Fiction

The summer I was 12, mowing lawns with Grandpa's old riding mower turned into big business. With advice from Arnold the stockbroker, I learned all about making money.

Kevin has a big talent. Some might call it compulsive lying. He calls it common sense.

Henry Mosley decides that he and his pals Riley and Reed need to go on some earth-shaking adventures and make a name for themselves. Henry is the mastermind; Riley's the researcher who's prepared for anything. And somehow fearful Reed always ends up with the scariest, craziest assignments.

Cowboy stories and movies about the Wild West are full of amazing characters. Yet many of the lawmen we think of as heroes were anything but - some were violent scoundrels and outlaws themselves. Among all the lawmen of the frontier, one man stands out as a true hero: Bass Reeves.

For a 16-year-old boy out in the world alone for the first time, every day is an education in the hard work and boredom of migrant labor; every day teaches him something more about friendship, or hunger, or profanity, or lust - always lust. He learns how a poker game, or hitching a ride, can turn deadly.

I should have seen it coming. A long time before it came I should have known. I was six or seven years old and there was a girl living next door named Peggy. She was a year older than me and a lot stronger and we were wrestling and she held me down....

More teetering tales and quirky characters from the 30th floor of towering Wayside School. The craziness continues.

Joe, Fred, and Sam have no idea why they've been transported to a playground. All they know is that there's a 250-pound chicken and it's headed straight for them. While Joe's racking his brains for the magic words to stop a charging chicken, he suddenly has a flash of what's going to happen next. It's exactly like the book he just read.

How did Joe, Fred, and Sam end up in King Arthur's court? It all started with The Book, a present from Joe's magician uncle. One minute they were looking at pictures of knights in The Book, and the next minute they are knights, battling fire-breathing dragons and gross-smelling giants!

The all-important Book transports Joe from a swimming pool to ancient China, where he meets a traveling Marco Polo.

Everyone's favorite time-travelers are changing their style! This time, the Time Warp Trio are sent back to ancient Rome, where they enter gladiator school and the Coliseum!

This fast-paced, high-energy collection of short works features today's most popular writers and illustrators writing about what it means to be a guy. Contributors include Chris Crutcher, Stephen King, Matt Groening, Daniel Pinkwater, Neil Gaiman, and many more.

Everyone's favorite time-travelers are changing their style! The Time Warp Trio® series now features brand-new, eye-catching art in a modern design, sure to appeal to longtime fans and those new to Jon Scieszka's wacky brand of humor.

Peanut butter and jelly. George and Martha. Frog and Toad. Cowboy and...Octopus? Yes, that's right. Meet Cowboy and Octopus - the next great pair to become a household name. Cowboy likes beans'n'bacon and bacon'n'beans. Octopus eats raw seafood. Octopus prefers knock-knock jokes, but Cowboy doesn't get them. How will these two ever be friends?

Sure we'd all love to be able to go around telling stories about all the weird, scary, and just plain annoying people that we know. But the truth is, no one likes a gossip. Here, the irrepressible Jon Scieszka has found a way around that problem: he just makes like Aesop and changes all the people to animals or food, adds a moral to each story, and calls the stories fables!