Historical Audiobooks

Jepp, Who Defied the Stars

Fate-is it written in the stars from the moment we are born, or is it a bendable thing that we can shape with our own hands? Jepp of Astraveld needs to know. He left his countryside home on the empty promise of a stranger, only to become a captive in the strange, luxurious prison that is Coudenberg Palace, the royal court of the Spanish infanta. Nobody warned Jepp that, as a court dwarf, daily injustices would become his seemingly unshakeable fate. If the humiliations were his alone, perhaps he could endure them, but it breaks Jepp's heart to see his friend Lia suffer. After Jepp and Lia perform a daring escape from the palace, Jepp is imprisoned again, alone in a cage. Now, spirited across Europe by a kidnapper in a horse-drawn carriage, Jepp is unsure where his unfortunate stars may lead him. Before Jepp can become the master of his own destiny, he will need to prove himself to a brilliant and eccentric new master-a man devoted to uncovering the secrets of the stars-earn the love of a girl brave and true, and unearth the long-buried secrets of his parentage. He will find that beneath the breathtaking cruelty of the world is something else: the persistence of human kindness. Masterfully written, grippingly paced, and inspired by real historical characters, Jepp, Who Defied the Stars is an awe-inspiring story of triumph in the face of unimaginable odds. "Delightful characters, unique setting, and lovely prose. This is historical fiction at its best!"-Ruta Sepetys, New York Times bestselling author of Between Shades of Gray

Katherine Marsh (Author), Paul Michael Garcia, Richard Powers (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Art of Keeping Cool

Winner of the Scott O'Dell Award! As Robert watches the townspeople's hostility toward the German Artist Hoffman build, he worries about his sensitive cousin Elliot's friendship with the artist. And he wonders more and more about the family secret everyone seems to be keeping from him--a secret involving Robert's father, a bomber pilot in Europe. Will Elliot's ability to detach himself from the turmoil around him be enough to sustain him when prejudice and suspicions erupt into violence? And can Robert find his own way to deal with the shocking truth about his family's past?

Janet Taylor Lisle (Author), Charles Carroll (Narrator)

Audiobook

Never Forgotten

"Forceful and iconic," raved Publishers Weekly in a starred review. This gorgeous picture book by Newbery Honor winner Patricia C. McKissack and two-time Caldecott Medal-winning husband-and-wife team Leo and Diane Dillon is sure to become a treasured keepsake for African American families. Set in West Africa, this a lyrical story-in-verse is about a young black boy who is kidnapped and sold into slavery, and his father who is left behind to mourn the loss of his son. Here's a beautiful, powerful, truly unforgettable story about family, memory, and freedom.

Patricia McKissack (Author), Lizan Mitchell (Narrator)

Audiobook

Mensch, Mammut!: Warum der Koloss ein dickes Fell brauchte und was die Ötzi-Forscher vermasselt habe

Mister Ötzi ruhte im Eis - über 5.000 Jahre lang. Dann ging's ab ins Museum. Wie hat er gelebt? Wie ist er gestorben? Die Pfeilspitze in der Schulter deutet auf ein Verbrechen hin. Doch die haben die Forscher zuerst glatt übersehen. Auf diesem Hörbuch erfährst du, welche verblüffenden Fakten Archäologen sonst noch ausgebuddelt haben.

Volker Präkelt (Author), Jochen Bendel, Thomas Fritsch, Ulla Wagener (Narrator)

Audiobook

Neversink

Along the Arctic Circle lies a small island called Neversink, whose jagged cliffs and ice-gouged rocks are home to a colony of odd-looking seabirds called auks, including one Lockley J. Puffin. With their oceanfront views and plentiful supply of fish, the auks have few concerns-few, save for Lockley's two best friends, Egbert and Ruby, a know-it-all walrus and a sharp-tongued hummingbird. But all of this is about to change. Rozbell, the newly crowned king of the Owl Parliament, is dealing with a famine on the mainland of Tytonia-and he has long had his scheming eyes on the small colony to the north. Now Neversink's independence hangs in the balance. An insurgence of owls will inevitably destroy life as the auks know it-unless Lockley can do something about it.

Barry Wolverton (Author), Emrhys Cooper (Narrator)

Audiobook

Two Crafty Criminals!

Benny Kaminsky and Thunderbolt Dobney lead a rag-tag gang of neighborhood rowdies. Their territory is the New Cut on London's South Bank-a place bristling with swindlers, bookies, pickpockets, and the occasional policeman. And their aim is to solve crimes. When counterfeit coins start showing up in their neighborhood, Thunderbolt fears his own father may be behind the crime. But his friends devise a way to trap the real culprit. Then the gang takes on the case of some stolen silver. They have just two clues-a blob of wax, and an unusually long match. But even this slippery thief is unmasked by the determined kids of the New Cut. Filled with silly sleuthing, improbable disguises, crazy ruses, and merry mayhem, these stories are action-packed romps from one of the best storytellers ever-Philip Pullman.

