremblay’s fantastically fertile imagination.
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Paul Tremblay is totally nuts.
- By Gary & Jay on 07-07-19
By: Paul Tremblay
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All Manner of Things
- By: Susie Finkbeiner
- Narrated by: Tavia Gilbert
- Length: 9 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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When Annie Jacobson's brother Mike enlists as a medic in the Army in 1967, he hands her a piece of paper with the address of their long-estranged father. If anything should happen to him in Vietnam, Mike says, Annie must let their father know. In Mike's absence, their father returns to face tragedy at home, adding an extra measure of complication to an already tense time. As they work toward healing and pray fervently for Mike's safety overseas, letter by letter the Jacobsons must find a way to pull together as a family, regardless of past hurts.
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Real fiction
- By Katijanae on 01-19-23
By: Susie Finkbeiner
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Sharks in the Time of Saviors
- By: Kawai Strong Washburn
- Narrated by: Jolene Kim, Kaleo Griffith, G. K. Bowes, and others
- Length: 10 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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In 1995 Kailua-Kona, Hawaii, on a rare family vacation, seven-year-old Nainoa Flores falls overboard a cruise ship into the Pacific Ocean. When a shiver of sharks appears in the water, everyone fears for the worst. But instead, Noa is gingerly delivered to his mother in the jaws of a shark, marking his story as the stuff of legends. Nainoa’s family, struggling amidst the collapse of the sugarcane industry, hails his rescue as a sign of favor from ancient Hawaiian gods - a belief that appears validated after he exhibits puzzling new abilities.
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Glad This Was Free
- By Shad Huddleston on 04-01-20
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The Last House on Needless Street
- By: Catriona Ward
- Narrated by: Christopher Ragland
- Length: 12 hrs
- Unabridged
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In a boarded-up house on a dead-end street at the edge of the wild Washington woods lives a family of three. A teenage girl who isn’t allowed outside, not after last time. A man who drinks alone in front of his TV, trying to ignore the gaps in his memory. And a house cat who loves napping and reading the Bible. An unspeakable secret binds them together, but when a new neighbor moves in next door, what is buried out among the birch trees may come back to haunt them all.
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I can only listen in 1-2 hour segments!
- By Brenda on 10-04-21
By: Catriona Ward
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Angel's Rest
- By: Charles Davis
- Narrated by: Christian Rummel
- Length: 7 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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Growing up in Virginia's Allegheny Mountains, 11-year-old Charlie York lives at the foot of an endless peak called Angel's Rest, a place his momma told him angels rested before coming down to help folks. In 1967 his town was a poor boy's paradise...until a shotgun blast killed Charlie's father and put his mother on trial for murder.
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A Good Listen
- By Nathan on 01-20-07
By: Charles Davis
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Almost 5 stars, but not quite
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Eleven-year-old Kemi Carter loves scientific facts, specifically probability. It's how she understands the world and her place in it. Kemi knows her odds of being born were 1 in 5.5 trillion, and that the odds of her having the best family ever were even lower. Yet somehow, Kemi lucked out. But everything Kemi thought she knew changes when she sees an asteroid hover in the sky, casting a purple haze over her world. Amplus-68 has an 84.7% chance of colliding with earth in four days, and with that collision, Kemi’s life as she knows it will end.
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Not only is Turner Buckminster the son of the new minister in a small Maine town, he is shunned for playing baseball differently than the local boys. Then he befriends smart and lively Lizzie Bright Griffin, a girl from Malaga Island, a poor community founded by former slaves. Lizzie shows Turner a new world along the Maine coast from digging clams to rowing a boat next to a whale. When the powerful town elders, including Turner’s father, decide to drive the people off the island to set up a tourist business, Turner stands alone against them.
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Boring
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Carter Jones is astonished early one morning when he finds a real English butler, bowler hat and all, on the doorstep - one who stays to help the Jones family, which is a little bit broken. In addition to figuring out middle school, Carter has to adjust to the unwelcome presence of this new know-it-all adult in his life and navigate the butler's notions of decorum. And ultimately, when his burden of grief and anger from the past can no longer be ignored, Carter learns that a burden becomes lighter when it is shared.
