Books with author Jack Gantos

From the Newbery Medal-winning author of Dead End in Norvelt, nine semi-autobiographical stories that will make you laugh so hard it hurts In Jack on the Tracks, fifth-grader Jack Henry is hoping for fresh adventure when he moves to a new home in Miami with his family, but he can't escape his old worrying ways. He worries about being fascinated with all things gross and disgusting. He worries about his crazy French-obsessed schoolteacher. And most of all he worries about worrying so much. In this cycle of interrelated stories, there may be light at the end of the tunnel, if only Jack can get on the right track to survive his outrageous year.

Are they flirting or fighting? This is Joey Pigza’s question when the fireworks suddenly start to explode between his long-separated mom and dad, whom he’s never really had a chance to see together. The more out of control his parents get, the less in control Joey feels and the more he wants to help make things better. But Joey’s ailing, tell-it-like-it-is grandmother wants her grandson to see it like it is with his unpredictable parents. Knowing that she is fading fast, she needs Joey to hurry up and show that he can break the Pigza family mold by making a friend in the outside world. The only potential candidate, however, is Olivia Lapp–Joey’s blind home schooling partner, who brags that she is “blind as a brat” and gets meaner to Joey the more desperate he gets for her friendship–even if Joey senses there’s more to her than meets the eye.In this dazzling conclusion to the Joey Pigza trilogy, Jack Gantos’s acclaimed hyperactive hero is discovering that settling down isn’t good for anything if he can’t find a way to stop the people he cares about from winding him up all over again.

Jack Henry has moved to the island of Barbados with his offbeat family and his secret diary. But still he can’t escape his penchant for wacky misadventure. Because of a headless chicken, he gets a violent case of blood poisoning. In a pepper-eating contest with his father, he discovers the perils of male bonding. And then he has his heartstrings twanged by an older woman who just happens to be his sister’s best friend. These are just a few of his trials and tribulations in these eight fierce and funny stories, based on the author’s own childhood diaries.

Dead End in NorveltJack's summer has hit a dead end . . .After being 'grounded for life', Jack is facing a summer of doing nothing. But who's got time to die of boredom when there are so many more interesting ways to die in this town?He might crash in his Dad's homemade plane, or catch the disease that makes you dance yourself to death, or fall foul of the motorcycle gang that wants to burn the town to the ground. Old people seem to be dying faster than Miss Walker can write their obituaries, and Jack is starting to worry that it might not just be the rats that are eating the rat poison . . .Dead End in Norvelt is Jack Gantos's hilarious blend of the entirely true and the wildly fictional, from one of the most darkly amusing imaginations writing today.