Books with author John K. Anderson

The acclaimed author of Ms. Bixby’s Last Day and Posted returns with an unforgettable tale of love and laughter, of fathers and sons, of what family truly means, and of the ways in which we sometimes need to lose something in order to find ourselves. Celebrate dads and Father's Day year-round with this warm and witty novel for tweens.Rion Kwirk comes from a rather odd family. His mother named him and his sisters after her favorite constellations, and his father makes funky-flavored jellybeans for a living. One sister acts as if she’s always on stage, and the other is a walking dictionary. But no one in the family is more odd than Rion’s grandfather, Papa Kwirk.He’s the kind of guy who shows up on his motorcycle only on holidays handing out crossbows and stuffed squirrels as presents. Rion has always been fascinated by Papa Kwirk, especially as his son—Rion’s father—is the complete opposite. Where Dad is predictable, nerdy, and reassuringly boring, Papa Kwirk is mysterious, dangerous, and cool.Which is why, when Rion and his family learn of Papa Kwirk’s death and pile into the car to attend his funeral and pay their respects, Rion can’t help but feel that that’s not the end of his story. That there’s so much more to Papa Kwirk to discover.He doesn’t know how right he is.

Bryan Biggins wakes up to find that his life has become a video game in this funny, honest coming-of-age novel from the author of Ms. Bixby’s Last Day, Sidekicked, and Minion.Meet Bryan Biggins. Most of the time he’s a freckle-faced boy, small for his age, who attends a school known for its unwritten uniform of North Face jackets and Hollister jeans. The rest of the time he is Kieran Nightstalker, the level-fifty dark-elf hero of his favorite video game, Sovereign of Darkness. Until one day Bryan wakes up to find out his life has become a video game. Sort of. Except instead of fighting dragons or blasting bad guys, he’s still doing geometry and getting picked last for dodgeball. It’s still middle school. Only now there’s much more at stake. Stealing the Twinkie from underneath the noses of those dieting teachers isn’t enough to earn him another life. And battling the creature that escaped from the science lab doesn’t seem to cut it either. And who knew Romeo and Juliet would turn into a zombie bloodbath?! All the while he’s losing hit points and gaining levels, and facing the truth that GAME OVER might flash before his eyes at any minute. It all seems to be building to something…something that has been haunting Bryan since way before his life turned into an X-Box nightmare, a challenge that only he can face. Will Bryan find a way to beat the game before it’s too late?

Fort Benton, Montana’s main street was a child’s delight. The MacKay children, Rob and Marlo, loved this strange world of soldiers, trappers, Indians, and cowboys who walked and drank in the town’s confines. For adventurers, the fort was the end of the line.The notorious Clint Sharndo gang rides into town. Turns out the gang had robbed the gold shipment from the steamer Dakota. Deciding to lay low for awhile, they get rooms in a local hotel. Marlo playing near the hotel takes it all in.Having drank too much one evening and back in their hotel room, they talk of their robbery, and pass around a map where the gold is buried. What they don’t know is that Marlo, ever the adventure seeker, and her brother Rob, whom Marlo has dragged along, found the window to their hotel room. They see and hear everything.She sneaks through the window, into their room after the gang leaves, and retrieves the map. She convinces Rob not to tell the Sheriff. This is their secret and they will be the town hero’s if they recover the gold. They study the map and find, to their delight, that the gold is hidden in the White Cliffs Badlands, that border the Missouri River. They build a raft and take off into an exciting, bold mission. With the Sharndo gang hot on their trail and Indians in the badlands, will they make it to the hiding place and return safely home? Find out in Rob and Marlo’s, Dakota Gold Adventure.

