Julie Dretzin has narrated 12 audiobooks on Listento.it by 10 authors, with an average listener rating of 4.5★ across 8 ratings. The most-rated is The Wednesday Sisters.
The Wednesday Sisters
Summary
For 35 years, Frankie, Linda, Kath, Brett, and Ally have met every Wednesday at the park near their homes in Palo Alto, California. Defined when they first meet by what their husbands do, the young homemakers and mothers are far removed from the Summer of Love that has enveloped most of the Bay Area in 1967. These "Wednesday Sisters" seem to have little in common: Frankie is a timid transplant from Chicago, brutally blunt Linda is a remarkable athlete, Kath is a Kentucky debutante, quiet Ally has a secret, and quirky, ultra-intelligent Brett wears little white gloves with her miniskirts. But they are bonded by a shared love of both literature - Fitzgerald, Eliot, Austen, du Maurier, Plath, and Dickens - and the Miss America Pageant, which they watch together every year. As the years roll on and their children grow, the quintet forms a writers circle to express their hopes and dreams through poems, stories, and, eventually, books. Along the way, they experience history in the making: Vietnam, the race for the moon, and a women's movement that challenges everything they have ever thought about themselves, while at the same time supporting one another through changes in their personal lives brought on by infidelity, longing, illness, failure, and success.
©2008 Meg Waite Clayton (P)2008 Recorded Books, LLC
The Chicken Doesn't Skate
Summary
Sixth-grader Milo Neal plans to do a science project on "The Complete Life Cycle of a Link in the Food Chain". But when he brings his specimen - a baby chick - to class, everyone falls in love with the cute ball of fluff. Soon she has a name: Henrietta. Not only is Henrietta the class pet, she's even chosen as mascot for the school hockey team! How can Milo finish his project, which calls for frying up his specimen and serving it to the judges of the science fair? Each day, as Henrietta gets bigger, so does Milo’s dilemma. And students are hatching plans to rescue their feathered friend. Gordon Korman, author of more than 20 books for middle school and young adult audiences, based this hilarious story on his own experiences while visiting a middle school classroom. Through the talented narrators’ performances, Henrietta’s adventures will have you cackling with laughter.
©1996 Gordon Korman (P)1999 Recorded Books
The Green Glass Sea
Summary
This first novel from Nebula Award-winning short-story writer Ellen Klages was picked as a Junior Library Guild selection and named a Book Sense Number-One Children's Pick. It follows a young girl named Dewey, whose father is part of a super-secret project in 1943 Los Alamos. Dewey, a gifted scientist herself, slowly realizes the implications of "the gadget" her father is working on. She and Suze, another Los Alamos child, find comfort in each other's friendship.
©2007 Ellen Klages (P)2007 Recorded Books
Story Time
Summary
George and Kate enter Whittaker Magnet School via the "Leave No High-Scoring Child Behind" program. They quickly learn that all Whittaker students do is practice taking tests. Higher scores bring more students, and more tax money! And as if Whittaker isn't strange enough, there may be a demon roaming the halls. Acclaimed author Edward Bloor's Story Time is a darkly hilarious spoof on modern education.
©2004 Edward Bloor (P)2005 Recorded Books, LLC
Certain Girls
Summary
The eagerly-awaited follow-up to Jennifer Weiner's blockbuster best seller, Good in Bed Listeners fell in love with Cannie Shapiro, the smart, sharp-tongued, bighearted heroine of Good in Bed. Now Cannie's back. After her debut novel - a fictionalized (and highly sexualized) version of her life - became an overnight bestseller, she dropped out of the public eye and turned to writing science fiction under a pseudonym. She's happily married and has settled into a life that's wonderfully predictable. As preparations for her daughter Joy's bat mitzvah begin, everything seems right in Cannie's world. Then Joy discovers the novel Cannie wrote years before and suddenly finds herself faced with what she thinks is the truth about her own conception - the story her mother hid from her all her life. When Cannie's husband surprises her by saying he wants to have a baby, the family is forced to reconsider their history, their future, and what it means to be truly happy. Radiantly funny and tender, with Weiner's whip-smart dialogue and sharp observations of modern life, Certain Girls is an unforgettable story about love, loss, and the enduring bonds of family.
