Showing results by narrator "Ann Richardson" in All Categories

Still I Rise takes its title from a work by Maya Angelou, and it resonates with the same spirit of an unconquerable soul, a woman who is captain of her fate. This book embodies the strength of character of the inspiring women profiled within. Each chapter outlines the fall and rise of great women heroes who smashed all obstacles rather than let all obstacles smash them. Still I Rise offers hope to those undergoing their own Sisyphean struggles. Intrepid women heroes are the antithesis of the traditional damsels in distress; rather than waiting for the prince, they took salvation into their own hands.

Aura Corinne Speltzman has two problems: the kids at school and the sudden disappearance of her only friend, an invisible zebra named Harold. But everything flips upside-down when Aura's new best-friend-to-be arrives on a thunderbolt in the middle of the night. Squinting through the storm from her bedroom window, Aura watches a family drop out of the lightning into the empty house across the yard.

Vera and Mamma are headed out for a march, but it’s not just any march: it’s October 24 in Reykjavík, and on this day in 1975, the women of Iceland took the day off, walked out of their homes and away from their jobs—as farmworkers, butchers, and fisherwomen; wives, daughters, and children—and marched to demand equality and change, chanting: “I dare! I can! I will!” And they did, inspiring and empowering girls and women to make change, not just in their country, but all around the world.

Listen to the fictionalized account of Kajsa Svensson Runeberg, an emigrant wife who recounts, through her diary, how she and her family built up a farm on the unsettled Kansas prairie from 1868 to 1888. This historical fiction is based on the actual Swedish woman who homesteaded the author's childhood home and is the first of the four book Butter in the Well series.

Can you imagine being isolated in the middle of treeless grassland with only a dirt roof over your head? Having to feed your children with whatever wild plants or animals you could find living on the prairie? Sweating to plow the sod, plant the seed, cultivate the crop-only to lose it all by a hailstorm right before you harvest it? This second book in the Planting Dreams series portrays Swedish immigrant Charlotta Johnson as she and her husband build a farmstead on the Kansas prairie.

In the wake of the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the American government confiscated the homes, animals, businesses, and personal possessions of Japanese Americans, citizens all. At the Tule Lake Internment Camp, a Japanese American girl sought solace by retreating to the furthest edge of the camp’s barbed-wire enclosure. Outside the barbed-wire-crowned metal fence, with its frightening armed guard towers, a curious American boy one day cautiously approached on his bike to say a nervous hello to the girl who so intrigued him from a distance. This visit started four years of meetings.

Social isolation can shatter our confidence. In isolating times, we're not only lonely, but we're ashamed of our loneliness because our society stigmatizes people who are alone without support. As a single, 58-year-old woman who finds herself stranded after major surgery, Val Walker has woven into the narrative her own story. A well-established rehabilitation counselor, she was too embarrassed to reveal on social media how utterly isolated she was by asking for someone to help, and it felt agonizingly awkward calling colleagues out of the blue.

When it comes to happiness rankings, Finland always scores near the top. Many Finnish phenomena set the bar high: the best education system, gender equality, a flourishing welfare state, sisu or bull-headed pluck. Behind all of these accomplishments lies a Finnish ability to stay calm, healthy and content in a riptide of endless tasks and temptations. The ability comes from the practice of "kalsarikanni" translated as pantsdrunk. Peel off your clothes down to your underwear. Place savory or sweet snacks within reach alongside your bed or sofa.

When brutish miner Hugo Mitchum is found murdered on the frozen shore of a North Country lake, the local officials and town gossips of Beau Caelais are quick to blame Marietta Abernathy, outspoken environmental activist and angry, witchy recluse. But Marietta herself has disappeared under mysterious circumstances.

Imagine surveying your farmstead on the last day of your life, reviewing the decades of joys, hardships, and changes that have taken place on the eighty acres you have called home for the past fifty years. Would you feel at peace or find remorse at the decisions that took place in your life? This third audiobook in the Planting Dreams series portrays Charlotta Johnson as she recalls the events that shaped her family's destiny.

What would you do for the greatest love of your life, Annie? Annie fears this question with a passion. While she and her family fight mother nature’s wrath raging outside the Inn’s walls, the unexpected happens… A murder mystery drags her into a vortex of secrets involving her ex-husband and two powerful families in Manatee Bay.

Popular Kansas author Linda K. Hubalek continues the story of a Swedish immigrant family featured in the Butter in the Well series with the second book Prairie Bloomin'. Prairie Bloomin' features the 1889 to 1900 diary of daughter Alma Swenson, as she grows up on the farm her parents homesteaded. Even though born on the same farm in two different centuries, the main character of Prairie Bloomin', Alma Swenson Runneberg, and the author shared uncanny similarities while growing up in the Smoky Valley region of central Kansas.

The strong winds of autumn are about to blow a few surprises in Cody Moore's way. Discovering her mother's true identity has left Cody and her family shocked. But as the Moore family settles back into their everyday lives and wind down from a summer filled with mystery and life-changing truths, they soon discover their troubles are far from over.

Jane Withersteen, a sincere and faithful young Mormon woman, is persecuted by members of her own church. The as yet unmarried Withersteen has inherited a large and rich piece of property from her father. Elder Tull, an older church leader with several wives already, wants to marry her, but she does not want to marry him. She refuses him and is subsequently beset by troubles as Tull and his men wage a secret vindictive campaign against her.

This groundbreaking anthology presents 40 narratives, both nonfiction and fiction, that together capture the impact and complexity of Alzheimer’s and other dementias on patients, as well as their caregivers and family. Deeply personal, recounting the wrenching course of a disease that kills a loved one twice - first they forget who they are, and then the body succumbs - these stories also show how witnessing the disease and caring for someone with it can be powerfully transformative, calling forth amazing strength and grace.

When Sarah Palmer is caught trying to elope with a fortune-hunting cad, her family has finally had enough of her scandalous exploits. To teach her a lesson and save her reputation, Sarah is shipped off to stay with her married half-sister in the Scottish countryside. But upon her arrival, Sarah discovers her sister has left for Glasgow. Now without a chaperone, she is determined to show her family she can indeed be a good girl. However, a mysterious American is about to change everything....

Each year the average North American ingests well over 200 pounds of animal protein, and the global appetite for meat has also increased dramatically. This powerful book offers a modest, commonsense approach to a serious problem, suggesting strategies for all of us to cut back on our consumption of animal products and ensure that the meat we do consume is produced in a sustainable, ecologically responsible manner.

How can you choose which dream to follow? Newlyweds Amelia and Marcus are recent college graduates, working hard to stay afloat in Los Angeles while they search for their dream jobs. Marcus, with an MDiv, seeks a pastoral position at a large multicultural city church Amelia has a music degree and hopes to play piano professionally. But God has other plans. When a small church in a small Nebraska town offers Marcus a job, their dedication to their dreams - and to each other - is put to the test. Leaving the city means putting aside Amelia’s career in favor of Marcus’s....

Be careful what you wish for…When a lowly antiques dealer who's in love with the governor's girlfriend releases a genie from a magic lamp, he unwittingly wishes himself into a hole the size of the Grand Canyon!

Word has it that every awkward young lady sent to Mrs. Hester Poitevant’s Mayfair Academy inevitably becomes marriage material. With her students going on to have any eligible bachelor they wish, Hester is able to live comfortably and in the background. And no one knows that under the guise of a stuffy widow, she is a beautiful woman who has never been married.