Download or read book The Outstanding Life of an Awkward Theater Kid written by Ted Kluck and published by Harvest House Publishers. This book was released on 2020-05-05 with total page 194 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Can Flex Deal with the Drama? Flex is a football player, not an actor. But he can fake it if it means getting to see KK, the girl he’s dating (sort of—it’s complicated), every day after school for about a month. This play isn’t for the weak, though. First, Flex has to deal with his nemesis, Actor Boy, the guy who greets girls with kisses on either cheek. C’mon, dude. Really?!? Then there’s the whole Shakespeare thing. What was “Bill” thinking when he wrote this gobbledygook? Thou dost protest…seriously. Meanwhile KK is hanging out with Watson, the King of the Youth Group, and no amount of video game playing is going to make Flex feel okay about that. He’d better get his jealousy in check before KK checks out on him for good. But with some encouragement from Mimi and Pops (his mom and dad), a little advice from an unlikely ally, and a whole lot of truth from God’s awesome book, Flex might just turn his fear of failure into a performance befitting of the bard himself. Or at the very least, get KK to return his texts.

Download or read book The Outstanding Life of an Awkward Theater Kid written by Ted Kluck and published by Harvest House Publishers. This book was released on 2020-05-05 with total page 181 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Can Flex Deal with the Drama? Flex is a football player, not an actor. But he can fake it if it means getting to see KK, the girl he’s dating (sort of—it’s complicated), every day after school for about a month. This play isn’t for the weak, though. First, Flex has to deal with his nemesis, Actor Boy, the guy who greets girls with kisses on either cheek. C’mon, dude. Really?!? Then there’s the whole Shakespeare thing. What was “Bill” thinking when he wrote this gobbledygook? Thou dost protest…seriously. Meanwhile KK is hanging out with Watson, the King of the Youth Group, and no amount of video game playing is going to make Flex feel okay about that. He’d better get his jealousy in check before KK checks out on him for good. But with some encouragement from Mimi and Pops (his mom and dad), a little advice from an unlikely ally, and a whole lot of truth from God’s awesome book, Flex might just turn his fear of failure into a performance befitting of the bard himself. Or at the very least, get KK to return his texts.

Download or read book The Extraordinary Life of a Mediocre Jock written by Ted Kluck and published by Harvest House Publishers. This book was released on 2018-05-08 with total page 194 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Join Flex on His Quest to Be Cool Like most middle schoolers, Flex's mind is on a million different things—school, sports, friends, girls (of course), and yeah, he's thinking about God too. More than any of these thoughts, Flex is obsessed with one thing—being cool. But how can Flex attain awesomeness when he's so amazingly average at, well...EVERYTHING?!? Football could be his ticket out of seventh-grade obscurity, but then Coach sticks him with a boring jersey number and reassigns him to the most unglamorous position on the entire team. His parents aren't helping, either. They won't even let him bring his iPod to school like the other kids do. At least, his parents love him and love the Lord. That's HUGE. And just when Flex thinks life couldn't any more complicated, he finds himself suddenly drawn to KK, the mysterious drama girl. She's homeschooled and in ninth grade. KK is totally different...and a little exciting. Will Flex ever be considered cool? In God's eyes, maybe he already is.

Download or read book My Life the Theater and Other Tragedies written by Allen Zadoff and published by Egmontusa. This book was released on 2011 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: While working backstage on a high school production of "A Midsummer Night's Dream," sixteen-year-old Adam develops feelings for a beautiful actress--which violates an unwritten code--and begins to overcome the grief that has controlled him since his father's death nearly two years earlier.

