Can playing dead bring you back to life? Maybe only on Dead Wednesday… On this day the worlds of a shy boy and a gone girl collide, and the connection they make will change them both forever. A brilliant new novel from the Newbery Medal winner and author of the New York Times bestseller Stargirl.
'Jerry Spinelli has created another middle grade masterpiece.' -BookPage, starred review
On Dead Wednesday, every eighth grader in Amber Springs is assigned the name and identity of a teenager who died a preventable death in the past year. The kids don black shirts and for the whole day everyone in town pretends they're invisible-as if they weren't even there. The adults think it will make them contemplate their mortality. The kids know it's a free pass to get away with anything.
Worm Tarnauer feels invisible every day. He's perfectly happy being the unnoticed sidekick of his friend Eddie. So he's not expecting Dead Wednesday to feel that different. But he didn't count on being assigned Becca Finch (17, car crash). And he certainly didn't count on Becca showing up to boss him around! Letting this girl into his head is about to change everything.
This is the story of the unexpected, heartbreaking, hilarious, truly epic day when Worm Tarnauer discovers his own life.
From Newbery Medalist Jerry Spinelli (Maniac Magee, Stargirl) comes the knockout story of a girl who must come to terms with her mother's death from inside the walls of a prison.
Cammie O'Reilly is the warden's daughter, living in an apartment above the entrance to the Hancock County Prison. But she's also living in a prison of grief and anger about the mother who died saving her from harm when she was just a baby. And prison has made her mad. This girl's nickname is Cannonball.
In the summer of 1959, as twelve turns to thirteen, everything is in flux. Cammie's best friend is discovering lipstick and American Bandstand. A child killer is caught and brought to her prison. And the only mother figures in her life include a flamboyant shoplifter named Boo Boo and a sullen reformed arsonist of a housekeeper. All will play a role in Cammie's coming-of-age. But one in particular will make a staggering sacrifice to ensure that Cammie breaks free from her past.
Master storyteller Jerry Spinelli spins a tale of loss and redemption like no other. The Warden's Daughter shows that kindness and compassion can often be found where we least expect it.
Praise for the works of Jerry Spinelli:
"Spinelli is a poet of the prepubescent. . . . No writer guides his young characters, and his readers, past these pitfalls and challenges and toward their futures with more compassion." -The New York Times
"It's almost unreal how much the children's book still resonates." -Bustle.com on Maniac Magee
Welcome to Hokey Pokey. A place and a time, when childhood is at its best: games to play, bikes to ride, experiences to be had. There are no adults in Hokey Pokey, just kids, and the laws governing Hokey Pokey are simple and finite. But when one of the biggest kids, Jack, has his beloved bike stolen - and by a girl, no less - his entire world, and the world of Hokey Pokey, turns to chaos. Without his bike, Jack feels like everything has started to go wrong. He feels different, not like himself, and he knows something is about to change. And even more troubling he alone hears a faint train whistle. But that's impossible: every kid knows there no trains in Hokey Pokey, only tracks.
Master storyteller Jerry Spinelli has written a dizzingly inventive fable of growing up and letting go, of leaving childhood and its imagination play behind for the more dazzling adventures of adolescence, and of learning to accept not only the sunny part of day, but the unwelcome arrival of night, as well.
George, aka "Suds," has just entered third grade, and he's heard the rhyme about ""first grade babies/second grade cats/third grade angels/fourth grade rats,"" but what does this mean for his school year? It means that his teacher, Mrs. Simms, will hold a competition every month to see which student deserves to be awarded "the halo" which student is best be haved, kindest to others, and, in short, perfect. Suds is determined to be the first to earn the halo, but he's finding the challenge of always being good to be more stressful than he had anticipated. Does he have to be good even outside of school? (Does he have to be nice to his annoying little sister?) And if Mrs. Simms doesn't actually see him doing a good deed, does it even count?
A warm, funny return to elementary school from master storyteller Spinelli.
This is a story about me, Lily.
And me, Jake.
We're twins and we're exactly alike.
Not exactly!
Whatever. This is a book we wrote about the summer we turned eleven and Jake ditched me.
Please. I just started hanging out with some guys in the neighborhood.
