Frances O'Roark Dowell has 5 audiobooks on Listento.it, narrated by 5 narrators. The most-rated is Shooting the Moon.
The Second Life of Abigail Walker
Summary
Is it possible to start afresh when you're thoroughly weighted down? Seventeen pounds. That's the difference between Abigail Walker and Kristen Gorzca. Between chubby and slim, between teased and taunting. Abby is fine with her body and sick of seventeen pounds making her miserable, so she speaks out against Kristen and her groupies - and becomes officially unpopular. Embracing her new status, Abby heads to an abandoned lot across the street and crosses an unfamiliar stream that leads her to a boy who's as different as they come. Anders is homeschooled, and while he's worried that Abby's former friends are out to get her, he's even more worried about his dad, a war veteran home from Iraq who is dangerously disillusioned with life. But if his dad can finish his poem about the expedition of Lewis and Clark, if he can effectively imagine what it is to experience freshness and innocence, maybe he will be okay. As Abby dives into the unexpected role as research assistant, she just as unexpectedly discovers that by helping someone else find hope in the world, there is plenty there for herself, as well.
©2012 Frances O'Roark Dowell (P)2013 Recorded Books
Where I'd Like to Be
Summary
A ghost saved12-year-old Maddie's life when she was an infant, her Granny Lane claims, so Maddie must always remember that she is special. But it's hard to feel special when you've spent your life being shuttled from one foster home to another. And now that she's at the East Tennessee Children's Home, Maddie feels, well, less than ordinary. Six-year-old Ricky Ray, who came to the Home after his parents failed to come back from a party, thinks Maddie's the cat's meow. But what does a little boy like that know? Maddie can't stop looking for a place to call home or for people who feel like home. She even makes a "book of houses," where she glues pictures of places in which she yearns to live. Then one day, a new girl, Murphy, shows up at the Home armed with tales about exotic travels, being able to fly, and boys who recite poetry to wild horses. Maddie is enchanted....Maybe, just maybe, she's found someone who feels like home and she lets her guard down. She shows Murphy her beloved scrapbook, never anticipating that this one gesture will challenge her very ideas of what home, and family, are all about. With her astonishing ability to create characters who linger with you long after you turn the last page, Frances O'Roark Dowell explores the many definitions, both heartbreaking and awe-inspiring, of home and family.
©2003 Frances O'Roark Dowell (P)2009 Listening Library
Anybody Shining
Summary
Can one mistake destroy the chance of a lifetime? A girl discovers there are many ways of being true in this magnificent ode to handwritten letters and the shining power of friendship from the author of "Dovey Coe," set in the Appalachian mountains of 1920s North Carolina. One true friend. Someone shining. That's all twelve-year-old Arie Mae wants. But shining true friends are hard to come by deep in the mountains of western North Carolina, so she sets her sights on a cousin unseen, someone who lives all the way away in the big city of Baltimore, Maryland. Three unanswered letters later, Arie Mae learns that a group of kids from Baltimore are coming to spend a summer on the mountain. Arie Mae loves her smudge of a town--she knows there's nothing finer than Pa's fiddling and Mama's apple cake, but she also knows Big City folk might feel differently. How else to explain the song catcher ladies who have descended upon the village in search of "traditional tunes" and their intention to help "save" the townspeople? But when the group from Baltimore arrives, it seems there just might be a gem among them, one shining boy who doesn't seem to notice Arie Mae wears the same dress every day and prefers to go barefoot. So what if he has a bit of a limp and a rumored heart problem--he also is keen about "everything "Arie Mae is keen about, and has all the makings of a true friend. And so what if the boy's mother warns him not to exert himself? He and Arie Mae have adventures to go on! In between writing letters to her cousin, Arie Mae leads her one shining friend on ghost hunts and bear chases. But it turns out those warnings were for a reason...
©2014 Frances O'Roark Dowell (P)2014 Recorded Books
The Class
Summary
"A complex, thought-provoking, and entertaining view of middle school." (Publishers Weekly) Twenty kids. Twenty points of view. One rambunctious, brilliantly conceived novel that corrals the seeming chaos (c'mon, 20 points of view!) into one effervescent story. Sixth grade is a most confusing time. Best friends aren't friends anymore. Worst enemies suddenly want to be partners in crime. And classmates you thought you knew have all sorts of surprising stuff going on. The kids in Mrs. Herrera's class are dealing with all this and more - specifically: There's a new girl who just seems to be spying on them all and scribbling things in a notebook. Maybe she is a spy? Someone is stealing Mrs. Herrera's most treasured items. Their old classmate, Sam, keeps showing up and no one knows why...until they do. Which leads to a fourth problem. But we can't tell you about that yet. The 20 kids in Mrs. Herrera's classroom can, though, and they do. Every. Single. One. Of. Them.
©2019 Frances O'Roark Dowell (P)2020 Listening Library
Shooting the Moon
Summary
Edgar Award-winning author Frances O'Roark Dowell is acclaimed for the rich characterizations in her poignant coming-of-age novels. Drawing on her experience as a colonel's daughter, Dowell delivers an evocative portrait of a 12-year-old girl whose view of life, war, and her dad - Fort Hood's base commander - changes as her corpsman brother sends home haunting images from Vietnam. An eloquent narration captures the emotional intensity of the novel's gripping prose.
©2008 Frances O'Roark Dowell (P)2008 Recorded Books,LLC