Download or read book Theater Geek written by Mickey Rapkin and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2010-06-01 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What do Natalie Portman, Robert Downey, Jr., Zach Braff, and Mandy Moore have in common? Before they were stars, they were campers at Stagedoor Manor, the premier summer theater camp for children and teenagers. Founded in 1975, Stagedoor continues to attract scores of young performers eager to find kindred spirits, to sing out loud, to become working actors—or maybe even stars. Every summer for the past thirty-five years, a new crop of campers has come to the Catskills for an intense, often wrenching introduction to professional theater. (The camp produces thirteen full-scale productions during each of its three sessions.) These kids come from varying backgrounds—the offspring of Hollywood players from Nora Ephron to Bruce Willis work alongside kids on scholarship. Some campers have agents, others are seeking representation. When Mickey Rapkin, a senior editor at GQ and self-proclaimed theater fanatic, learned about this place, he fled Manhattan for an escape to upstate New York. At Stagedoor, he tracked a trio of especially talented and determined teen actors through their final session at camp. Enter Rachael Singer, Brian Muller, and Harry Katzman, three high school seniors closing out their sometimes sheltered Stagedoor experiences and graduating into the real world of industry competition and rejection. These veteran campers—still battling childhood insecurities, but simultaneously searching for that professional gig that will catapult them to fame—pour their souls into what might be their last amateur shows. Their riveting stories are told in Theater Geek, an eye-opening, laugh-out-loud chronicle full of drama and heart, but also about the business of training kids to be professional thespians and, in some cases, child stars. (The camp has long acted as a farm system for Broadway and Hollywood, attracting visits from studio executives and casting directors.) Via original interviews with former and current campers and staff—including Mandy Moore, Zach Braff, and Jon Cryer—Rapkin also recounts Stagedoor Manor’s colorful, star-studded history: What was Natalie Portman’s breakout role as a camper? What big-time Hollywood director, then barely a teenager, dated a much older Stagedoor staff member? Why did Courtney Love (at Stagedoor visiting her daughter) get into an argument with a hot dog vendor who had set up shop at the camp? Theater Geek leads readers through the triumphs and tragedies of the three senior campers’ final summer in an absorbing, thought-provoking narrative that reveals the dynamic and inspiring human beings who populate this world. It also explores what the proliferation of theater camps says about our celebrity-obsessed youth and our most basic but vital need to fit in. Through the rivalry, heartbreak, and joy of one summer at Stagedoor Manor, Rapkin offers theater geeks of all ages a dishy, illuminating romp through the lives of serious child actors. Rich, insightful, and thoroughly entertaining, Theater Geek pulls back the curtain on an elite and intriguing world to reveal what’s really at its core: children who simply love to perform.

Download or read book The Overachievers written by Alexandra Robbins and published by Hachette Books. This book was released on 2006-08-08 with total page 610 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The bestselling author of Pledged returns with a groundbreaking look at the pressure to achieve faced by America's teens In Pledged, Alexandra Robbins followed four college girls to produce a riveting narrative that read like fiction. Now, in The Overachievers, Robbins uses the same captivating style to explore how our high-stakes educational culture has spiraled out of control. During the year of her ten-year reunion, Robbins goes back to her high school, where she follows heart-tuggingly likeable students including "AP" Frank, who grapples with horrifying parental pressure to succeed; Audrey, whose panicked perfectionism overshadows her life; Sam, who worries his years of overachieving will be wasted if he doesn't attend a name-brand college; Taylor, whose ambition threatens her popular girl status; and The Stealth Overachiever, a mystery junior who flies under the radar. Robbins tackles teen issues such as intense stress, the student and teacher cheating epidemic, sports rage, parental guilt, the black market for study drugs, and a college admissions process so cutthroat that students are driven to suicide and depression because of a B. With a compelling mix of fast-paced narrative and fascinating investigative journalism, The Overachievers aims both to calm the admissions frenzy and to expose its escalating dangers.

Download or read book The Dog Lives written by Ted Kluck and published by . This book was released on 2022-09-23 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Flex just has one question: Why do bad things happen to good people pets?If Flex has to read one more book where the dog dies, he's going to lose it. What is it about writers of young adult fiction (and teachers of middle school English classes) that makes them deliver such sadistic emotional whiplash with such glee? And then they have the gall to call it Literature? Enough is enough, and Flex is ready to put his foot down, even if it means looking like a fool in front of KK.When his own beloved pet-a cat named The Dog-goes missing, what seemed like a philosophical problem gets uncomfortably real, real fast. The Dog is an indoor cat who knows nothing about surviving outside and probably won't last the night. Flex is worried, and that worry quickly becomes anger directed at the person who let The Dog out of the house-his mom.It becomes clear that if The Dog is to be found it'll be an all-hands-on-deck situation. But can Flex trust God to bring a lost cat back home? And how can he bring himself to forgive Mimi for leaving the door open in the first place?

Download or read book Well That Was Awkward written by Rachel Vail and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2018-02-27 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Gracie has never felt like this before. One day, she suddenly can’t breathe, can’t walk, can’t anything—and the reason is standing right there in front of her, all tall and weirdly good-looking: A.J. But it turns out A.J. likes not Gracie but Gracie’s beautiful best friend, Sienna. Obviously Gracie is happy for Sienna. Super happy! She helps Sienna compose the best texts, responding to A.J.’s surprisingly funny and appealing texts, just as if she were Sienna. Because Gracie is fine. Always! She’s had lots of practice being the sidekick, second-best. It’s all good. Well, almost all. She’s trying. Funny and tender, Well, That Was Awkward goes deep into the heart of middle school, and finds that even with all the heartbreak, there can be explosions of hope and moments of perfect happiness.

