Books with author Joe McDonald

The Pirate Colouring Book is a fun new coloring book bursting with pirates, shipwrecks, and hoards of hidden treasure! Boys and girls will love to sail the Seven Seas with this treasure chest of a coloring book which will keep them entertained for hours. The book is partially colored to inspire amazing coloring scenes that can be seen from the crow's nest.

It’s 1959 in Benevolence, Florida, and life is as sweet as a Valencia orange for 15-year-old Dove Alderman. Whether she’s sipping cherry Cokes with her girlfriends and listening to the Everly Brothers, eating key lime pie made by her housekeeper, Delia, or cruising around town with the coolest boy in school in his silver-blue T-bird convertible, Dove’s days are as smooth and warm as the soft sand in her father’s orange groves.But there’s trouble brewing among the local migrant workers. Mysterious fires have broken out, and rumors are spreading that disgruntled pickers are to blame. Suddenly, black and white become a muddy shade of gray, and whispers of the KKK drift through the Southern air like sighs. The Klan could never exist in a place like Benevolence, Dove tells herself. Or could it?

No Access New York City is a collection of the hidden places and little-known facts about New York. These are the secret gems of the city and most are completely off limits to the public. Through these pages explore the secret train station below the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, the gold vault at the Federal Reserve, burial sites, tucked away establishments, secret tunnels, and so much more. All of these spots evoke a secret metropolis that is lost in time and harboring deep mysteries! What a fun way to “explore” New York!

Simon Gray is the ideal teenager — smart, reliable, hardworking, trustworthy. Or is he? After Simon crashes his car into The Liberty Tree, another portrait starts to emerge. Soon an investigation has begun into computer hacking at Simon’s high school, for it seems tests are being printed out before they are given. Could Simon be involved?Simon, meanwhile, is in a coma — but is this another appearance that may be deceiving? For inside his own head, Simon can walk around and talk to some people. He even seems to be having a curious conversation with a man who was hung for murder 200 years ago, in the branches of the same tree Simon crashed into. What can a 200-year-old murder have to do with Simon’s accident? And how do we know who is really innocent and who is really guilty?

Learn from home and explore the world with these fun and easy board books!Discover all about the first moon landing with the hit nonfiction board book series Hello, World!All young children love to look up at the moon. Now here's a board book that teaches them all about the first moon landing, with easy-to-understand details about the Apollo 11 astronauts, the NASA team, spacesuits, the rocket modules, and the world's celebration after the successful mission.Hello, World! is a series designed to introduce first nonfiction concepts to babies and toddlers. Told in clear and easy terms ("An astronaut's job is to travel into space") and featuring bright, cheerful illustrations, Hello, World! is a perfect way to bring science, nature, and culture into the busy world of a toddler, where learning never stops. Look for all the books in the Hello, World! series: •Solar Sytem•Weather•Backyard Bugs•Birds•Dinosaurs•My Body•How Do Apples Grow?•Ocean Life•Moon Landing•Pets•Arctic Animals•Construction Site•Rainforest Animals•Planet Earth •Reptiles

Five voices combine to tell the chilling tale of what happens in a small town when teenage fury is unleashed.Gabriel, Lydia, Alec, and Hollis are four totally different teenagers who were thrown together by accident. Or maybe they were destined to meet, for they all share emotions that unite them and drive them—loneliness, frustration, and anger. Apart they are ordinary enough, unremarkable and not much noticed. Together, in the dark of night, they are drawn to violence like moths to a flame. Gem is a girl who path crosses theirs when she falls in love with Gabriel. Will she offer a way out for Gabriel? Or will the whirlpool of destruction swallow her, too?Reviews:From The Book Report (starred review/highly recommended)" . . . thrilling and beautifully constructed . . ."From Publishers Weekly"The chilling premise and credible depiction of the gang dynamic propelled by fear will keep the pages turning." From School Library JournalIn this chilling story, McDonald introduces four teens who come together by chance and get caught up in a destructive spiral of anger and violence. The group of unlikely companions consists of Alec, 19, who has been in and out of trouble for years; Hollis, a 15-year-old computer whiz; Lydia, whose strict survivalist father drills his family in disaster training; and Gabriel, whose family has moved to the country from New York City after his brother was killed by thieves. What begins as random acts of vandalism escalates to more serious and more violent crimes. When Gabriel tries to leave the group, his new girlfriend is targeted and the teens set out to trash the campground that the girl's aunt owns and where the two of them live and work. The characters are all well drawn and the surprise ending is true to our justice system today. This look behind today's headlines about the rising number of violent acts performed by teens and the roots of their rage could well be a topic for discussion.(Barbara Jo McKee, copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.) From BooklistGr. 9-12. As in Swallowing Stones (1997), McDonald explores the moral dilemmas of teens caught in misdeeds. Lydia, Alec, Hollis, and Gabriel, four high-school outcasts in an isolated area of New Jersey, meet by chance and form a gang (the Lords of Destruction), finding release from their personal miseries in what are, at first, petty crimes. The teens are terribly angry at their parents in particular and society in general, but it is brilliant Hollis, the youngest and seemingly the most inept, who harnesses the groups' rage into plans for mayhem. Only after the LDs blow up a supposedly abandoned building and discover that they have killed a transient does the weight of their crimes become real. The dark, brooding story line builds to a horrifying climax, with the sickening knowledge that the guilty will go unpunished. Unrelenting in its dark vision, Shadow People throws the reader into a swarm of angry tensions as it conveys the emotional ties that transform a gang into a "family." (Debbie Carton. Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.) From VOYA". . . a complex and ambitious novel" From Kirkus Review"Fast-paced and instantly absorbing . . ."

