Jack Gantos, Author Farrar Straus Giroux $16.99 (240p) ISBN 978-0-374-39986-3
This fall offers fans a fresh crop of sequels. The final title in the Joey Pigza saga, What Would Joey Do? by Jack Gantos, finds the hero flustered by his parent's questionable reunion and his ailing grandmother's efforts to push Joey to make ...
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Jack Gantos. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $17.99 (224p) ISBN 978-0-374-30456-0
In an excellent guide for aspiring authors, Newbery Medalist Gantos distills his creative writing expertise into breezy chapters, emphasizing the value of keeping a journal—and using stories he wrote in his youth as proof. Gantos provides concrete...
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Jack Gantos, read by the author. HarperAudio, , unabridged, 4 CDs, 5 hrs., $24.99 ISBN 978-1-4272-6413-8
Gantos reflects on his early teenage years, a key period of time that led him down the life of crime and prison he captured in his previous memoir, Hole in My Life. This book recounts a two-week period when the author was 14 years old and first...
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Jack Gantos. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $17.99 (224p) ISBN 978-0-374-37995-7
This installment in Gantos’s ongoing chronicle of his tumultuous youth opens ominously, with 14-year-old Jackie crossing the backyard with matches and a can of lighter fluid. What could possibly go wrong? Conflagrations (more than one) follow as...
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Jack Gantos. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $16.99 (160p) ISBN 978-0-374-30083-8
“It is so much easier to be in trouble all the time because then everyone wants to help you,” laments Joey Pigza in this fifth and final volume of his chronicles. Suffering from postpartum depression, Joey’s mother checks into the hospital, leaving...
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Jack Gantos. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $16.99 (288p) ISBN 978-0-374-37994-0
Gantos’s sequel to his Newbery-winning Dead End in Norvelt offers less history, more murder, and another hefty helping of zaniness. An explosion shuts school for repairs, leaving Jackie, 12, free to accompany Miss Volker to Hyde Park, N.Y., to pay...
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Jack Gantos. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $15.99 (352p) ISBN 978-0-374-37993-3
A bit of autobiography works its way into all of Gantos's work, but he one-ups himself in this wildly entertaining meld of truth and fiction by naming the main character... Jackie Gantos. Like the author, Jackie lives for a time in Norvelt, a real...
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Jack Gantos, Author Farrar Straus Giroux $16 (144p) ISBN 978-0-374-31772-0
Walker, a pensive loner, avoids confrontation as much as possible-until the son of a fundamentalist preacher accuses him of being gay. Pressured by both religious fanatics and his peers, the 16-year-old points a finger at a pair of high school...
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Jack Gantos, Author Farrar Straus Giroux $16.99 (208p) ISBN 978-0-374-39987-0
Jack Gantos continues the Jack Henry Books (Jack on the Tracks; Heads or Tails) with Jack Adrift: Fourth Grade Without a Clue. Jack's father rejoins the Navy and the family relocates from their home just south of Pittsburgh, Pa., to Cape Hatteras,
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Jack Gantos, Author Farrar Straus Giroux $16.99 (195p) ISBN 978-0-374-39989-4
First introduced in Joey Pigza Swallowed the Key, Gantos's hyperactive hero Joey Pigza has not lost any of his liveliness, but after undergoing therapy and a stint in special ed., he now can exercise a reasonable amount of self-controlDprovided he...
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Jack Gantos, Author HarperTrophy $5.99 (160p) ISBN 978-0-06-440833-2
In a starred review, PW called this National Book Award finalist ""an accurate, compassionate and humorous appraisal of a boy with attention-deficit disorder."" Ages 10-up. (Feb.)
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Jack Gantos, Author Farrar Straus Giroux $7.99 (176p) ISBN 978-0-374-43716-9
At the end of seventh grade, Jack Henry decides to write a novel in this third collection of interlinked stories. Ages 10-up. (Sept.) r
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Jack Gantos, Author Farrar Straus Giroux $16.99 (160p) ISBN 978-0-374-33664-6
Authentic-sounding first-person narration by a hyperactive boy gives readers an inside view of attention-deficit disorders. Joey Pigza is a ""wired-up mess,"" and he is struggling to get on the right track. But no matter how hard Joey tries to be...
