Middle School Bites Tom Bites Back

When a nerdy, unpopular high school senior notices his resemblance to Bob Dylan, he leaves home for Greenwich Village, in 1963, to become a folk singer.

There's a story going around about the mayor of Ravens Pass being a witch. Could it be true?

Heather Nuhfer and P.C. Morrissey team up in this fun story about game night with the Titans! The Titans have a regular game of Basements and Basilisks, but when the basement boss (Robin, of course) tries to make the game super fun by making it super-impossible to win, the team rebels. Their new BB is much more fun-and she actually lets them complete their quests, which is excellent motivation to keep playing. But the Boy Wonder begins to worry that the Titans will be trapped in their imaginations forever, going on endless, easy-breezy quests, neglecting their duties in Jump City. There might also be problems with the campaign's most important relic, the "Anklet of Extreme Crushing (and Chafing)," which Robin has tightly clasped to his leg.

Guardians of the Galaxy meets Minecraft in the second installment of this hilarious sci-fi series. After narrowly escaping death and saving Paragon from destruction, Elara Adele Vaughn is back in action to start her second year at the Seven Systems Academy of Terraforming Arts. But she's done being a hero this time around--Elara just wants to learn how to build new worlds with her best friends Knot, Beezle, Sabik, and her alien-sponge roommate, Clare. But when an evil time-hopping force threatens to take down the galactic order, Elara's "normal" school year might turn into something weird. But what's a little danger for the Academy's most troublemaking student and her oddball crew of friends? Based on the real science behind terraforming, this action-packed story mixes world-building adventures with side-splitting humor, plus a dash of intergalactic madness.

Tom the Vam-Wolf-Zom is back - and so is the vampire bat that bit him - in this monstrously funny series about a boy who's dying to fit in. "Fast! Funny! Fresh!" - Chris Grabenstein, #1 New York Times best-selling author of the Mr. Lemoncello's Library series "What are you waiting for? Open this book right now!" - Tom Angleberger, New York Times best-selling author of the Origami Yoda series Eleven-year-old Tom was bit by a vampire, a werewolf, and a zombie right before the first day of middle school. It was a weird and crazy day. And the worst part? Even a Vam-Wolf-Zom needs to go to sixth grade. At least his neighbors and classmates seem to have accepted him. Annie even wants him to join her band! Plus, there are some cool things about having vampire and werewolf traits. Tom has night vision now, and he's super-fast and strong. (There's nothing cool about being a zombie.) Maybe life as a Vam-Wolf-Zom will be as EXCELLENT as his best friend, Zeke, predicted. But when the bat that bit Tom shows up again, and speaks to him, he knows it's time for a new plan. Tom's laugh-out-loud adventures continue as he navigates normal sixth grade stuff - singing in a band, dressing up for Halloween, tolerating his older sister - despite being the only Vam-Wolf-Zom known to humankind. Created by an Emmy-nominated writer for SpongeBob, The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron, and CatDog, this hilarious series is illustrated with clever, cartoon-style art on every spread. Don't miss Middle School Bites, the first book in the series!

From bestselling and National Book Award-winning author M. T. Anderson comes the paperback reissue of a middle-grade adventure starring two of the most disarmingly deadpan boys you'll ever meet.When Brian and Gregory receive an invitation to stay at a distant relative's strange manse . . . well, they should know better than to go, but since this is a middle-grade adventure novel, they go anyway. Why not? Once there, they stumble upon The Game of Sunken Places, a board game that mirrors a greater game for which they have suddenly became players. Soon the boys are dealing with attitudinal trolls, warring kingdoms, and some very starchy britches. Luckily, they have wit, deadpan observation, and a keen sense of adventure on their side.

Picture books aren't just for little kids. They are powerful and engaging texts that can help all middle school students succeed in language arts, math, science, social studies, and the arts. Picture books appeal to students of all readiness levels, interests, and learning styles. Featuring descriptions and activities for fifty exceptional titles, Mary Jo Fresch and Peggy Harkins offer a wealth of ideas for harnessing the power of picture books to improve reading and writing in the content areas. The authors provide a synopsis of each title along with discipline-specific and cross-curricular activities that illustrate how picture books can be used to supplement--and sometimes even replace--traditional textbooks. They also offer title suggestions that create a "text set" of supporting resources. By incorporating picture books into the classroom, teachers across the disciplines can introduce new topics into their curriculum, help students develop nonfiction literacy skills, provide authentic and meaningful cultural perspectives, and help meet a wide range of learning needs.

Before he wrote the bestselling 100 Cupboards trilogy and Ashtown Burials series, N. D. Wilson delighted readers with his first unforgettable action-adventure story of survival. . . . Thomas Hammond has always lived next to Leepike Ridge, but he never imagined he might end up lost beneath it! The night Tom’s schoolteacher comes to dinner and asks Tom’s mother to marry him, Tom slips out of the house and escapes down a nearby stream on a floating slab of packing foam. The night and stars lull Tom to sleep, and when he wakes, he has ridden his foam raft all the way to the ridge, where the stream dives underground. Flung over rapids and tossed through chasms, Tom finally hits shore, sore but alive. What Tom finds under Leepike Ridge—a dog, a flashlight, a castaway, a tomb, and buried treasure—will answer questions he hadn’t known to ask, and change his life forever. Now, if only he can find his way home again. . . . In the grand tradition of Robinson Crusoe, Hatchet, and Tom Sawyer, N. D. Wilson’s first book for young readers is a remarkable adventure, a journey through the dark and back into the light. A New York Public Library 100 Titles for Reading and Sharing “This is a ripping good adventure yarn. . . . Here’s the perfect remedy for any summer that’s been disappointingly short on thrills.”—The Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books, Starred “Wilson’s debut is a literate, sometimes humorous page-turner in the classic tradition. Well-read adventure lovers are in for a treat looking for echoes of The Odyssey and Tom Sawyer.”—Kirkus Reviews “Tom’s adventures have several literary ancestors, including Tom and Huck in the cave, and the inventive Swiss Family Robinson, but this is solidly set in the present, standing on its own with well-crafted suspense and fascinating survival detail. . . . [M]iddle-grade readers will also relish the physicality of the journey: underwater swims, tight passages, and rock climbing. . . . [An] appealing and easy-to-booktalk package.”—Booklist “Wilson sets the scene vividly, from Tom’s home to the labyrinth of tunnels and caverns under the mountain, and the central characters’ emotional lives develop both naturally and affectingly. [Readers] will appreciate both the fast-paced adventure and Tom’s determination to make the impossible journey back home.”—The Horn Book Magazine “Wilson’s rich imagination and his quirky characters are a true delight.”—School Library Journal