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A Story that Gets to the Heart of the Matter
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When fourteen-year-old American Eva Joyce unexpectedly finds herself spending the summer at the mysterious manor house of the English grandmother she’s never met, she soon discovers that her family, the manor staff, and even the house itself are hiding secrets.
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Highly recommend!
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A little disappointing
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As a 14-year-old who just moved to a new town, with no friends and a louse for an older brother, Doug Swieteck has all the stats stacked against him. So begins a coming-of-age masterwork full of equal parts comedy and tragedy from Newbery Honor winner Gary D. Schmidt. As Doug struggles to be more than the skinny thug that his teachers and the police think him to be, he finds an unlikely ally in Lil Spicer, a fiery young lady who smelled like daisies would smell if they were growing in a big field under a clearing sky after a rain.
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Almost 5 stars, but not quite
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Eleven-year-old Kemi Carter loves scientific facts, specifically probability. It's how she understands the world and her place in it. Kemi knows her odds of being born were 1 in 5.5 trillion, and that the odds of her having the best family ever were even lower. Yet somehow, Kemi lucked out. But everything Kemi thought she knew changes when she sees an asteroid hover in the sky, casting a purple haze over her world. Amplus-68 has an 84.7% chance of colliding with earth in four days, and with that collision, Kemi’s life as she knows it will end.
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Best to read without any info
- By Chance on 07-08-23
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Not only is Turner Buckminster the son of the new minister in a small Maine town, he is shunned for playing baseball differently than the local boys. Then he befriends smart and lively Lizzie Bright Griffin, a girl from Malaga Island, a poor community founded by former slaves. Lizzie shows Turner a new world along the Maine coast from digging clams to rowing a boat next to a whale. When the powerful town elders, including Turner’s father, decide to drive the people off the island to set up a tourist business, Turner stands alone against them.
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Boring
- By Bob on 08-27-16
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Pay Attention, Carter Jones
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Carter Jones is astonished early one morning when he finds a real English butler, bowler hat and all, on the doorstep - one who stays to help the Jones family, which is a little bit broken. In addition to figuring out middle school, Carter has to adjust to the unwelcome presence of this new know-it-all adult in his life and navigate the butler's notions of decorum. And ultimately, when his burden of grief and anger from the past can no longer be ignored, Carter learns that a burden becomes lighter when it is shared.
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National Book Award winner Gloria Whelan brilliantly recreates the final days of tsarist Russia. For young Katya Ivanova, playmate to the Grand Duchesses of Russia, St. Petersburg in 1914 is a magical place. But outside the palace, changes are sweeping through the country, threatening everything and everyone Katya loves.
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Great history
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The Wednesday Wars
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Meet Holling Hoodhood, a seventh-grader at Camillo Junior High who must spend Wednesday afternoons with his teacher, Mrs. Baker, while the rest of the class has religious instruction. Mrs. Baker doesn’t like Holling - he’s sure of it. Why else would she make him read the plays of William Shakespeare outside class? But everyone has bigger things to worry about, like Vietnam.
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A Happy Book
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By: Gary D. Schmidt
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Orbiting Jupiter
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The two-time Newbery Honor winner Gary D. Schmidt delivers the shattering story of Joseph, a father at 13, who has never seen his daughter, Jupiter. After spending time in a juvenile facility, he's placed with a foster family on a farm in rural Maine. Here Joseph, damaged and withdrawn, meets 12-year-old Jack, who narrates the account of the troubled, passionate teen who wants to find his baby at any cost. In this riveting novel, two boys discover the true meaning of family and the sacrifices it requires.
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Crushingly beautiful
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By: Gary D. Schmidt
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Trouble
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Henry Smith's father told him that if you build your house far enough away from Trouble, then Trouble will never find you. But Trouble comes careening down the road one night in the form of a pickup truck that strikes Henry's older brother, Franklin. In the truck is Chay Chouan, a young Cambodian from Franklin's preparatory school. The tragedy sparks racial tensions in the school.
