Showing results by narrator "Steven Ritz-Barr" in All Categories

Peter LeFroy is fifteen years old, but the tales are anything but adolescent tales. They are hardened sailor tales complete with life and death at every turn. On his adventure, Peter becomes a Pirate—against his will; lives with some Eskimos—who save his life; lives through on-board fires, iceberg disasters, brutal whale hunting, and falls in love with a young girl named Mary. This book is about courage and perseverance. It was one of the first in the YA genre from England and was published the same year as Melville’s Moby Dick.

"Pinocchio, the Original," is "The Adventures of Pinocchio" by Carlo Collodi from 1883, with updated comments by Steven Ritz-Barr—a professional Puppeteer for over 4 decades in Paris, Los Angeles and Berlin. It is a darker, more profound version than the popular Pinocchio by Disney, who made the story world-famous with the 1940 animated film. It is filled with absurd puppet-humor and abstract slap-stick—and it is the real version.

Elaine "The Mink" LaCroix has just cat-burglared into a temple in Japan and reaches for the Eye of Buddha - a blazing green emerald as big as a man's fist - when she slumps to the ground. A white bony hand strips the glowing silver ring from her finger. Half a world away, Merlin opens his eyes and whispers, "It is not to be, little Mink", then drifts to the sleep of the enchanted.

The best of cult author Bruno Schulz's captivatingly strange and beautiful short stories. The stories in this collection are rich, tangled, and suffused with mystery and wonder. In the narrowing, winding city streets, strange figures roam. Great flocks of birds soar over rooftops, obscuring the sun. Cockroaches appear through cracks and scuttle across floorboards. Individuals careen from university buildings to dimly lit parlour rooms, through strange shops and endless storms.

Lucas Moreno had high hopes of a great last summer before heading off to college, but destiny had other plans. The seventeen-year-old from San Antonio has a nightmare. In it, his friend Ryan Casey–a resident of Northern Ireland whom Lucas hasn't seen in two years–is shot during a terrorist attack on a school bus. When Lucas wakes up, he sees a news report that confirms the attack really happened.