A tough and funny project girl manages to make that chill wind blow awayThe good life, according to Aisha Ingram, is easy. It's hanging with friends, dancing, listening to music, whatever . . . but it doesn't include worrying about the future. Chilling out is her mantra until she receives a sixty-day termination-of-welfare-benefits notice. Without her monthly food stamps and assistance checks and with no help from the father of her two children, Aisha's life threatens to become a little too "chilly." The clock is ticking and she doesn't have many options, but one thing she knows for sure: workfare is not for her. There's no way she's going to scrub subway cars or sweep city sidewalks. Aisha tries to come up with other ways to get money, but things don't look good. Soon another notice comes: only thirty days left. Then she sees an ad on TV for BIGMODELS, and she figures she might as well check out the agency. After all, she is pretty enough. But just when it looks like Aisha's problems might be solved, things grow crazy again. In Aisha, Janet McDonald has created a larger-than-life heroine who finds and succeeds at what is right for her.

It begins with a free and joyful act--but from then on, Michael finds it impossible even to remember what it felt like to be free and joyful. When he fires his new rifle into the air on his seventeenth birthday, he never imagines that the bullet will end up killing someone. But a mile away, a man is killed by that bullet as he innocently repairs his roof. And Michael keeps desperately silent while he watches his world crumble.Meanwhile Jenna, the dead man's daughter, copes with desperation of her own. Through her grief, she tries to understand why she no longer feels comfortable with her boyfriend and why a near stranger named Michael keeps appearing in her dreams.Suspenseful and powerfully moving, this is the unforgettable story of an accidental crime and its haunting web of repercussions.

It’s 1959 in Benevolence, Florida, and life is as sweet as a Valencia orange for 15-year-old Dove Alderman. Whether she’s sipping cherry Cokes with her girlfriends and listening to the Everly Brothers, eating key lime pie made by her housekeeper, Delia, or cruising around town with the coolest boy in school in his silver-blue T-bird convertible, Dove’s days are as smooth and warm as the soft sand in her father’s orange groves.But there’s trouble brewing among the local migrant workers. Mysterious fires have broken out, and rumors are spreading that disgruntled pickers are to blame. Suddenly, black and white become a muddy shade of gray, and whispers of the KKK drift through the Southern air like sighs. The Klan could never exist in a place like Benevolence, Dove tells herself. Or could it?From the Hardcover edition.

Learn from home and explore the world with these fun and easy board books!The latest in the hit Hello, World! board book series teaches toddlers all about our amazing planet Earth--with easy-to-understand facts about countries, continents, oceans, landforms, habitats, and Earth's place in the solar system.Hello, World! is a series designed to introduce first nonfiction concepts to babies and toddlers. Told in clear and easy terms ("Light from the sun makes the moon shine.") and featuring bright, cheerful illustrations, Hello, World! makes learning fun for young children. And each page offers helpful prompts for engaging with your child. It's a perfect way to bring science and nature into the busy world of a toddler, where learning never stops. Look for all the books in the Hello, World! series: •Solar Sytem•Weather•Backyard Bugs•Birds•Dinosaurs•My Body•How Do Apples Grow?•Ocean Life•Moon Landing•Pets•Arctic Animals•Construction Site•Rainforest Animals•Planet Earth •Reptiles