The beloved author of Ms. Bixby’s Last Day and Posted returns with a humorous and heartwarming story of family, friendship, and miniature golf. For as long as he can remember, Malcolm has never felt like he was good enough. Not for his parents, who have always seemed at odds with each other, with Malcolm caught in between. And especially not for his dad, whose competitive drive and love for sports Malcolm has never shared. That is, until Malcolm discovers miniature golf, the one sport he actually enjoys. Maybe it’s the way in which every hole is a puzzle to be solved. Or the whimsy of the windmills and waterfalls that decorate the course. Or maybe it’s the slushies at the snack bar. But whatever the reason, something about mini golf just clicks for Malcolm. And best of all, it’s a sport his dad can’t possibly obsess over. Or so Malcolm thinks. Soon he is signed up for lessons and entered in tournaments. And yet, even as he becomes a better golfer and finds unexpected friends at the local course, be wonders if he might not always be a disappointment. But as the final match of the year draws closer, the tension between Malcolm’s parents reaches a breaking point, and it’s up to him to put the puzzle of his family back together again.

An action-packed, funny, and unexpected middle grade fantasy-adventure from the acclaimed author of Sidekicked.The world is not a fair place, and Colm Candorly knows it. While his parents and eight sisters seem content living on a lowly cobbler's earnings, Colm can't help but feel that everyone has the right to a more comfortable life. It's just a question of how far you're willing to go to get it.In an effort to help make ends meet, Colm uses his natural gift for pickpocketing to pilfer a pile of gold from the richer residents of town, but his actions place him at the mercy of a mysterious man named Finn Argos, a gilded-toothed, smooth-tongued rogue who gives Colm a choice: he can be punished for his thievery or he can become a member of Thwodin's Legions, a guild of dungeoneers who take what they want and live as they will. Colm soon finds himself part of a family of warriors, mages, and hunters, learning to work together in a quest to survive and, perhaps, to find a bit of treasure along the way.

The acclaimed author of Ms. Bixby’s Last Day and Posted returns with an unforgettable tale of love and laughter, of fathers and sons, of what family truly means, and of the ways in which we sometimes need to lose something in order to find ourselves. Celebrate dads and Father's Day year-round with this warm and witty novel for tweens.Rion Kwirk comes from a rather odd family. His mother named him and his sisters after her favorite constellations, and his father makes funky-flavored jellybeans for a living. One sister acts as if she’s always on stage, and the other is a walking dictionary. But no one in the family is more odd than Rion’s grandfather, Papa Kwirk.He’s the kind of guy who shows up on his motorcycle only on holidays handing out crossbows and stuffed squirrels as presents. Rion has always been fascinated by Papa Kwirk, especially as his son—Rion’s father—is the complete opposite. Where Dad is predictable, nerdy, and reassuringly boring, Papa Kwirk is mysterious, dangerous, and cool.Which is why, when Rion and his family learn of Papa Kwirk’s death and pile into the car to attend his funeral and pay their respects, Rion can’t help but feel that that’s not the end of his story. That there’s so much more to Papa Kwirk to discover.He doesn’t know how right he is.

