A secret society of Janitors with wizard-like powers continue their battle, and now, the stakes are even higher. The Bureau of Educational Maintenance is after Alan Zumbro and this time they mean business - deadly business. Spencer, Daisy, and their little team of rebels must find the source of all magical Glop and destroy it before it can destroy the world as we know it. No small task with the BEM and their monster toxites at their heels. It's a wild and dangerous ride as they follow the trail of clues all the way to the hiding place of the mysterious aurans: guardians of a secret landfill. What they discover there will change the way Spencer sees himself, not to mention the fate of the rebels.

The stakes have never been higher, and you've never seen squeegees do this before! It is a wild and slightly unsanitary ride as Spencer, Daisy, and the rebels find themselves chased by Mr. Clean's new and terrifying breed of toxite the Sweepers. Time is short. With the fabled Manualis Custodem in hand, Spencer must figure out how to summon the founding witches if they ever hope to mop up and save education. What critics are saying about Janitors: "An enormously entertaining book." Orson Scott Card "An entertaining ruckus." Kirkus Reviews "Action-packed and surprising! Readers will become convinced of the value of telling the truth, while having a lot of fun along the way." Publishers Weekly "Entertaining . . . with plenty of twists and turns." Brandon Mull, author of Fablehaven and Beyonders series

No one takes Spencer Zumbro seriously when he tried to warn his classmates about the mysterious things prowling the halls and classrooms of Welcher Elementary School. But when he sees Marv, the janitor, going after one of the creatures with a vacuum, he knows he's not the only one who can see them. With the help of his new friends, Daisy, Spencer has to find out what the janitors know. The children's search uncovers the magic taking place behind the scenes of their seemingly ordinary school, where a battle is being waged for the minds of the students. Who can be trusted—and can Spencer and Daisy protect their school and possibly the world? 

Although their enemies are powerful, their allies few, Spencer and his team of Rebels are not giving up! But what chance do a handful of kids and one rescued janitor have against the combined evil of the Founding Witches and the Sweepers? Can the Rebels close the source of all Glop and stop the Toxites once and for all—or is the world doomed to fall under the control of the sinister Bureau of Educational Maintenance? This explosive series finale is a gripping ride through conflicted loyalties and daring escapes, unexpected alliances and betrayals, and an ending you'll never forget!

This much-anticipated follow-up to Jonathan Auxier’s exceptional debut, Peter Nimble and His Fantastic Eyes, is a Victorian ghost story with shades of Washington Irving and Henry James. More than just a spooky tale, it’s also a moral fable about human greed and the power of storytelling. The Night Gardener follows two abandoned Irish siblings who travel to work as servants at a creepy, crumbling English manor house. But the house and its family are not quite what they seem. Soon the children are confronted by a mysterious spectre and an ancient curse that threatens their very lives. With Auxier’s exquisite command of language, The Night Gardener is a mesmerizing read and a classic in the making.

A jaw-dropping adventure from the New York Times bestselling series is here. Long before humans walked the land, it came to Erdas. Wicked, patient, and hungry, it has slept beneath the surface of the world. Now the Wyrm is awakening. Conor, Abeke, Meilin, and Rollan are four heroes who are split between worlds, braving separate paths in order to stop this evil. With a strange and unlikely new group of allies behind them, the young guardians have a real chance at saving their home--but they will have to move fast. An ancient trap exists, hidden within the folds of Erdas itself. Though it has the power to end this war for good, the means of starting the trap have been lost. The young heroes only have one shot. They must work with their spirit animals to uncover a secret older than time. If they can't, then everything will be consumed.

A brand-new novel by one of today's most powerful storytellers, Sweep is a heart-rending adventure about the everlasting gifts of friendship and hope. For nearly a century, Victorian London relied on "climbing boys"--orphans owned by chimney sweeps--to clean flues and protect homes from fire. The work was hard, thankless and brutally dangerous. Eleven-year-old Nan Sparrow is quite possibly the best climber who ever lived--and a girl. With her wits and will, she's managed to beat the deadly odds time and time again. But when Nan gets stuck in a deadly chimney fire, she fears her time has come. Instead, she wakes to find herself in an abandoned attic. And she is not alone. Huddled in the corner is a mysterious creature--a golem--made from ash and coal. This is the creature that saved her from the fire. Sweep is the story of a girl and her monster. Together, these two outcasts carve out a life together--saving one another in the process.