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Jack Gantos, Author Bridge Works Publishing Company $21.95 (281p) ISBN 978-1-882593-15-6
Gantos's attempt to combine a raw prison novel with a sly send-up of the Elvis cult doesn't always work, but when it does, this first adult novel from a much-published YA and children's-book writer (Heads and Tails, etc.) is both compelling and very
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Gantos draws inspiration from his own childhood diaries in the fourth collection of stories about Jack Henry. In these nine tales, his aggravations include his annoying older sister, some crazy cats, a tapeworm and a pair of escaped convicts. Ages...
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Jack Gantos, Author . HarperTrophy $5.95 (208p) ISBN 978-0-06-441022-9
In a starred review, PW
said, "Like its predecessor, Joey Pigza Swallowed the Key, this high-voltage, honest novel mixes humor, pain, fear and courage with deceptive ease." Ages 10-up. (Mar.)
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Jack Gantos, Author . HarperTrophy $5.99 (240p) ISBN 978-0-06-054403-4
The final title in the saga that includes the Newbery Honor book Joey Pigza Loses Control
finds the hero flustered by his parent's questionable reunion and his ailing grandmother's efforts to push Joey to make friends. Ages 10-up. (Apr.)
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Jack Gantos, Author . FSG $8 (199p) ISBN 978-0-374-43089-4
"Gantos uses the same bold honesty found in his fiction to offer a riveting autobiographical account of his teen years [when he agreed to help smuggle hashish from Florida to New York and wound up in jail]," PW
said. "It will leave...
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Jack Gantos, Author . FSG $17 (185p) ISBN 978-0-374-33690-5
Are personalities determined by genes or by environment? Is it possible to love one's mother too much? Is there really such a thing as free will? Can curses be passed down from one generation to the next? These are some of the questions raised...
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Jack Gantos, Author . FSG $16 (215p) ISBN 978-0-374-39941-2
In suitably off-kilter fashion, this fourth installment in what had been previously called a trilogy finds the hyperactive hero reunited with Carter Pigza, his “no-good squinty-eyed bad dad.” Having won a small fortune in the lottery,...
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Jack Gantos, Author Sunburst Books $7.99 (214p) ISBN 978-0-374-43715-2
These companion stories to the Jack Henry books are ""extravagantly imaginative adventures,"" said PW; they recount the year the seventh-grader's family moves to Barbados. Ages 10-up. (Sept.)
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Jack Gantos, Author Farrar Straus Giroux $16.95 (160p) ISBN 978-0-374-32909-9
The author of the offbeat Rotten Ralph picture books makes an auspicious foray into new ground with this semi-autobiographical, wholly engaging novel. His narrator, Jack, travels through the often poignant moments that highlight his sixth grade year,
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Jack Gantos, Author, Jack Gantos, Read by . FSG $16 (208p) ISBN 978-0-374-39988-7
After penning a number of novels for preteens, including the Joey Pigza books and the Jack series, Gantos makes a smooth transition as he addresses an older audience. He uses the same bold honesty found in his fiction to offer a riveting...
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Jack Gantos, read by the author. Macmillan Audio, unabridged, five CDs, 6 hrs., $29.99 ISBN 978-1-4272-3313-4
In this follow up to the award-winning Dead End in Norvelt, Gantos sends 12-year-old Jack and his elderly mentor, Miss Volker, on a road trip to New York, set against the backdrop of the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. But with Mr. Spizz—the murderer...
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Jack Gantos, Author, Jack Gantos, Read by, Nicole Rubel, Illustrator Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (HMH) $9.95 (32p) ISBN 978-0-618-12539-5
Spring has sprung with a bouquet of book-and-cassette titles. Despite his rotten behavior, Ralph the cantankerous red cat is feted by his owner, Sarah, in Happy Birthday Rotten Ralph by Jack Gantos, illus. by Nicole Rubel. The lively story, read by...
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Jack Gantos, Author, Nicole Rubel, Author, Nicole Rubel, Illustrator Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (HMH) $16 (32p) ISBN 978-0-395-62302-2
Can Mr. Fred's Feline Finishing School really expunge every trace of Ralph's unrepentant rottenness? For a few heart-stopping moments it seems so: although Ralph steadfastly resists the school's more conventional blandishments, he slips into a...
