Bugs Life

Listen along as Woody and the gang go on a campout; Anna, Elsa, and Olaf have a slumber party; Pongo puts his puppies to bed; and more! With one story for every day of the year, bedtime has never been so much fun.

While the world seems to be in love with the idea of tiny houses and minimalism, many of us simply can't purge it all and start from nothing. Yet a home with too much stuff is difficult to maintain, so where do we begin? Add in paralyzing emotional attachments and constant life challenges, and it can feel almost impossible to make real decluttering progress.

Madeline is a force to be reckoned with. She’s funny, biting, and passionate; she remembers everything and forgives no one. Celeste is the kind of beautiful woman who makes the world stop and stare, but she is paying a price for the illusion of perfection. New to town, single mom Jane is so young that another mother mistakes her for a nanny. She comes with a mysterious past and a sadness beyond her years. These three women are at different crossroads, but they will all wind up in the same shocking place.

Edward Bloom, an aging salesman, is dying. As his grown son, William, cares for him, the young man tries to focus on what he knows about his father’s life. Story after story surfaces in William’s memory, and he shares mythic visions of a fantastic father who was loved by all - a man who was the best runner, fisherman, businessman, and adventurer in the world. Big Fish tells these tall tales of Edward Bloom’s life. Punctuated with his vast repertory of jokes, they set the stage for Edward’s final, wonderful transformation.

For as long as she can remember, June Bug and her father have traveled the back roads of the country in their beat-up RV, spending many nights parked at Walmart. One morning, as she walks past the greeter at the front of the store, her eyes are drawn to the pictures of missing children, where she is shocked to see herself. This discovery begins a quest for the truth about her father, the mother he rarely speaks about, and ultimately herself.

Maximillian Fly wants no trouble. Yet because he stands at six feet two, with beautiful indigo wings, long antennae, and more arms than you or me, many are frightened of him. He is a gentle creature who looks like a giant cockroach. This extraordinary human wants to prove his goodness, so he opens his door to two SilverSeed children in search of a place to hide. Instantly, Maximillian’s quiet, solitary life changes. There are dangerous powers after them and they have eyes everywhere. But in this gray city of Hope trapped under the Orb, is escape even possible?

The deeply personal and complex human traits of worthiness, deserving, self-worth, and self-esteem, govern our success. How we value ourselves plays such a critical role in what opportunities we pursue that it can hardly be overstated. Self-worth is an ever-changing pair of glasses that broadens or limits our view of the world, colors every life experience, and propels us to take action or grounds us in stagnation. Self-worth is the foundation of all our choices, all our reactions, and all our efforts.

With its trillions of connections, the human brain is more beautiful and complex than anything we could ever build, but it’s far from perfect: our memory is unreliable; we can’t multiply large sums in our heads; advertising manipulates our judgment; we tend to distrust people who are different from us; supernatural beliefs and superstitions are hard to shake; we prefer instant gratification to long-term gain; and what we presume to be rational decisions are often anything but.

If you are at all interested in life on our planet, then you need to know about insects. They are the most successful group of animals ever to have lived on Earth. Making up three-quarters of all animal species, insects conquered the planet long ago. They were among the very first animals to appear on land and were the first to take to the air. Their total biomass is at least 10 times that of all humans and our livestock combined. Join Dr. George McGavin on an exciting audio journey to help us understand the fascinating world of insects.

Ben Folds is a celebrated American singer-songwriter, beloved for songs such as "Brick", "You Don’t Know Me", "Rockin’ the Suburbs", and "The Luckiest", and is the former frontman of the alternative rock band Ben Folds Five. But Folds will be the first to tell you he’s an unconventional icon, more normcore than hardcore. Now, in his first book, Folds looks back at his life so far in a charming and wise chronicle of his artistic coming of age, infused with the wry observations of a natural storyteller.

Author Kathleen Van Cleve delivers a promising debut with this magical novel. Eleven-year-old Polly Peabody lives on a farm like no other. It rains every Monday at 1:00 p.m., the crops taste like chocolate, the bugs can communicate, and Polly’s best friend is a rhubarb plant named Harry. But when the weekly downpours stop, and Polly’s brother grows ill, she must figure out how to make it rain again—or her family’s future could be destroyed.

When Mia moves to Vermont the summer after seventh grade, she's recovering from the broken arm she got falling off a balance beam. And packed away in the moving boxes under her clothes and gymnastics trophies is a secret she'd rather forget. Mia's change in scenery brings day camp, new friends, and time with her beloved grandmother. But Gram is convinced someone is trying to destroy her cricket farm. Is it sabotage or is Gram's thinking impaired from the stroke she suffered months ago?

In the 35th Horrible Harry book, Doug has a horrible problem: head lice! When Doug discovers head lice in his hair, he's grossed out and embarrassed. Some of his classmates make fun of him for being dirty. Fortunately, with the help of good friends and the kind school nurse, Doug gets over his embarrassment, kills the bugs, and gets an award-winning science fair project out of the experience!

With just one bite, a wakeful flea atop a pile of sleeping creatures causes a commotion.

Eleven-year-old Leo is an "armchair adventurer." This, according to Dad, means he'd choose adventures in books or video games over real-life experiences. And while Leo hates the label, he can’t argue with it. Unlike his little sister Lizzie, Leo is not a risk-taker.

More than a hundred million years ago, the Sahara Desert was a rain forest and home to SuperCroc.

It’s the summer of 1987, and all ten-year-old Bug wants to do is go to the beach with her older brother and hang out with the locals on the boardwalk. But Danny wants to be with his own friends, and Bug’s mom is too busy, so Bug is stuck with their neighbor Philip’s nephew, Frankie.

After James gets a pen-and-ink set for his birthday, Marvin the beetle surprises him by creating an elaborate miniature drawing. James gets all the credit for the picture and before these unlikely friends know it they are caught up in a staged art heist at the Metropolitan Museum of Art that could help recover a famous drawing by Albrecht Dürer. But James can't go through with the plan without Marvin's help. And that's where things get really complicated (and interesting!)

In the singular world of the young, deaf narrator of Bug, there are just a handful of people who try to understand him when he gets into trouble at school. His father, a data analyst for Nutella whose real job is to pinpoint terrorists, is clueless about humans in real life. His brilliant brother, called IQ in public and Robin Hood in the hackersphere, has his back but is ever busier training his robot.

Ben Folds is an internationally celebrated musician, singer-songwriter and former frontman of the alternative rock band, Ben Folds Five, beloved for songs such as ‘Brick’, ‘You Don’t Know Me’, ‘Rockin’ the Suburbs’ and ‘The Luckiest’. In A Dream About Lightning Bugs, Folds looks back at his life so far in a charming, funny and wise chronicle of his artistic coming of age, infused with the wry observations of a natural storyteller. He opens up about finding his voice as a musician, becoming a rock anti-hero, and hauling a baby grand piano on and off stage for every performance.