It’s been two years since Peter Nimble and Sir Tode rescued the kingdom of HazelPort. In that time, they have traveled far and wide in search of adventure. Now Peter and Sir Tode have been summoned by Professor Cake for a new mission: find a 12-year-old girl named Sophie Quire. Sophie knows little beyond the four walls of her father’s bookshop, where she works as a bookmender and dreams of leaving the confines of her city walls. But when a strange boy and his talking cat/horse companion show up searching for a rare and mysterious book, she finds herself pulled into an adventure beyond anything she has ever read.

Peter Nimble and His Fantastic Eyes is the utterly beguiling tale of a ten-year-old blind orphan who has been schooled in a life of thievery. One fateful afternoon, he steals a box from a mysterious traveling haberdasher—a box that contains three pairs of magical eyes. When he tries the first pair, he is instantly transported to a hidden island where he is presented with a special quest: to travel to the dangerous Vanished Kingdom and rescue a people in need. Along with his loyal sidekick—a knight who has been turned into an unfortunate combination of horse and cat—and the magic eyes, he embarks on an unforgettable, swashbuckling adventure to discover his true destiny.

After breaking ties with the deadly Pirate King, Dean Seaborne thought he had left his life of spying and pirating behind. But when the merciless thief Captain Skinner threatens Dean's allies, Dean agrees to one last job. Along with his trusted friends Ronan and Waverly, he agrees to help rob a sea-based resort for the richest of nobles. They'll pose as a band of traveling performers and then lead Skinner to the loot. But the moment Dean reaches the resort, the plan changes. The getaway is actually a gateway--to the undersea kingdom of Atlantis. And a civil war is brewing in the depths, with Dean soon to be caught in the middle of it. As his enemies multiply, above and below the waves, Dean finds himself in over his head like never before.

Middle-grade adventure readers will love this fresh take on classic pirate tropes. Fans of Percy Jackson and The Chronicles of Egg will enjoy Dean Seaborne's adventures on the sea.  Dean Seaborne is thrown off his ship by the Pirate King and given one last chance to redeem himself before he meets Davy Jones's locker. He has to spy on the Pirate King's biggest rival, Gentleman Jim Harper, and find the treasure hidden on the mysterious island of Zenhala.  Once on Zenhala, Dean finds that the inhabitants of the island think he is the lost prince who went missing 13 year ago. In order to fulfill his mission for the Pirate King, Dean undergoes intense and fantastical trials to prove he is the lost prince. But the longer Dean stays on the island, the more he questions his mission.

All Jack Blank knows is his bleak, dreary life at St. Barnaby’s Home for the Hopeless, Abandoned, Forgotten, and Lost, an orphanage that sinks further into the swampland of New Jersey with each passing year. His aptitude tests predict that he will spend a long, unhappy career as a toilet brush cleaner. His only chance at escape comes through the comic books donated years ago to the orphanage that he secretly reads in the dark corners of the library. Everything changes one icy gray morning when Jack receives two visitors that alter his life forever. The first is a deadly robot straight out of one of his comic books that tries its best to blow him up. The second is an emissary from a secret country called the Imagine Nation, an astonishing place where all the fantastic and unbelievable things in our world originate — including Jack. Jack soon discovers that he has an amazing ability — one that could make him the savior of the Imagine Nation and the world beyond, or the biggest threat they've ever faced.