Download or read book My Remarkable Journey written by Katherine Johnson and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2021-05-25 with total page 255 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The remarkable woman at heart of the smash New York Times bestseller and Oscar-winning film Hidden Figures tells the full story of her life, including what it took to work at NASA, help land the first man on the moon, and live through a century of turmoil and change. In 2015, at the age of 97, Katherine Johnson became a global celebrity. President Barack Obama awarded her the prestigious Presidential Medal of Freedom—the nation’s highest civilian honor—for her pioneering work as a mathematician on NASA’s first flights into space. Her contributions to America’s space program were celebrated in a blockbuster and Academy-award nominated movie. In this memoir, Katherine shares her personal journey from child prodigy in the Allegheny Mountains of West Virginia to NASA human computer. In her life after retirement, she served as a beacon of light for her family and community alike. Her story is centered around the basic tenets of her life—no one is better than you, education is paramount, and asking questions can break barriers. The memoir captures the many facets of this unique woman: the curious “daddy’s girl,” pioneering professional, and sage elder. This multidimensional portrait is also the record of a century of racial history that reveals the influential role educators at segregated schools and Historically Black Colleges and Universities played in nurturing the dreams of trailblazers like Katherine. The author pays homage to her mentor—the African American professor who inspired her to become a research mathematician despite having his own dream crushed by racism. Infused with the uplifting wisdom of a woman who handled great fame with genuine humility and great tragedy with enduring hope, My Remarkable Journey ultimately brings into focus a determined woman who navigated tough racial terrain with soft-spoken grace—and the unrelenting grit required to make history and inspire future generations.

Download or read book Last Lecture written by Perfection Learning Corporation and published by Turtleback. This book was released on 2019 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Finishing the Hat written by Stephen Sondheim and published by Knopf. This book was released on 2010-10-26 with total page 482 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES 10 BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR • Titled after perhaps Stephen Sondheim's most autobiographical song, from Sunday in the Park with George—Finishing the Hat not only collects his lyrics for the first time, it offers readers a rare personal look into his life as well as his remarkable productions. Stephen Sondheim’s career spanned more than half a century; his lyrics are synonymous with musical theater and popular culture. Sondheim—the winner of seven Tonys, an Academy Award, seven Grammys, a Pulitzer Prize and more—treats us to never-before-published songs from each show, songs that were cut or discarded before seeing the light of day, along with the lyrics for all of his musicals from 1954 to 1981, including West Side Story, Company, Follies, A Little Night Music and Sweeney Todd. He discusses his relationship with his mentor, Oscar Hammerstein II, and his collaborations with extraordinary talents such as Leonard Bernstein, Arthur Laurents, Ethel Merman, Richard Rodgers, Angela Lansbury, Harold Prince and a panoply of others. The anecdotes—filled with history, pointed observations and intimate details—transport us back to a time when theater was a major pillar of American culture. Best of all, Sondheim appraises his work and dissects his lyrics, as well as those of others, offering unparalleled insights into songwriting that will be studied by fans and aspiring songwriters for years to come. Accompanying Sondheim’s sparkling writing are behind-the-scenes photographs from each production, along with handwritten music and lyrics from the songwriter’s personal collection. Penetrating and surprising, poignant, funny and sometimes provocative, Finishing the Hat is not only an informative look at the art and craft of lyric writing, it is a history of the theater that belongs on the same literary shelf as Moss Hart’s Act One and Arthur Miller’s Timebends. It is also a book that will leave you humming the final bars of Merrily We Roll Along, while eagerly anticipating the next volume.

Download or read book Five Six Seven Nate written by Tim Federle and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2014-01-21 with total page 238 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “The Nate series by Tim Federle is a wonderful evocation of what it’s like to be a theater kid. Highly recommended.” —Lin-Manuel Miranda, star and creator of the musical, Hamilton Winner of the Lambda Literary Award Encore! Nate Foster’s Broadway dreams are finally coming true in this sequel to Better Nate Than Ever that Publishers Weekly calls a “funny, tender coming-of-age story.” Armed with a one-way ticket to New York City, small-town theater geek Nate is off to start rehearsals for E.T.: The Broadway Musical. It’s everything he ever practiced his autograph for! But as thrilling as Broadway is, rehearsals are nothing like Nate expects: full of intimidating child stars, cut-throat understudies, and a director who can’t even remember Nate’s name. Now, as the countdown to opening night is starting to feel more like a time bomb, Nate is going to need more than his lucky rabbit’s foot if he ever wants to see his name in lights. He may even need a showbiz miracle. The companion novel to Better Nate Than Ever, which TheNew York Times called “inspired and inspiring,” Five, Six, Seven, Nate! is full of secret admirers, surprise reunions, and twice the drama of middle school...with a lot more glitter.

