Books with author Johnny Heller

From Publishers Weekly: Set during Prohibition, Ritter's debut novel features a rural Kentucky dialect and a sympathetic hero "stuck smack between two worlds." Luke Bledsoe's conflicts with his father, a volatile fundamentalist preacher, take on a new dimension when the seventh-grade southpaw discovers his pitching power. Classmates who have seen Luke accidentally throw with what his father calls "the Devil's arm" urge Luke to join the local baseball team, but Luke's left-handedness is not the only trouble: participation in sports is strictly forbidden by his church. The narrator is strongly tempted to side with "wild-as-a-witch-dog" Uncle Micah, another lefty, who encourages his nephew to follow his own natural course. Luke's movement toward independence is realistically cautious but frustratingly slow?until his father's accidental death brings a quick turn of events and tidy solution to problems. Criticisms of religious taboos and narrow-mindedness are hurled as forcefully as Luke's fastball. More artful, subtle expression may be found in the author's depiction of local color and metaphors mostly having to do with fishing and hunting. Despite its somewhat didactic tone, this story offers enough curve balls to keep readers engaged. Ages 10-14. Recipient of the 1999 International Reading Association's "Children's Book Award." Named an American Library Association "Best Book for Young Adults." Named a 1999 "Blue Ribbon Book" by The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books.

“The first thing you will notice about this engaging and delightful biography is that [Narrator Johnny Heller] sounds like a character actor who moseyed off the set of an old-fashioned oater. His voice is a little scratchy, a little seasoned and perfectly suits this biography of larger-than-life Bill Hickok and his pals, from Calamity Jane to Buffalo Bill Cody and General Custer.” ―The Berkshire EdgeThis program includes a bonus interview with the author.The definitive true story of Wild Bill, the first lawman of the Wild West, by the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Dodge City.In July 1865, "Wild Bill" Hickok shot and killed Davis Tutt in Springfield, MO―the first quick-draw duel on the frontier. Thus began the reputation that made him a marked man to every gunslinger in the Wild West.James Butler Hickock was known across the frontier as a soldier, Union spy, scout, lawman, gunfighter, gambler, showman, and actor. He crossed paths with General Custer and Buffalo Bill Cody, as well as Ben Thompson and other young toughs gunning for the sheriff with the quickest draw west of the Mississippi.Wild Bill also fell in love―multiple times―before marrying the true love of his life, Agnes Lake, the impresario of a traveling circus. He would be buried however, next to fabled frontierswoman Calamity Jane.Even before his death, Wild Bill became a legend, with fiction sometimes supplanting fact in the stories that surfaced. Once, in a bar in Nebraska, he was confronted by four men, three of whom he killed in the ensuing gunfight. A famous Harper’s Magazine article credited Hickok with slaying 10 men that day; by the 1870s, his career-long kill count was up to 100. The legend of Wild Bill has only grown since his death in 1876, when cowardly Jack McCall famously put a bullet through the back of his head during a card game. Bestselling author Tom Clavin has sifted through years of western lore to bring Hickock fully to life in this rip-roaring, spellbinding true story."[Narrator Johnny Heller] ensures that Western aficionados will enjoy listening to the life of Wild Bill" ― AudioFile Magazine

Endzone tells the story of how college football's most successful and respected program nearly lost it all in less than a decade, and entirely of its own doing. It is a story of hubris, greed, and betrayal, a tale more suited to Wall Street than the world's top public university.Author John U. Bacon takes you inside the offices, the board rooms, and the locker rooms of the University of Michigan to see what happened, and why, with countless eye-opening, head-shaking scenes of conflict and conquest. But Endzone is also an inspiring story of redemption and revival. When those who loved Michigan football the most recognized that it was being attacked from within, they rallied to reclaim the values that had made it great for over a century. The list of heroes includes players, students, lettermen, fans, and faculty-and the leaders who had the courage to listen to them. Their unprecedented uprising produced a new athletic director, and a new coach who vindicated the fans' faith when he turned down more money and fame to return to the place he loved most: Michigan.