Jack Blank is living the dream as a celebrity superhero-in-training in the Imagine Nation. Unfortunately, Jack's dream has a nightmare lurking under the surface- a shocking connection to the enemy supersoldier Revile, and a deadly Rüstov plot he can't tell anyone about... not even his closest friends. When the heroes of the Imagine Nation discover that an attack by Rüstov sleeper agents is imminent, Jack is forced to trust his friends in a race against the clock to fight back mass hysteria, find the enemy spies, and thwart the Rüstov plans in time to prevent a devastating invasion.

Jack Blank confronts his destiny in this action-packed conclusion to the trilogy Publishers Weekly calls a “no-holds-barred adventure.” Ever since Jack Blank learned that he came from the amazing country of the Imagine Nation, he’s known that his fate could go down two very different paths—he could either be the greatest hero the world has ever known, or its greatest villain. Now the final battle is here, and it’s time for Jack to discover the direction of his destiny. The action-packed trilogy concludes with more surprises, twists, and adventure than ever—along with the same humor and heart that has brought so many fans to Jack’s story.

Perhaps you think fairies are figments of the imagination, or even relics of an ancient past. You may even think all fairies are lovely winged creatures, who dance in bluebell fields, granting wishes to anyone who should encounter them. You would be wrong on all counts. Fairies are very much alive today, and they are everywhere--in our cities, our backyards, and even our kitchen cupboards. Some of them are indeed the sweet-tempered, winged creatures of folklore, but the fairy family also includes goblins, trolls, brownies, and other strange creatures, some of which are revealed to humans in this book for the very first time. While many fairy breeds are harmless, others can be quite nasty or even dangerous.In this luxuriously illustrated guidebook, preeminent fairy expert Miss Edythe McFate shares her knowledge of the modern fairy world and includes practical advice on matters such as how to tell a good fairy from a bad one, how to spot a "fairy ring," how to...

Eleven-year-old Cornelia is the daughter of two world-famous pianists--a legacy that should feel fabulous, but instead feels just plain lonely. She surrounds herself with dictionaries and other books to isolate herself from the outside world. But when a glamorous neighbor named Virginia Somerset moves next door with her servant Patel and a mischievous French bulldog named Mister Kinyatta, Cornelia discovers that the world is a much more exciting place than she had originally thought.An unforgettable story of friendship and adventure that takes readers around the world and back again, Cornelia and the Audacious Escapades of the Somerset Sisters is a dazzling first novel by Lesley M. M. Blume.From the Hardcover edition.

The journals of Dr. Wendell Wellington Wiggins might just be the most extraordinary contribution to the study of the earth's past since the discovery of the Rosetta Stone. In the incredible pages of these thought-to-be-lost diaries, Dr. Wiggins--whom we now must consider the greatest paleozoologist of all time--has divulged the secrets of the truly ancient animal world: a world before human beings; a world before dinosaurs; a world that, until now, existed well beyond the outer reaches of human imagination. From deadly Amazonian Whispering Vines (Vitus Sussurus) to curious creatures called Brittle Bones (Futilis Ossis) to a mysterious pet named Gibear (Chiroptera Vicugna Pacosis), the discoveries of Dr. Wiggins will forever change the way we think about the world before us.

When her grandmother dies and the once-majestic family estate is sold, eleven-year-old Julia Lancaster and her aunt Constance must take to the road to find Julia's long-lost mother. They bring with them only the most practical travel things--silver candlestick holders, a few Oriental carpets, some steamer trunks, and Julia's beloved Brownie camera, which she will use to document their journey across 1960s America. On the road, Julia and her aunt meet a cast of peculiar characters, including guitar-strumming hippies in Greenwich Village, a legendary voodoo queen in New Orleans, the honorable proprietor of the World's End Cattle Ranch in Texas, and the colorful sheriff of Gold Point, Nevada (population: 1), who also happens to be the town's mayor, fire chief, and reverend. But will they find Julia's mother and a place to call home? Poignant, engaging, and funny, Lesley M. M. Blume's new novel is a meditation on the thin line between being an insider and being an...