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THE BEST
- By A User on 03-07-13
By: Gary D. Schmidt, and others
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Simon Sort of Says
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Simon O'Keeffe's biggest claim to fame should be the time his dad accidentally gave a squirrel a holy sacrament. Or maybe the alpaca disaster that went viral on YouTube. But the story the whole world wants to tell about Simon is the one he'd do anything to forget: the story in which he's the only kid in his class who survived a school shooting. Two years after the infamous event, twelve-year-old Simon and his family move to the National Quiet Zone—the only place in America where the internet is banned.
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How Simon was a very cool kid
- By Jenni on 09-17-24
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What Came from the Stars
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The Valorim are about to fall to a dark lord when they send a necklace containing their planet across the cosmos, hurtling past a trillion stars...all the way into the lunchbox of Tommy Pepper, sixth grader, of Plymouth, Massachusetts. Mourning his late mother, Tommy doesn't notice much about the chain he found, but soon he is drawing the twin suns and humming the music of a hanorah. As Tommy absorbs the art and language of the Valorim, their enemies target him.
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The Fire, the Water, and Maudie McGinn
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Maudie always looks forward to the summers she spends in California with her dad. But this year, she must keep a troubling secret about her home life—one that her mom warned her never to tell. Maudie wants to confide in her dad about her stepdad's anger, but she’s scared. When a wildfire strikes, Maudie and her dad are forced to evacuate to the beach town where he grew up. It’s another turbulent wave of change. But now, every morning, from their camper, Maudie can see surfers bobbing in the water. She desperately wants to learn, but could she ever be brave enough?
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Wonderful Listen
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Mascot
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Performance
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In Rye, Virginia, just outside Washington, DC, people work hard, kids go to school, and football is big on Friday nights. An eighth-grade English teacher creates an assignment for her class to debate whether Rye’s mascot should stay or change. Now six middle schoolers get involved in the issue that already has the suburb turned upside down with everyone choosing sides and arguments getting ugly. At the center of this story about human rights and Native sovereignty, there are six young people.
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The Carrefour Curse
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Twelve-year-old Garnet regrets that she doesn’t know her family. Her mother has done her best to keep it that way, living far from the rest of the magical Carrefour clan and their dark, dangerous mansion known as Crossroad House. But when Garnet finally gets summoned to the estate, it isn’t quite what she hoped for. Her relatives are strange and quarrelsome, each room in Crossroad House is more dilapidated than the last, and she can’t keep straight which dusty hallways and cobwebbed corners are forbidden.
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Virtually Me
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The pandemic was rough on everyone, especially since school went from being a fun place where you could hang out with your friends to a bunch of heads in small rectangles all trying to talk at once. For Bradley, Edelle, Hunter, Jasper, and Keiko, that’s about to change. A mysterious box arrives at each of their houses, and they’re invited to attend a virtual school. More than just being online, they’ll be able to create an avatar of themselves and interact with their friends and other classmates in real time using VR headsets.
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Great book!
- By Amazon Customer on 04-01-24
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The Lost Year
- A Survival Story of the Ukrainian Famine
- By: Katherine Marsh
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- Length: 9 hrs and 5 mins
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Thirteen-year-old Matthew is miserable. His journalist dad is stuck overseas indefinitely, and his mom has moved in his one-hundred-year-old great-grandmother to ride out the pandemic, adding to his stress and isolation. But when Matthew finds a tattered black-and-white photo in his great-grandmother’s belongings, he discovers a clue to a hidden chapter of her past, one that will lead to a life-shattering family secret.
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Amazing story
- By Morgan Vickery on 12-08-24
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Nothing Else but Miracles
- By: Kate Albus
- Narrated by: Carrie Coello
- Length: 7 hrs and 17 mins
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Overall
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Performance
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Twelve-year-old Dory Byrne lives with her brothers on New York City's Lower East Side, waiting impatiently through the darkest hours of World War II for her pop to come home from fighting Hitler. Legally speaking, Dory's brother, Fish, isn't old enough to be in charge of Dory and her younger brother, Pike, but the neighborhood knows the score and, like Pop always says, "the neighborhood will give you what you need." There's the lady from the bakery, who saves them leftover crullers. The kind landlord who checks in on them.