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Jack Gantos, Author, Nicole Rubel, Illustrator Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (HMH) $16 (40p) ISBN 978-0-395-53766-4
Kids have seen--and have loved seeing--Ralph be thoroughly rotten, even at Christmas, so it comes as no surprise that this fractious feline decides to act up on his birthday. As usual, his antics are totally outrageous, and entirely enjoyable. Ralph
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Jack Gantos, Author, Nicole Rubel, Illustrator Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (HMH) $7.95 (32p) ISBN 978-0-395-48655-9
When Sarah and her cat Rotten Ralph go to a Halloween party dressed as each other, Ralph's antics almost ruin their friendship. Ages 4-8. (Oct.)
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Jack Gantos, Author, Nicole Rubel, Illustrator , illus. by Nicole Rubel. Houghton Mifflin $16 (32p) ISBN 978-0-618-80046-9
Uh oh. Rotten Ralph is in bigger trouble than ever. After a rough night of “being rotten with his alley cat friends,” he gets some bad news from the vet: he's used up eight of his lives and, per the nine lives chart, “Next...
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Jack Gantos, Author, Nicole Rubel, Illustrator , illus. by Nicole Rubel. FSG $14 (48p) ISBN 978-0-374-36355-0
Fans of Gantos's irrepressible Ralph who are ready to graduate from picture books will eagerly leap into this early chapter book, the first installment of the Rotten Ralph Rotten Reader series. Not surprisingly, the disaster-prone feline...
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Jack Gantos, illus. by Nicole Rubel, Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, $16.99 (48p) ISBN 978-0-374-36354-3
In this early reader, Ralph, the storied tomato-red cat with a jack-o-lantern grin, has home run aspirations. But when it's time for tryouts, Ralph is too focused on being a "superstar" to listen to his owner Sarah's advice. Though Sarah makes the...
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Jack Gantos, Author, Nicole Rubel, Illustrator Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (HMH) $15 (32p) ISBN 978-0-395-44312-5
There are few things in childhood more embarrassing than being humiliated at school, and therein lies the charm of the latest in the Rotten Ralph series. By licking an entire stamp collection and breaking the strings on a violin, Ralph the cat makes
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Jack Gantos, Author, Nicole Rubel, Illustrator Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (HMH) $15 (30p) ISBN 978-0-395-38943-0
This Halloween story, one of a series of Rotten Ralph books, continues the exploits of the truly terrible cat belonging to a little girl, Sarah, who has the patience of a saint. Dressed as each other, the pair go to a costume party where everyone is
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Jack Gantos, Author, Nicole Rubel, Illustrator Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (HMH) $17 (32p) ISBN 978-0-395-73978-5
In his Valentine-themed eighth adventure, misbehaving cat Rotten Ralph remains rude and remorseless. Worried that a Valentine's Day party ""means sticky, gooey, wet, drippy kisses,"" Ralph does his best to be unappealing; to prepare for the event,...
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Jack Gantos, Author, Nicole Rubel, Illustrator Farrar Straus Giroux $15 (48p) ISBN 978-0-374-36356-7
Several stars of early readers return for more adventures. Let loose at the carnival, the star of Practice Makes Perfect for Rotten Ralph by Jack Gantos, illus. by Nicole Rubel, tries to outplay Cousin Percy and impress Sarah, his owner. The hero
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Jack Gantos, Author, Nicole Rubel, Illustrator, Jack Gantos, Read by Farrar Straus Giroux $15.99 (47p) ISBN 978-0-374-36357-4
For kids anxious about a trip to the doctor, their favorite feline may offer some assistance, in Rotten Ralph Feels Rotten: A Rotten Ralph Rotten Reader by Jack Gantos, illus. by Nicole Rubel. After he feasts on a ""green chicken wing,"" ""furry...
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Jack Gantos, Author, Lisa Datz, Read by , read by Lisa Datz. Listening Library $30 (0p) ISBN 978-0-307-28612-3
With a steady youthful voice,Datz gives an appropriately creepy and compelling edge to Gantos's strange, darkly comic novel of disturbing small-town goings-on. Upon her 16th birthday, narrator Ivy learns from her mother that one of the elderly...
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