Right. So anyway, this is a book about
goobers and supergoobers
bullies
clubhouses
true friends
things getting built and wrecked and rebuilt
and about figuring out who we are.
We wrote this together
(sort of)
so you'll get to see both sides of our story.
But you'll probably agree with my side.
You always have to have the last word, don't you?
Yes!
Palmer LaRue is running out of birthdays. For as long as he can remember, he's dreaded the day he turns ten -- the day he'll take his place beside all the other ten-year-old boys in town, the day he'll be a wringer. But Palmer doesn't want to be a wringer. It's one of the first things he learned about himself and it's one of the biggest things he has to hide. In Palmer's town being a wringer is an honor, a tradition passed down from father to son. Palmer can't stop himself from being a wringer just like he can't stop himself from growing one year older, just like he can't stand up to a whole town -- right? Newbery Medal winner Jerry Spinelli's most powerful novel yet is a gripping tale of how one boy learns how not to be afraid.
What is stargazer, skateboarder, chess champ, pepperoni pizza eater, older brother, sister hater, best friend, first kisser, science geek, control freak Will Tuppence so afraid of in this great big universe?
Jerry Spinelli knows.
Just like other kids, Zinkoff rides his bike, hopes for snow days, and wants to be like his dad when he grows up. But Zinkoff also raises his hand with all the wrong answers, trips over his own feet, and falls down with laughter over a word like "Jabip."
Other kids have their own word to describe him, but Zinkoff is too busy to hear it. He doesn't know he's not like everyone else. And one winter night, Zinkoff's differences show that any name can someday become "hero."
Last year, Masie Potter was voted most outstanding seventh grade female athlete. She is a super basketball player. But last summer, she developed a crush on classmate Eric Delong. Now her priorities have changed. She will do anything to be near Eric-even join the wrestling team. From the first, Masie gets opposition and antagonism from all sides: friends, classmates, teachers. Soon, her place on the team isn't about Eric any more. It's about determination, discipline, and perseverance. As Masie struggles against opponents on the mat, she must also deal with cruel jeers and taunts in the halls. Can Masie be a champion? Jerry Spinelli has written many popular books for young readers, including Space Station Seventh Grade and Who Put That Hair in My Toothbrush? With a solid talent for creating realistic characters and dialog, he is sure to have listeners cheering for the feisty Masie as she wrestles with some of the tougher issues of peer pressure.
Megin is 12; her brother Greg is 14. Megin is a slob; Greg is fastidious. They call each other Megamouth and Grosso. Between the two, the household is filled with their teasing and fighting. They are experts at the usual games of sibling rivalry and experts at inventing new ones. From carefully-planted cockroaches to creme doughnut fights, Megin and Greg's antics keep them in constant trouble. But even as they think up new ways to bug each other, they are also growing up. Soon, their rivalry will put them both to tests that have higher stakes than either Megin or Greg can imagine. Jerry Spinelli, a Newbery Medalist, has raised six children, so he has plenty of firsthand information about kids like Megin and Greg. This energetic audiobook is a riotous trip through the early teenage years, especially with its dual narration by two of the most spirited readers of children's literature.
For Jason, entering the seventh grade is like walking into a dangerous new world. Now that he's in junior high school, he's a small fish in a big pond stocked full of ninth-graders. It's so scary that he won't even go to the bathroom if there's a ninth-grader in there-no matter how badly he has to go! But it isn't all bad. He's working on a model space station in shop class, and he's beginning to notice things he never paid attention to before, like body hair-and girls. Especially one girl: the beautiful, hair-flicking cheerleader Debbie Breen. This wonderfully realistic audiobook, written by Newbery Award-winning author Jerry Spinelli, attracts teen-aged readers with its combination of honesty and embarrassingly funny situations familiar to every teenager. Johnny Heller captures Jason's emotional roller coaster ride as his boggled mind tries to keep pace with his friends, family, school, and his changing body.
He wasnt born with the name Maniac Magee. He came into this world named Jeffrey Lionel Magee, but when his parents died and his life changed, so did his name. And Maniac Magee became a legend. Even today kids talk about how fast he could run; about how he hit an inside-the-park frog homer; how no knot, no matter how snarled, would stay that way once he began to untie it. But the thing Maniac Magee is best known for is what he did for the kids from the East Side and those from the West Side.