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Refreshingly positive
- By Renetta Ruedemann on 09-26-23
By: Kate Albus
What listeners say about The Labors of Hercules Beal
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Susan
- 10-09-24
Best of the Best!
Brilliant writing and brilliant audio performance
I did not want this book to end! “The Labors of Hercules Beal” is my first book by the author, Gary Schmidt! I am a new huge fan!!!
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- Debra
- 01-17-24
Loved the consistency of the narrative.
Was a coming of age story that focused on positive relationships and dependencies. We all need a reminder that struggles pass and growth is constant.
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- Matthew C.
- 04-19-24
Gary D Schmidt is a brilliant writer!
I (and my teenagers) are big fans of Wednesday Wars and Ok For Now. We also love Pay Attention Carter Jones. We loved Hercules Beal. Brilliant writing. Gary D Schmidt has become one of my all-time favorite authors. The narrator is superb as well.
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- JSPAR
- 08-03-23
Schmidt does it again...
I am a long-time Gary D. Schmidt fan. but I go years between reading his novels, and every time I read a new one, I am always reminded once again why he is probably the most underrated young adult novelist whoever lived. Indeed, he is one of the best. This novel carries so many of his trademarks that it's impossible not to fall in love with him all over again. The eccentricity, depth and loveliness of the characters, the lovingly nuanced New England setting, the frenetic intensity of the polarities of laugh-out-loud hilarity and gut-wrenching pain and sorrow: it's all here, and honestly, it's right up there with the Wednesday Wars, an accomplishment I never thought he could achieve. And the narrator, just wow. I've never heard of this guy, but holy cow, I would have hand-picked him to lovingly portray any of Schmidt's novels. His voice has a gentleness and love behind it that gives the story even more layering. His soft and gentle tone when describing something hard, mixed with his jovial, mischievous tone when a prank is being pulled really pull you in and force you to drop whatever you are doing and just listen. All in all, this is my favorite audible production, and I've listened to over 300 titles. This is truly, gently art.
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- jeffrey
- 11-14-24
The story
It was amazing the character development was just perfect and the story was so good
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- James Karman
- 11-05-24
I loved it
Perfect read for this adult. I fell short in the word count for this review. My first sentence was all needed.
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- Amazon Customer
- 08-06-23
Laughed and cried
Those who have read Gary Schmidt know that he is an exceptional storyteller who weaves in solid and true life lessons without ever sounded “preachy.” It’s amazing that he was able to do that even with having a ex-military man turned teacher who is tough as nails but who became tender at just the right moments (and it was usually those moments that choked me up.) The story, the setting, the characters were all expertly rendered and unforgettable. Woven throughout the story is the strong thread of Greek mythology whereby Hercules (the myth) becomes accessible and relevant. I loved the strong, sensible female characters in this story - Viola, Ellie, Mrs. Savage. I questioned whether it’s plausible that poor Hercules could have experienced that many car accidents in his young life, but will concede artistic license on that plot choice. I loved the reading of Fred Berman right from the start. His voice had expression and softness at just the right moments and different voices for the major characters, complete with a hint of a New England accent. He was absolutely amazing. If you want to be reminded of what it is like to be human together in this wild and precious life, don’t hesitate - read this book!
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- UnreliableHeart
- 06-16-24
Clever, Easy Read
The narration is top notch and the story is uplifting and meaningful. The protagonist and his cast of supporting characters try to find the best in themselves as they face what life brings and what life takes away. Easy listen.
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- Christine M.
- 10-17-24
Great Book
I loved this book, pure and simple. I loved the narrator -- who first seemed too adult for the reader of the main character, and then became just perfect. I loved the Labors that Hercules Beal was assigned and how they helped him to grow as a human being through the book, even when life dealt him more difficulties. I cried several times, both with sadness and joy through the book, and I'm not a crier. This is a wonderful book, and I'm recommending it to people of all ages.
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- Anonymous User
- 11-06-24
This book is so eventful and full of surprises
I like the plot, lesson, and feelings this book delivers. This book just leaves you feeling good and you can feel the emotion through the book
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