This eighth in a series continues this ground-breaking word-by-word analysis of James Joyce's Finnegans Wake. This volume covers chapter 3.3, a long and difficult chapter in the form of a father's dream. Father HCE dreams of a passive son named "Yawn," a version of Shaun. Made passive by sucking up to customers, the father's primal desires project a passive son potentially subject to father control. And this Yawn is so passive he needs help in releasing his feces. Talk about anal retentive! The dreamer's script loads Yawn's defenseless psyche with aspects of father-troubled sons from the collective past, including Freud's famous client Wolfman, Cain and Oedipus. Father trouble registers as distortions in the son's sexual relationships. Father-fearing Wolfman took his controlled son role to a "hole" new level. After witnessing his parents' sex a tergo [male erect, female on knees, doggy style or "dog ma"] and fearing his father's angry reaction to his witness and celebratory primal turd, he adopted the ultimate passive beta male attitude: he wanted to be his father's wife. Yawn in the role of father-troubled Cain is questioned in the dream by the synoptic gospellers [Matthew, Mark and Luke]. They serve as tools of the father's desire to control his son, as they controlled the historical presentation of god's son Jesus. They try to reduce Yawn's particular take on independence, his Cain-like tendency to pursue his whims, including killing to get all the sisters. Cain's lack of caring gives us the problems of cities, which are splattered all over this chapter. Yawn in the role of father-troubled Oedipus makes the same mistake as Jesus in Gesthemane: he treats his foster father as his real father. Oedipus ends up with his mommy as wife as Yawn is hung up on his. The suggestion is made that the dreamer knows at some level that Shaun was fathered by Father Michael with a blackmailed ALP, not by foster father HCE. Freud's hypothesis plays out through Yawn's porous character: "individual gaps in human truth are filled by prehistoric truths." Yawn bears the puncture wounds of the prehistoric father desires for control. Yawn is defenseless because he lacks individuality. The chapter starts with an anal retentive and dependent son Yawn all alone in the dark, fearful and needing help with an enema. The chapter concludes as the new day dawns and a spontaneous evacuation is made. Gracing these more promising circumstances, the voice of the Holy Ghost [Joyce's version] as the individuality-enhancing father of Jesus boldly breaks into the dream, silences the OT father voice and brands as fraudulent the presentation of Jesus as a servant and eunuch by the three synoptic gospellers. The mystical gospeller John bears witness to the presence of the Holy Ghost by unloading a trinity of turds of shame and the old in order to clear his mind for active and mystical participation in the Holy Ghost. He unloads spontaneously, just as Wolfman did his primal turd. The Quick shed the Dead.

"What does eternity mean?" When a question like this comes from a little one, adults sometimes find themselves searching for a simple way to explain the answers. The Big Topics for Little Kids series comes to the aid of adults looking for a child-friendly and engaging way to provide answers to questions regarding abstract concepts such as these. The first book in the series explores eternity through the touching story of the birth of a baby and the passing of an old man. Through these examples, children will begin to understand the big-people concept of eternity, and adults will find relief in a simple way to introduce this concept to children.

In this hilarious, coming-of-age novel that’s “Ready Player One for the middle grade crowd” (School Library Journal), twelve-year-old Bryan Biggins wakes up to find that his life has become a video game.Meet Bryan Biggins. Most of the time he’s a freckle-faced boy, small for his age, who attends a school known for its unwritten uniform of North Face jackets and Hollister jeans. The rest of the time he is Kieran Nightstalker, the level-fifty dark-elf hero of his favorite video game, Sovereign of Darkness. Until one day Bryan wakes up to find out his life has become a video game. Sort of. Except instead of fighting dragons or blasting bad guys, he’s still doing geometry and getting picked last for dodgeball. It’s still middle school. Only now there’s much more at stake. Stealing the Twinkie from underneath the noses of those dieting teachers isn’t enough to earn him another life. And battling the creature that escaped from the science lab doesn’t seem to cut it either. And who knew Romeo and Juliet would turn into a zombie bloodbath?! All the while he’s losing hit points and gaining levels, and facing the truth that GAME OVER might flash before his eyes at any minute. It all seems to be building to something…something that has been haunting Bryan since way before his life turned into an X-Box nightmare, a challenge that only he can face. Will Bryan find a way to beat the game before it’s too late?

In reading the text I found myself touched by the story. I favor the publication of this worthy project.-The Right Reverend NIKOLAI, Bishop of Sitka, Ankorage and Alaska Orthodox Church in America"As a Christian and a student of clinical psychology, trying to reconcile the gaps between the secular world and Christ's values has always been difficult. Not only did I relate to Petar's struggles, but his triumph in continually being obedient to God's call was the most inspirational I have ever witnessed. His manuscript depicts how God IS faithful and all glory is His. What a testimony!!"-Amalyssa J. Rodriguez, Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology"As Christ calls each man to 'follow me, and I will make you fishers of men', it is inspiring to read about one man's decision to turn from the 'world' and trust God to provide during this journey."-Benjamin G. Johnson, Ph.D. in Molecular and Cellular Biology