The making of Ernest Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises, the outsize personalities who inspired it, and the vast changes it wrought on the literary world In the summer of 1925, Ernest Hemingway and a clique of raucous companions traveled to Pamplona, Spain, for the town's infamous running of the bulls. Then, over the next six weeks, he channeled that trip's maelstrom of drunken brawls, sexual rivalry, midnight betrayals, and midday hangovers into his groundbreaking novel The Sun Also Rises. This revolutionary work redefined modern literature as much as it did his peers, who would forever after be called the Lost Generation. But the full story of Hemingway's legendary rise has remained untold until now. Lesley Blume resurrects the explosive, restless landscape of 1920s Paris and Spain and reveals how Hemingway helped create his own legend. He made himself into a death-courting, bull-fighting aficionado; a hard-drinking, short-fused literary genius;...

Hauntingly beautiful and heartbreaking, Colm Tóibín's sixth novel, Brooklyn, is set in Brooklyn and Ireland in the early 1950s, when one young woman crosses the ocean to make a new life for herself.

I imagined lamplight, shadows, soft voices, clothes put away, the low sound of late news on the radio. And I thought as I crossed the bridge at Baggot Street to face the last stretch of my own journey home that no matter what I had done, I had not done that.' In the captivating stories that make up The Empty Family Colm Toibin delineates with a tender and unique sensibility lives of unspoken or unconscious longing, of individuals, often willingly, cast adrift from their history. From the young Pakistani immigrant who seeks some kind of permanence in a strange town to the Irish woman reluctantly returning to Dublin and discovering a city that refuses to acknowledge her long absence each of Toibin's stories manage to contain whole worlds: stories of fleeing the past and returning home, of family threads lost and ultimately regained.

In 1950, Katherine Proctor leaves Ireland for Barcelona, determined to escape her family and become a painter. There she meets Miguel, an anarchist veteran of the Spanish Civil War, and begins to build a life with him. But Katherine cannot escape her past, as Michael Graves, a fellow Irish émigré in Spain, forces her to reexamine all her relationships: to her lover, her art, and the homeland she only thought she knew. The South is a novel of classic themes--of art and exile, and of the seemingly irreconcilable yearnings for love and freedom--to which Colm Tóibín brings a new, passionate sensitivity.

'It is the battle between those who use a toothbrush and those who don't.' So wrote Augusta Gregory to W.B. Yeats; she was referring to the riots at the Abbey Theatre over The Playboy of the Western World, and she knew which side she was on. In this remarkable biographical essay, Colm Toibin examines the contradictions that defined the position of this essential figure in Irish cultural history, The wife of a landlord and MP who had been personally responsible for introducing measures that compounded the misery of the Irish peasantry during the Great Famine, Lady Gregory devoted much of her creative energy to idealizing the same peasantry — while never abandoning the aristocratic hauteur, the social connections or the great house which her birth and marriage had bequeathed her. Early in her writing life, her politics were staunchly unionist — yet she campaigned for the freedom of Egypt from colonial rule. Later she wrote plays celebrating rebellion, but trembled in...

A collection of pieces by contemporary Irish authors on John Milington Synge, from arguement to homage, from the school-room to the stage. Contributors include: offer Sebastian Barry, Marina Carr, Anthony Cronin,Roddy Doyle, Anne Enright, Hugo Hamilton, Joseph O'Connor, Mary O'Malley, Fintan O'Toole, Colm Toibin and Vincent Woods. Includes the One Act Synge play, 'When the Moon has Set'.

From the bestselling and award-winning author of Brooklyn and Nora Webster"If there is a more brilliant writer than Toibin working today, I don't know who that would be" Karen Joy Fowler, Irish Times"Tóibín creates suspense out of the simplest emotions: fear, love and, most poignantly, regret" TIMEFrom the thrilling imagination of bestselling, award-winning Colm Tóibín comes this ambitious, violent and modern retelling of one of our oldest and most enduring stories.I HAVE BEEN ACQUAINTED WITH THE SMELL OF DEATH.Judged, despised, cursed by gods she has long since lost faith in, the murderess Clytemnestra tells of the deception of Agamemnon, how he sacrificed her eldest daughter - her beloved Iphigenia - to the Trojan campaign; how Clytemnestra used what power she had, seducing the prisoner Aegisthus, turning the government against its lord; plotting the many long years until...