©2008 Jennifer Weiner (P)2011 Simon & Schuster
Out of Left Field
Summary
A story about the fight for equal rights in America's favorite arena: the baseball field! Ten-year-old Katy Gordon loves baseball, and she's good at it, too. She tries out for the 1958 Little League season in the disguise of a boy, and she gets in easily. But when the coach finds out she's a girl, he forbids her from playing. "Since the beginning of baseball as an organized sport, it has always been the sole province of male athletes, and will remain so", says the Little League director. It's not fair, and Katy, who's also learning about the Civil Rights Movement in school, recognizes this as another societal injustice. As she sets out to prove that girls can play baseball, she meets some of the little-known women who already have been fighting against that barrier for decades. But will that be enough to overturn Little League's discriminatory rules so Katy can finally play ball?
©2018 Ellen Klages (P)2018 Listening Library
White Sands, Red Menace
Summary
Ellen Klages’ debut novel, The Green Glass Sea, was lavished with praise, including the Scott O’Dell Award for historical fiction. This sequel continues the story of science enthusiast Dewey Kerrigan, now living with her friend Suze’s family in Alamogordo, New Mexico, after her father’s death. Against the backdrop of America’s quest for the moon, Dewey tries to find her place in the world.
©2008 Ellen Klages (P)2009 Recorded Books, LLC
Girl of Kosovo
Summary
Eleven-year-old Zana loves life in her small village in Kosovo. She also loves her best friend, Lena, even though her uncle doesn’t want the two of them playing together, since Lena is a Serb and Zana and her family are Albanians. Soon, soldiers are pulling Albanians off of buses and looting and bombing Albanian homes. Amidst a rising tide of violence, Zana must find a way to break the cycle of hate. Closely based on Alice Mead’s own experiences, Girl of Kosovo is a stark look at the evil people can do - and at the enduring power of love. Narrator Julie Dretzin voices all the determination of a girl who listeners will never forget.
©2001 Alice Mead (P)2002 Recorded Books
December Stillness
Summary
All 15-year-old Kelly McAllister wants to do after high school graduation is attend art school. Academic work isn't important to her. When she studies at the library with her friends, she sometimes talks so much the librarian kicks her out. After her teacher pressures her to start working on her current events paper, Kelly decides she has to take the assignment seriously. The only trouble is she can't think of a topic - until she discovers Mr. Weems, a homeless Vietnam vet who spends his days in the library. But writing about his plight isn't so easy. First, she must get to know him. Mary Downing Hahn creates a stirring portrait of a teenager discovering that complex problems require more than simple solutions. Narrator Julie Dretzin fully captures all the joy and despair swirling through this thought-provoking young adult novel.
©1988 Mary Downing Hahn (P)1998 Recorded Books, LLC
Whispers from the Dead
Summary
The first time 16-year-old Sarah walks into her new home, she is overwhelmed by a feeling of dread. Something terrible has happened here. When an icy presence whispers a desperate plea for help, Sarah investigates. Sarah first began sensing spirits after her near death experience. She had hoped to leave the hauntings behind and start over in this new town. But now she has learned that someone was murdered in this house, and the murderer went unpunished. Maybe her new friends can help her make sense of the disturbing visions and the relentless whispers that plague her. As the phantom pleas become more frantic, so does Sarah - especially since she realizes that her own life depends on solving the murder of this insistent ghost. Narrator Julie Dretzin does a remarkable job of plugging the listener into the horror of this story from an Edgar Award-winning author. Adrenaline levels rise as the story rushes inexorably to an ominous conclusion.
©1989 Joan Lowery Nixon (P)1999 Recorded Books
The Center of Everything
Summary
A remarkable debut that has been called a hybrid of Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird and Myla Goldberg’s Bee Season, The Center of Everything is the fictional story of 10-year-old math prodigy Evelyn Bucknow. Living in Kansas with her single mother and deeply religious grandmother, Evelyn believes she is destined to marry Travis, the boy next door. But as she grows up, she experiences the heartbreak of a love not meant to be. Author Laura Moriarty was a recipient of the George Bennet Fellowship for Creative Writing at Phillips Exeter Academy.
©2003 Laura Moriarty (P)2003 Recorded Books
Angel on the Square
Summary
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.
©2001 Gloria Whelan (P)2003 Recorded Books