Leon and his miscreant buddies from the gifted pool are mad as hell, and they're not going to take it anymore! Their favorite downtown coffeeshop, Sip -- the only survivor in the barren moonscape of decrepit Old Downtown -- is in danger of being run ...
It all starts with an assignment. Leon's "gifted and talented" class has to make educational videos for the sixth and seventh graders. Leon originally chooses "sex ed" as his subject in the hopes of showing a flash of boob. But as time goes on, his p...
COME SPELLING BEE season, the tiny town of Preston erupts in excitement: the bee is televised, and the hottest ticket in town. This year, an assortment of sixth-grade miscreants is going for the top prize: Jennifer, an overscheduled free spirit whose...
A dynamic and hilarious new hero for early middle-grade.Andrew "Danger" North is no ordinary third-grader. He, his brother, Jack, and his father are spies. That is what Jack has always told him, and everything Andrew has learned from his dad’s favo...
Algonquin Ali Rhodes, the high school newspaper's music critic, meets an intriguing singer, Doug, while reviewing a gig. He's a weird-looking guy--goth, but he seems sincere about it, like maybe he was into it back before it was cool. She introduces ...
Jennifer Van Der Berg would like you to know that the book ostensibly written about her -- Born to Be Extraordinary by Eileen Codlin -- is a bunch of bunk. Yes, she had a fairy godparent mess with her life, but no, she was not made into a princess or...
NEWLY CORRECTEDIn 1896, H.H. Holmes, "arch fiend of the century," was paid to write a "confession" by newspapers. Published a month before his execution, he confessed to twenty-seven murders. Today he's suspected of far more, but many of those he co...
Did the murderous H.H. Holmes put a curse on all those present at his trial? And did so many of them die that some believed Holmes was taking revenge from beyond the grave? Stories of Holmes and his "Evil Eye" have been circulating since before his e...
When Mrs. Kingfield's class is assigned to write a story, Brendan Butte is just joking around when he starts writing one about a kid who has to go to the bathroom really, really, badly, but the only one is on top of a ten story obstacle course. Howev...
A committed slacker enlists the help of his best friend (who may or may not be the devil) to get his act together in this novel filled with humor, awkwardness, and honesty, ideal for fans of The Perks of Being a Wallflower. Leon Harris isn’t exc...
From the author of Play Me Backwards and I Kissed a Zombie and I Liked It comes a dark comedy about one teen’s unusual summer job as a ghost tour guide in Chicago. Megan Henske isn’t one to heed warnings… When the last letters in her alph...
Jake is trying to scrape up enough money delivering pizza to make a trip to Chicago when Violet Annie Moss appears in the back seat of his car. She's dressed like she just ran away from a production of My Fair Lady and smoking a pipe tobacco cigarett...