Eamon Redmond is a judge in Ireland's high court, a completely legal creature who is just beginning to discover how painfully unconnected he is from other human beings. With effortless fluency, Colm Tóibín reconstructs the history of Eamon's relationships--with his father, his first "girl," his wife, and the children who barely know him--and he writes about Eamon's affection for the Irish coast with such painterly skill that the land itself becomes a character. The result is a novel of stunning power, "seductive and absorbing" (USA Today).

From one of contemporary literature’s bestselling, critically acclaimed and beloved authors, a magnificent new novel set in Ireland, about a fiercely compelling young widow and mother of four, navigating grief and fear, struggling for hope. Set in Wexford, Ireland, Colm Tóibín’s superb seventh novel introduces the formidable, memorable and deeply moving Nora Webster. Widowed at forty, with four children and not enough money, Nora has lost the love of her life, Maurice, the man who rescued her from the stifling world to which she was born. And now she fears she may be drawn back into it. Wounded, strong-willed, clinging to secrecy in a tiny community where everyone knows your business, Nora is drowning in her own sorrow and blind to the suffering of her young sons, who have lost their father. Yet she has moments of stunning empathy and kindness, and when she begins to sing again, after decades, she finds solace, engagement, a haven—herself. Nora Webster is a masterpiece in character study by a writer at the zenith of his career, “beautiful and daring” (The New York Times Book Review) and able to “sneak up on readers and capture their imaginations” (USA TODAY). In Nora Webster, Tóibín has created a character as iconic, engaging and memorable as Madame Bovary or Hedda Gabler.**

In this fascinating, informative, and entertaining collection, internationally acclaimed, award-winning author Colm Tóibín turns his attention to the intricacies of family relationships in literature and writing.In pieces that range from the importance of aunts (and the death of parents) in the English nineteenth-century novel to the relationship between fathers and sons in the writing of James Baldwin and Barack Obama, Colm Tóibín illuminates not only the intimate connections between writers and their families but also, with wit and rare tenderness, articulates the great joy of reading their work. In the piece on the Notebooks of Tennessee Williams, Tóibín reveals an artist "alone and deeply fearful and unusually selfish" and one profoundly tormented by his sister's mental illness. Through the relationship between W.B. Yeats and his father, or Thomas Mann and his children, or J.M. Synge and his mother,...

Ever since V's mom dumped her with her grandparents, she's bounced from guy to guy. That is, until a fateful hockey puck lands her in the lap of Sam Almond, who is different from the start. But V makes an irreversible mistake at her graduation party and risks losing Sam forever, spurring her on a cross-country road trip to visit her mom in hopes of putting two thousand miles between herself, Sam, and the wreckage of that night. With humor and compassion, Carolyn Mackler takes readers on an unforgettable ride of missed exits, misadventures, and the kind of epiphanies that come only when you're on a route you've never taken before.

Printz Honor and New York Times bestselling author Carolyn Mackler brings honesty and charm to this story of a friendship between two girls. Meet Hannah. Her name is a palindrome. Her birthday is on New Year's. She wishes she had a cat. She's medium height and a little awkward. Her life has NOT been fun lately—her dad and stepmom are having a baby and, worst of all, her best friend next door just moved away. Now a new girl is here, taking over her best friend's bedroom...and her own identity. Meet Emme. Her name is a palindrome. Her birthday is on New Year's. She loves her enormous orange cat. She's so short that last week she was mistaken for a kindergartner. She's found moving hard...but at least there's the girl next door, Hannah. Maybe they'll become friends? While Hannah and Emme are alike in so many ways, they're also different in some wrong ways, too. Is this the perfect friendship...or a recipe for disaster? From award-winning writer Carolyn Mackler comes a...

