Jack Gantos

After an explosion, a new crime by an old murderer, and the sad passing of the founder of Norvelt, Pennsylvania, twelve-year-old Jack accompanies his slightly mental elderly mentor, Miss Volker, on a cross-country run as she pursues the oddest of outlaws.

In his family's new rental home on a down-at-the heels street in sun-beaten Miami -- with dog-eating alligators in the canal out back, a dangerously attractive girl across the road, and the unhinged Pagoda family next door -- fourteen-year-old Jack is adrift, losing a sense of who he is and what he's all about. Which is why he ends up trying to morph himself into someone he's not, that someone being sixteen-year-old Gary Pagoda, a.k.a. Scary Gary,...

The author relates how, as a young adult, he became a drug user and smuggler, was arrested, did time in prison, and eventually got out and went to college, all the while hoping to become a writer.

Joey, who is still taking medication to keep him from getting too wired, goes to spend the summer with the hard-drinking father he has never known and tries to help the baseball team he coaches win the championship.

Sarah's rotten cat Ralph goes to a Halloween costume party dressed as her and creates horrible mischief under the protection of his disguise.

Ralph, a very, very, nasty cat, finally sees the error of his ways--or does he?

Joey's father returns, calling himself Charles Heinz and apologizing for his past bad behavior, and he swears that once Joey and his mother change their names and help him fix up the old diner he has bought, their lives will change for the better.

"Ralph takes a swing through his family tree to find out why he's so rotten"--

When Rotten Ralph, the cat, fails to win a spot on a baseball team with his friend Sarah, he becomes the "cat boy" instead, still dreaming of proving himself the superstar he imagines himself to be.

Presents a collection of humorous stories featuring an array of characters with and without capes. Heroes and Villains, the seventh volume in Jon Scieszka's Guys Read Library of Great Reading, is chock-full of adventure featuring an array of characters--with and without capes. Featuring ten all-new, original stories that run the gamut from fantasy to comics to contemporary adventure to nonfiction, and featuring eleven of the most acclaimed, exciting...