Download or read book Real Life written by Brandon Taylor and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2021-02-16 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A FINALIST for the Booker Prize, the National Book Critics Circle John Leonard Prize, the VCU/Cabell First Novelist Prize, the Lambda Literary Award, the NYPL Young Lions Award, and the Edmund White Debut Fiction Award “A blistering coming of age story” —O: The Oprah Magazine Named a Best Book of the Year by The New York Times, The Washington Post, New York Public Library, Vanity Fair, Elle, NPR, The Guardian, The Paris Review, Harper's Bazaar, Financial Times, Huffington Post, BBC, Shondaland, Barnes & Noble, Vulture, Thrillist, Vice, Self, Electric Literature, and Shelf Awareness A novel of startling intimacy, violence, and mercy among friends in a Midwestern university town, from an electric new voice. Almost everything about Wallace is at odds with the Midwestern university town where he is working uneasily toward a biochem degree. An introverted young man from Alabama, black and queer, he has left behind his family without escaping the long shadows of his childhood. For reasons of self-preservation, Wallace has enforced a wary distance even within his own circle of friends—some dating each other, some dating women, some feigning straightness. But over the course of a late-summer weekend, a series of confrontations with colleagues, and an unexpected encounter with an ostensibly straight, white classmate, conspire to fracture his defenses while exposing long-hidden currents of hostility and desire within their community. Real Life is a novel of profound and lacerating power, a story that asks if it’s ever really possible to overcome our private wounds, and at what cost.

Download or read book Better Nate Than Ever written by Tim Federle and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2014-01-21 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An eighth-grader who dreams of performing in a Broadway musical concocts a plan to run away to New York and audition for the role of Elliot in the musical version of "E.T."

Download or read book Cobble Hill written by Cecily von Ziegesar and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2020-11-10 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Gossip Girl series brings her sharp-eyed and irresistible wit to this “quirky novel of lovable misfits” (Publishers Weekly) chronicling a year in the lives of four families in an upscale Brooklyn neighborhood as they seek purpose and community—until one unforgettable night at a raucous neighborhood party knocks them to their senses. Welcome to Cobble Hill. In this eclectic Brooklyn neighborhood, private storms brew amongst four married couples and their children. There’s ex-groupie Mandy, so underwhelmed by motherhood and her current physical state that she fakes a debilitating disease to get the attention of her skateboarding, ex-boyband member husband Stuart. There’s the unconventional new school nurse, Peaches, on whom Stuart has an unrequited crush, and her disappointing husband Greg, who wears noise-cancelling headphones—everywhere. A few blocks away, Roy, a well-known, newly transplanted British novelist, has lost the thread of his next novel and his marriage to indefatigable Wendy. Around the corner, Tupper, the nervous, introverted industrial designer with a warehouse full of prosthetic limbs struggles to pin down his elusive artist wife Elizabeth. Throw in two hormonal teenagers, a ten-year-old pyromaniac, a drug dealer pretending to be a doctor, and a lot of hidden cameras, and you’ve got a combustible mix of egos, desires, and secrets bubbling in brownstone Brooklyn. “Breezy, witty, and compulsively fun to read” (Kirkus Reviews), Cobble Hill is highly entertaining portrait of contemporary family life and the colorful characters who call Brooklyn home.

Download or read book Stuck on Earth written by David Klass and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR). This book was released on 2010-03-16 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ketchvar III's mission is simple: travel to Planet Earth, inhabit the body of an average teenager, and determine if the human race should be annihilated. And so Ketchvar—who, to human eyes, looks just like a common snail—crawls into the brain of one Tom Filber and attempts to do his analysis. At first glance, Tom appears to be the perfect specimen—fourteen years old, good health, above average intelligence. But it soon becomes apparent that Tom Filber may be a little too average—gawky, awkward, and utterly abhorred by his peers. An alien within an alien's skin, Ketchvar quickly finds himself wrapped up in the daily drama of teenage life—infuriating family members, raging bullies, and undeniably beautiful next-door neighbors. And the more entangled Ketchvar becomes, the harder it is to answer the question he was sent to Earth to resolve: Should the Sandovinians release the Gagnerian Death Ray and erase the human species for good? Or is it possible that Homo sapiens really are worth saving? Wickedly wry and hysterically skewed, David Klass's take on teen life on our fabulously flawed Planet Earth is an engrossing look at true friends, truer enemies, and awkward alien first kisses. Stuck on Earth is a 2011 Bank Street - Best Children's Book of the Year.

Download or read book Facing Tyson written by Ted Kluck and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2006-11-01 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A ring-level view on what is was like to face boxing's most notorious and brutal fighters.