Fifteen-year-old Virginia Shreves has a larger-than-average body and a plus-size inferiority complex, especially when she compares herself to her slim, brilliant, picture-perfect family. But that's before a shocking phone call—and a horrifying allegation—about her rugby-star brother changes everything. With irreverent humor and surprising gravity, Carolyn Mackler creates an endearingly blunt heroine who speaks to every teen who struggles with family expectations, and proves that the most impressive achievement is to be true to yourself.

"[Mackler's] teens feel lived in to me—smart, observant, but realistic in terms of their insecurities and limitations. I particularly appreciate the candid and non-judgmental way she depicts teen sensuality and female desire . . . Much to discuss here in the age of #metoo." —Gabrielle Zevin, New York Times bestselling authorFrom Carolyn Mackler, author of the Printz Honor-winning The Earth, My Butt, and Other Big Round Things, comes a story of what happens when the "happily ever after" turns out to be less than perfect.It's been five months since sixteen-year-old Virginia Shreves thought her life was finally back on course: she has come to terms with who she is both inside and out, and she's even started to rebuild her relationship with her older brother Byron, whose date-rape charge completely shattered everything. But just as she's getting used to the new normal,...

Mara Valentine is in control. She's a straight-A student, a strict vegan and she's heading to Yale in the fall. So when her hellraising sixteen-year-old niece, V, comes to live with the family, Mara is horrified. Even more so when she starts dreaming about cheese sandwiches every night and realizes she is falling for James, her boss. Unable to ignore these unfamiliar cravings, Mara starts to give into them a little and in doing so discovers her sexuality, redefines her relationship with her over-anxious parents, and realizes that V could in fact be a potential friend and ally.

Maybe I'll decide I have a life story, too, and I'll reveal some of it. The good girl, the jock, the beautiful one, and the geek. Tangle them together, and the unexpected happens. Jena, Dakota, Skye, and Owen are all in Paradise. When they meet, they have no idea how they will all connect—or that their chance encounters will transform each of their lives. The secrets we keep, the risks we take, and the things we do for love: Four months after it all begins in Paradise, none of them will ever be the same. From School Library JournalGrade 8 Up—Four teenagers, Jena, Skye, Owen, and Dakota, come together and cross paths during a vacation in the Caribbean. A quarter of the book is devoted to each teen's perspective. Jena tells about her feelings of inferiority when around beautiful Skye, the daughter of her mother's best friend. Skye wants to figure out the truth about her father and the suicidal depression that turns her away from auditioning for even one more film. Dakota drinks, is sexually pushy with girls, and deals with his girlfriend's death in a car accident when she was with another guy. Owen, Dakota's younger brother, hides his insecurity behind the safety of his blog and general computer nerdiness. All four lives become "tangled" together while at the resort and after they reach home, and the way the tangles twist and unfold allows these teens to discover their true selves and find personal satisfaction. Mackler expertly creates believable characters, plots, and settings. The teens are good people who have obstacles to overcome and problems to face. Whether realizing it directly or not, they help one another because of their chance relationships. As powerfully depicted as in Emily Wing Smith's The Way He Lived (Flux, 2008), the various viewpoints weave together to create a compelling and cohesive whole. Themes of understanding, respecting others, and the power of good communication are carefully and effectively woven throughout a story that begs for discussion.—Diane P. Tuccillo, Poudre River Public Library District, Fort Collins, CO Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. From BooklistMackler, whose previous titles include the Printz Honor Book The Earth, My Butt, and Other Round Things (2003), introduces another cast of memorable, authentic young characters in her latest heartfelt novel. Four teens share the narration of the cleverly constructed story, which begins at a five-star Caribbean resort, where two mothers have thrown together their very different teen daughters. Jena, a Westchester County high-schooler, is her own worst critic. She worries about her weight, powders her zits until her face resembles “a funnel cake,” and marvels at her companion, Skye, a gorgeous, wealthy young actress in Manhattan. Jena spots lanky computer geek Owen, but she ends up fooling around with his brother, Dakota, a beer-swilling jock who dumps her when Skye shows interest. The often-hilarious story, which takes place over a four-month period, builds in poignant layers as each character narrates in a fresh, frank voice that defies stereotype. Although the teens’ tech-heavy communication is utterly contemporary, their insecurities, desires, and questions about family, self-worth, and first love are timeless. Grades 9-12. --Gillian Engberg

