Hole In My Life

Becoming a writer the hard way In the summer of 1971, Jack Gantos was an aspiring writer looking for adventure, cash for college tuition, and a way out of a dead-end job. For ten thousand dollars, he recklessly agreed to help sail a sixty-foot yacht loaded with a ton of hashish from the Virgin Islands to New York City, where he and his partners sold the drug until federal agents caught up with them. For his part in the conspiracy, Gantos was sentenced to serve up to six years in prison. In Hole in My Life, this prizewinning author of over thirty books for young people confronts the period of struggle and confinement that marked the end of his own youth. On the surface, the narrative tumbles from one crazed moment to the next as Gantos pieces together the story of his restless final year of high school, his short-lived career as a criminal, and his time in prison. But running just beneath the action is the story of how Gantos – once he was locked up in a small, yellow-walled cell – moved from wanting to be a writer to writing, and how dedicating himself more fully to the thing he most wanted to do helped him endure and ultimately overcome the worst experience of his life. This title has Common Core connections. Hole in My Life is a 2003 Bank Street - Best Children's Book of the Year.

This fiery autobiographical novel captures a pivotal week or two in the life of fourteen-year-old Jack Gantos, as the author reveals the moment he began to slide off track as a kid who in just a few years would find himself locked up in a federal penitentiary for the crimes portrayed in the memoir Hole in My Life. Set in the Fort Lauderdale neighborhood of his family's latest rental home, The Trouble in Me opens with an explosive encounter in which Jack first meets his awesomely rebellious older neighbor, Gary Pagoda, just back from juvie for car theft. Instantly mesmerized, Jack decides he will do whatever it takes to be like Gary. As a follower, Jack is eager to leave his old self behind, and desperate for whatever crazy, hilarious, frightening thing might happen next. But he may not be as ready as he thinks when the trouble in him comes blazing to life. This title has Common Core connections.

Dead End in Norvelt is the winner of the 2012 Newbery Medal for the year's best contribution to children's literature and the Scott O'Dell Award for Historical Fiction! Melding the entirely true and the wildly fictional, Dead End in Norvelt is a novel about an incredible two months for a kid named Jack Gantos, whose plans for vacation excitement are shot down when he is "grounded for life" by his feuding parents, and whose nose spews bad blood at every little shock he gets. But plenty of excitement (and shocks) are coming Jack's way once his mom loans him out to help a fiesty old neighbor with a most unusual chore—typewriting obituaries filled with stories about the people who founded his utopian town. As one obituary leads to another, Jack is launced on a strange adventure involving molten wax, Eleanor Roosevelt, twisted promises, a homemade airplane, Girl Scout cookies, a man on a trike, a dancing plague, voices from the past, Hells Angels . . . and possibly murder. Endlessly surprising, this sly, sharp-edged narrative is the author at his very best, making readers laugh out loud at the most unexpected things in a dead-funny depiction of growing up in a slightly off-kilter place where the past is present, the present is confusing, and the future is completely up in the air.

Starting a new life after the death of her mother, Nora learns how to be strong. Are there wounds too deep to heal, pains too sharp to share? And if a family survives by cutting the ties that bind them, can they ever be whole again? After losing her mother to illness and her father to his work, Nora Mackenzie must leave her home in the interior of B.C. for a North Vancouver school. Estranged from her classmates, her family, and the life she’s lost, Nora walls herself off from the people around her. At the same time, her young cousin Lizzie is facing an uncertain future as one of the first children to undergo open-heart surgery. As the operation approaches, Nora discovers that she is not the only person in her family isolated by fear and grief.

Following twenty years of close friendship with author Wilbert Smith, Vertus Hardiman reveals the truth about his horrifying experience hidden since age five. His life is a moving example of humility, success, and achievement while enduring long standing suffering. The story tells of Vertus Hardiman and nine other children, each attending the same elementary school in Lyles Station Indiana-who, in 1927, was severely irradiated during a medical experiment conducted at the local county hospital. The experiment was misrepresented as a newly developed cure for the scalp fungus known as ringworm. But in reality, the ringworm fungus was merely the lure used to gain access to children whose unsuspecting parents blindly signed permission slips for the treatment. Vertus was age five and the youngest. As remarkable and shocking as the story may appear, it is not an indictment on inhumane government-sanctioned medical experimentation. Rather, Hole in the Head: a Life Revealed reflects the incredible strength of one man who survived the harshest imaginable circumstances through the power of who and what he was determined to become. His simplicity and life philosophy always lifted the spirits of those he touched. Remarkably, not one person in Vertus's community was aware of his suffering because he always wore a wig or woolen beanie cap to hide his shame. He stated, "For over seventy-one years, only four individuals outside a few medical specialists have ever seen my condition. I hide it because I look like some monster." But in reality, Vertus was the kindest example of human love Wilbert had ever met-always choosing love over hate and success over excuses and failure. This incredible story inspires us to change our outlook on life, while teaching the true meaning of love, forgiveness, and acceptance. Journey with us through this rich and unforgettable story

Designed to inspire self-discovery, "There's a Hole in My Sidewalk" contains more than 100 touching poems that gently guide readers to a more authentic and fulfilling life.

In 1995 an American doctor made the amazing discovery that some people actually have holes in their head. And many can even hear their own eyes moving. Years later, the author found out that she was one of them. This is her remarkable true story. Embarking on a much-needed weekend of respite from the care of her disabled son, Philippa's life is turned upside down when the flight triggers a rare balance disorder. With symptoms as disturbing and wide-ranging as the sound of her eyes moving, her heartbeat pounding and pulse whooshing in her ear, brain fog and debilitating dizziness, can she adapt her well-honed research skills to medical sleuthing, and obtain a diagnosis within a health system that is letting her down at every turn? A HOLE IN MY LIFE chronicles an extraordinary series of medical challenges which are met with resilience, courage and determination. Destined to be a classic on the subject of dizziness, the book deftly guides the reader through fascinating and valuable information about all inner ear and balance disorders, information that has been authenticated by two specialists in this field. The author never loses sight of the humour in her unenviable situation and the sparkling narrative moves at a swift pace. It is a must-read for anyone who has ever been, or ever will be, a patient. "A compelling account of awe-inspiring resilience, courage and determination. The resulting story is full of important information, information offered in the words of a delightful and engaging individual." Harriet Spicer, business coach and founder member of Virago Press. If you like compelling prose and emotional true stories, don't miss this absorbing read. Follow the unexpected twists and turns in the riveting medical mystery, and buy A HOLE IN MY LIFE today. Latest estimates suggest that as many as one in a thousand people may be affected by this condition, and yet most people have never even heard of it.

This groundbreaking classic is now available in a special anniversary edition with bonus content. Winner of the Newbery Medal as well as the National Book Award, HOLES is a New York Times bestseller and one of the strongest-selling middle-grade books to ever hit shelves! Stanley Yelnats is under a curse. A curse that began with his no-good-dirty-rotten-pig-stealing-great-great-grandfather and has since followed generations of Yelnatses. Now Stanley has been unjustly sent to a boys' detention center, Camp Green Lake, where the boys build character by spending all day, every day digging holes exactly five feet wide and five feet deep. There is no lake at Camp Green Lake. But there are an awful lot of holes. It doesn't take long for Stanley to realize there's more than character improvement going on at Camp Green Lake. The boys are digging holes because the warden is looking for something. But what could be buried under a dried-up lake? Stanley tries to dig up the truth in this inventive and darkly humorous tale of crime and punishment —and redemption. Special anniversary edition bonus content includes: A New Note From the Author!; "Ten Things You May Not Know About HOLES" by Louis Sachar; and more!