Discover the bone-chilling adventures that made Goosebumps one of the bestselling children's book series of all time. Now with all-new bonus materials!Greg thinks there is something wrong with the old camera he found. The photos keep turning out . . . different.When Greg takes a picture of his father's brand-new car, it's wrecked in the photo. And then his dad crashes the car.It's like the camera can tell the future--or worse. Maybe it makes the future!It's another fan-favorite prequel to R.L. Stine's blockbuster GOOSEBUMPS HORRORLAND series.

The rise and fall of the greatest medical con man of all time.This is the enormously entertaining story of how a fraudulent surgeon made a fortune by inserting goats' testes into impotent American men. "Doctor" John Brinkley became a world renowned authority on sexual rejuvenation in the 1920s, with famous politicians and even royalty asking for his services. His nemesis was Dr. Morris Fishbein, editor of the Journal of the American Medical Association, but it took him fifteen years to destroy Brinkley in a dramatic courtroom showdown. In the meantime, despite mounting evidence that his quack treatments killed many patients, Brinkley became a millionaire, and his pioneering use of radio not only kick-started country music as a national force in America but also invented the whole concept of radio advertising. He became the first politician to campaign over the airwaves when he ran for governor of Kansas.

Fired from his longtime job as captain of the Coal Patrol, two-foot-three-inch 1,300-year-old elf Gumdrop Coal is angry. He's one of Santa's original elves, inspired by the fat man's vision to bring joy to children on that one special day each year. But somewhere along the way things went sour for Gumdrop. Maybe it was delivering one too many lumps of coal for the Naughty List. Maybe it's the conspiracy against Christmas that he's starting to sense down every chimney. Either way, North Pole disillusionment is nothing new: Some elves brood with a bottle of nog, trying to forget their own wish list. Some get better. Some get bitter. Gumdrop Coal wants revenge. Justice is the only thing he knows, and so he decides to give a serious wakeup call to parents who can't keep their vile offspring from landing on the Naughty List. But when one parent winds up dead, his eye shot out with a Red Ryder Carbine-Action Two-Hundred-Shot Range Model BB gun, Gumdrop Coal must learn who framed him and why. Along the way he'll escape the life-sucking plants of the Mistletoe Forest, battle the infamous Tannenbomb Giant, and survive a close encounter with twelve very angry drummers and their violent friends. The horrible truth lurking behind the gingerbread doors of Kringle Town could spell the end of Christmas-and of the fat man himself. Holly Jolly!

The rise and fall of the greatest medical con man of all time.This is the enormously entertaining story of how a fraudulent surgeon made a fortune by inserting goats' testes into impotent American men. "Doctor" John Brinkley became a world renowned authority on sexual rejuvenation in the 1920s, with famous politicians and even royalty asking for his services. His nemesis was Dr. Morris Fishbein, editor of the Journal of the American Medical Association, but it took him fifteen years to destroy Brinkley in a dramatic courtroom showdown. In the meantime, despite mounting evidence that his quack treatments killed many patients, Brinkley became a millionaire, and his pioneering use of radio not only kick-started country music as a national force in America but also invented the whole concept of radio advertising. He became the first politician to campaign over the airwaves when he ran for governor of Kansas.

Fired from his longtime job as captain of the Coal Patrol, two-foot-three-inch 1,300-year-old elf Gumdrop Coal is angry. He's one of Santa's original elves, inspired by the fat man's vision to bring joy to children on that one special day each year. But somewhere along the way things went sour for Gumdrop. Maybe it was delivering one too many lumps of coal for the Naughty List. Maybe it's the conspiracy against Christmas that he's starting to sense down every chimney. Either way, North Pole disillusionment is nothing new: Some elves brood with a bottle of nog, trying to forget their own wish list. Some get better. Some get bitter. Gumdrop Coal wants revenge. Justice is the only thing he knows, and so he decides to give a serious wakeup call to parents who can't keep their vile offspring from landing on the Naughty List. But when one parent winds up dead, his eye shot out with a Red Ryder Carbine-Action Two-Hundred-Shot Range Model BB gun, Gumdrop Coal must learn who framed him and why. Along the way he'll escape the life-sucking plants of the Mistletoe Forest, battle the infamous Tannenbomb Giant, and survive a close encounter with twelve very angry drummers and their violent friends. The horrible truth lurking behind the gingerbread doors of Kringle Town could spell the end of Christmas-and of the fat man himself. Holly Jolly!