Printz Honor author Carolyn Mackler returns with this striking new novel that chronicles the lives of five teenagers through the thrills, heartbreaks, and joys of their four years in high school.Zoe, Jake, Mia, Gregor, and Whitney meet at freshman orientation. At the end of that first day, they make a promise to reunite after graduation. So much can happen in those in-between years....Zoe feels like she will live forever in her famous mother's shadow. Jake struggles to find the right connections in friendship and in love. Mia keeps trying on new identities, looking for one that actually fits. Gregor thought he wanted to be more than just a band geek. And Whitney seems to have it all, until it's all falling apart around her.Echoing aspects of John Hughes's The Breakfast Club, Carolyn Mackler skillfully brings the stories of these five disparate teens together to create a distinct and cohesive whole—a novel about how we can all affect one another's...

Teddy Fitzroy's back for another zoo mystery—this time it's a koala caper—in this action-packed follow-up to Belly Up, which Kirkus Reviews called "great fun."School troublemaker Vance Jessup thinks Teddy Fitzroy's home at FunJungle, a state-of-the-art zoo and theme park, is the perfect place for a cruel prank. Vance bullies Teddy into his scheme, but the plan goes terribly awry. Teddy sneaks into the koala exhibit to hide out until the chaos dies down. But when the koala goes missing, Teddy is the only person caught on camera entering and exiting the exhibit. Teddy didn't commit the crime—but if he can't find the real culprit, he'll be sent to juvie as a convicted koala-napper.

Can an undercover nerd become a superstar agent? Ben Ripley sure hopes so - and his life may depend on it!Ben Ripley may only be in middle school, but he's already pegged his dream job: C.I.A. or bust. Unfortunately for him, his personality doesn't exactly scream "secret agent." In fact, Ben is so awkward, he can barely get to school and back without a mishap. Because of his innate nerdiness, Ben is not surprised when he is recruited for a magnet school with a focus on science - but he's entirely shocked to discover that the school is actually a front for a junior C.I.A. academy. Could the C.I.A. really want him? Actually, no. There's been a case of mistaken identity - but that doesn't stop Ben from trying to morph into a supercool undercover agent, the kind that always gets the girl. And through a series of hilarious misadventures, Ben realizes he might actually be a halfway decent spy...if he can survive all the attempts being made on his life!

The moon base commander has gone missing and Dash Gibson is on the case in the second mind-boggling mystery of the Moon Base Alpha series from the New York Times bestselling author of Belly Up and Spy School.There's nowhere to hide on the world's first moon base. After all, it's only the size of a soccer field. So when Nina Stack, the commander of Moon Base Alpha, mysteriously vanishes, the Moonies are at a total loss. Though he may be just twelve years old, Dashiell Gibson is the best detective they've got. But this confusing mystery pushes Dash to his limits. Especially since Dash accidentally made contact with an alien and has to keep it a secret. With the fate of the entire human race hanging in the balance, will Dash be able to solve the mystery of the missing Moonie?

New York Times bestselling series Tensions are running high when multi-billionaire Lars Sjoburg is poisoned and demands to go home and everyone is looking to Dash Gibson to solve the case in this third and final book in the New York Times bestselling Moon Base Alpha series.Moon Base Alpha was supposed to be an exciting place to live, but Dash didn't expect for it to be this exciting. After solving a murder and rescuing the moon base commander, he just wants to have a calm, quiet thirteenth birthday. But of course multi-billionaire and total pain Lars Sjoburg ruins it—by being poisoned. Now there's a murderer loose on Moon Base Alpha again. And Dash is charged with finding out who it could have been. Everyone has a motive, and time is running out.