Philip Pullman (Author), Bruce Mann (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Freedom Maze

Set against the burgeoning Civil Rights movement of the 1960s, and then just before the outbreak of the Civil War, The Freedom Maze explores both political and personal liberation, and how the two intertwine. In 1960, thirteen-year-old Sophie isn't happy about spending the summer at her grandmother's old house in the Bayou. But the house has a maze Sophie can't resist exploring once she finds it has a secretive and mischievious inhabitant. When Sophie, bored and lonely, makes an impulsive wish, she slips back one hundred years into the past, to the year 1860. She hopes for a fantasy book adventure with herself as the heroine. Instead, she gets a real adventure in the race-haunted world of her family's Louisiana sugar plantation in 1860, where she is mistaken for a slave. President Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation is still two years in the future. The Thirteen Amendment-abolishing and prohibiting slavery-will not be not passed until April 1864. Muddy and bedraggled, Sophie obviously isn't a young lady of good breeding. She must therefore be a slave. And she is.

Delia Sherman (Author), Robin Miles (Narrator)

Audiobook

Beyond Courage

Under the noses of the German military and French police, Georges Loinger smuggles Jewish children out of occupied France into Switzerland. In Belgium, Youra Livchitz and two other resisters ambush a train destined for a death camp, allowing scores of Jews to flee from the cattle cars. Four brothers lead more than 1,200 ghetto refugees deep into the Byelorussian forest, where they build a partisan fighting force and self-sufficient village. Forced to make detonators for German bombs, Estusia Wajcblum smuggles out gunpowder, grain by grain, to be used to blow up the crematoriums in Auschwitz-Birkenau. Despite debilitating wounds to both his feet, fourteen-year-old Idel Kagan helps dig an escape tunnel out of a forced labor camp in Poland. Sarika Yehoshua forms an all-girl unit of guerrilla fighters in the mountains of Greece, teaching them to shed their traditional ways and become soldiers. And twelve-year-old Motele Shlayan entertains German officers with his violin moments before setting off a bomb. Through meticulously researched and stirring accounts - some well known and some chronicled here in book form for the first time - Doreen Rappaport brings to light the defiance of tens of thousands of Jews in Nazi-occupied Europe during World War II. These resisters answered the genocidal madness and unspeakable depravity that was Hitler's Holocaust with the greatest weapons of all - courage, ingenuity, the will to survive, and the resolve to save others or to die trying.

Doreen Rappaport (Author), Emily Beresford, Jeff Crawford (Narrator)

Audiobook

Button Down

Ever since local boy Lester Ward got drafted by the University of Iowa Hawkeyes and football fever hit Goodhue, Iowa, scrawny Ned Button can think of nothing but the game. Sure, Lester's younger bully of a brother is determined to keep Ned and his gang from ever getting near a real pickup game. But Ned has a few tricks up his sleeve: he can catch and sometimes even throw, much to his surprise. And he's got his eccentric grandpa Ike, who has less get-up-and-go these days but no shortage of down-home wisdom to pass along. Like that being a football star is less about being big and more about strategy and playing as part of a team. And that having friends and family in your corner is a bigger prize than a lucky football will ever be. From the acclaimed author of The Luck of the Buttons comes another story about a sometimes hapless, always winning family that scores big points for humor and heart.

Anne Ylvisaker (Author), Sanjiv Jhaveri (Narrator)

Audiobook

Sophia's War: A Tale of the Revolution

Acclaimed children's author Avi's many accolades include a Newbery Medal and Boston Globe-Horn Book Award. Inspired by true stories from the American Revolution, Sophia's War begins in 1776, when British troops arrive on the doorstep of 12-year-old Sophia Calderwood's home in New York. After the disappearance and possible capture of her brother, and the execution of Nathan Hale, Sophia has vowed to do all she can to help the cause for independence. But the war will test her in ways she never imagined.

Avi (Author), Angela Goethals (Narrator)

Audiobook

A Medal for Leroy

Inspired by the true story of Walter Tull, the first black officer in the British army.A new novel about identity and loss by bestselling award-winning author of WAR HORSE.Michael doesn't remember his father, an RAF pilot lost in the war. And his French mother, heartbroken and passionate, doesn't like to talk about her husband. But then Auntie Snowdrop gives Michael a medal, followed by a photograph, which begin to reveal a hidden history.A story of love and loss.A story that will change everything - and reveal to Michael who he really is...

Michael Morpurgo (Author), Brian Trueman, Mairi Macfarlane (Narrator)

Audiobook

Caught

"With Caught, award-winning author Margaret Peterson Haddix delivers the fifth thrilling installment of her Missing series. Time-traveling siblings Jonah and Katherine are shocked when time in the 21st century comes to a standstill. Back in 1903, the siblings discover the time-freeze was caused by a botched job involving Albert Einstein's secret daughter Lieserl. Somehow, they've got to set things right but that won't be easy with Lieserl's mother standing guard.

Margaret Peterson Haddix (Author), Chris Sorensen (Narrator)

Audiobook