When Ben gets kicked out of the CIA’s spy school, he enrolls with the enemy. This companion to Spy School and Spy Camp is rife with action, adventure, and espionage.During a spy school game of Capture the Flag, twelve-year-old Ben Ripley somehow accidentally shoots a live mortar into the principal’s office—and immediately gets himself expelled. Not long after going back to the boring old real world, Ben gets recruited by evil crime organization SPYDER. And he accepts. As a new student in SPYDER’s evil spy school, which trains kids to become bad guys with classes like Counter Counterespionage and Laying Low 101, Ben does some secret spying of his own. He’s acting as unofficial undercover agent, and it becomes quickly apparent that SPYDER is planning something very big—and very evil. Ben can tell he’s a key part of the plan, but he’s not quite sure what the plan is. Can Ben figure...

Ben goes undercover in the White House to take on a SPYDER operative determined to assassinate the president in this latest addition to the New York Times bestselling Spy School series.Thirteen-year-old Ben Ripley has had a lot of field success despite only just beginning his second year at Spy School, something graduates rarely experience. But he'd never have survived without the help from experienced agents and his friends. Now he's been called in on a solo mission—and the fate of the United States of America is on his shoulders alone. The Mission: Prevent a presidential assassination by infiltrating the White House, and locating the enemy operative. But when the president's son is as helpful as a hamster, and a trained SPYDER agent would never appear to be up to something (they're far too clever for that), Ben may be in over his head this time. And when everything goes wrong, Ben must rely on his Spy School friends to save his...

Teddy Fitzroy returns as FunJungle's resident sleuth when the zoo's newest addition goes missing—before she even arrives!—in Panda-monium, the latest novel in Stuart Gibbs's FunJungle series.FunJungle is frenzied, awaiting the arrival of its most thrilling animal yet—Li Ping—a rare and very expensive giant panda that the zoo went to enormous lengths to secure. But when the truck transporting Li Ping shows up, its precious cargo has vanished into thin air. The FBI steps in to investigate, and Teddy is happy to leave the job in their (supposedly) capable hands. After all, FunJungle has never encountered a crime this serious. But when someone threatens to blackmail Teddy's girlfriend, Summer, if he doesn't solve the crime, his involvement in this mystery is no longer black and white.

On the first day of a family trip to Paris, Greg Rich's parents disappear. They're not just missing from the city—they're missing from the century. So Greg does what any other fourteen-year-old would do: He travels through time to rescue them.Greg soon finds out that his family history is tied to the legendary Three Musketeers. But when he meets them, they're kids his age, and they'll only live long enough to become true heroes if he can save them. To rescue his parents, Greg must assume the identity of a young Musketeer in training and unite Athos, Porthos, Aramis, and D'Artagnan—but a powerful enemy is doing everything possible to stop him from succeeding.

Twelve-year-old Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt Fitzroy believes that Henry, the hippopotamus at the brand-new FunJungle, has been murdered. The zoo’s top brass claim the hippo went belly up the natural way, but Teddy and his feisty friend Summer McCraken have other ideas. Could the culprit be FunJungle’s animal-hating head of operations? Or is it FunJungle’s owner—Summer’s dad—a man who is much more concerned about money than animal welfare? The deeper Teddy and Summer dig, the more danger they’re in—because when it comes to hippo homicide, the truth can’t be caged!

Teddy Fitzroy returns as FunJungle’s resident zoo sleuth when a rhinoceros is at risk in Big Game, a companion to Belly Up and Poached—which Kirkus Reviews called a “thrill-ride of a mystery.”When someone takes aim at Rhonda Rhino, FunJungle’s pregnant (and endangered) white rhinoceros, the zoo steps up security measures in order to protect this rare animal and her baby. But the extra security isn’t enough—someone is still getting too close for comfort. Teddy and company start to suspect that whoever is after Rhonda is really after her horn, which is worth a lot of money on the black market. For the first time ever, the head of the zoo enlists Teddy for help—for once, he doesn’t have to sneak around in order to investigate—and the results are even more wacky, and even more dangerous, than ever before.