Primary For Children

Hank Zipzer: He's smart. He's creative. He's funny. His pencils are sharpened. His binders are bound. He wants to do well in school, he really does. He tries not to be lazy, like his parents claim he is. So why is he always getting into trouble?

Betsy hopes that whoever moves into the house across the street will have a little girl just her age. And the little girl who moves in is just her age. Her name is Tacy. She is very bashful, but she likes to listen to Betsy's stories: wonderful stories that the girls love, and that they keep as their own special secret.

The Super Bowl: America's biggest sports spectacle. More than 95 million fans will be watching. But Steve Thomas and Susan Carol Anderson know that what they'll be watching is a lie. They know that the entire offensive line of the California Dreams have failed their doping tests and shouldn't be allowed to play.

Jack has caused an earthquake. He was trying to save his sister, Lucy, from being thrown down a well, but he is, after all, only a 13-year-old bard in training. Sometimes the magic doesn't quite work out. Not only does Jack demolish a monastery, but Lucy is carried off by the Lady of the Lake. Jack has to follow her through the Hollow Road that lies underground. It leads to all sorts of unexpected places: caves full of dragon poop, knucker holes (you do not want to know what knuckers are), and Elfland.

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.

Trixie can't believe she's stuck in Sleepside all sumemr while her lucky brothers are away at camp. Then a millionaire's daughter moves in next door, a runaway kid hides out nearby, and rumors heat up that the old mansion on the hill is filled with a fortune. Maybe the summer won't be so boring after all!

"Where are the lions?" Jack wonders when the Magic Tree House whisks him and his sister to the vast plains of Africa. Before he can find out, Annie starts to help hundreds of wildebeests cross a rushing river. Next they follow a honey of a bird and meet an awesome Masai warrior. Jack hopes any lions will just stay away. Jack is about to be very disappointed.

Covered by vines and hidden by trees, the old gatehouse on the edge of the woods has been abandoned for years. But when Trixie and her pal Honey explore it, they discover more than just dust and spiderwebs inside. The two girls find a huge diamond stuck in the dirt floor! Could a ring of jewel thieves be hiding out in Sleepyside?

Bobby Phillips is an average 15-year-old boy. Until the morning he wakes up and can't see himself in the mirror. Not blind, not dreaming, Bobby is just plain invisible. There doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to Bobby's new condition; even his dad the physicist can't figure it out. For Bobby that means no school, no friends, no life. He's a missing person. Then he meets Alicia. She's blind, and Bobby can't resist talking to her, trusting her.

Martine's parents are killed in a fire, and she must leave her home in England to live on a wildlife reserve in Africa with a grandmother she never even knew she had. As soon as Martine arrives at the reserve, she hears whisperings of a mythical animal living there, a white giraffe. No one has ever seen the animal, but it leaves footprints behind.

Jack and Annie are whisked 40 years forward in time and land at an international space station on the moon. There they don space suits and go exploring the lunar surface in search of the fourth object needed to free the enchantress Morgan le Fay from a powerful spell.

Conrad's Fate is part of the clever and humorous Chrestomanci series. Twelve-year-old Conrad Tesdinic is in disguise as a servant-in-training at Stallery Mansion in the town of Stallchester. He wants to figure out what evil he caused in a past life. He and his friend Christopher Chant are trying to repair Conrad's very bad karma and to discover what mysterious entity is haunting the town.

The emperor of the enchanted Faerie Realm has been murdered and now Pyrgus, his son, is the Emperor Elect. As Pyrgus contemplates his new responsibilities as emperor, his father's body is stolen! Hairstreak, evil leader of the Faeries of the Night, and his wicked henchmen have resurrected it as a zombie and plan to take control of the kingdom. Pyrgus and his courageous sister Holly Blue are banished from the realm and stripped of their magical powers.

The second novel in the captivating Chanters of Tremaris trilogy follows Calwyn and her friends to the desolate Merithuran Empire. As they search for a group of kidnapped children who have the gift of chantment, they must negotiate both the unforgiving desert and the even more treacherous Palace of Cobwebs, where they uncover the dreadful secret that holds the Empire together. Meanwhile, Darrow has broken away from the group to form a new alliance of his own. Can he still be trusted?

When Ruben and Jed find a dead body on the Rhode Island shore, they are certain it has something to do with smuggling liquor. It's the 1920s, Prohibition and bootlegging is in full swing, and almost everyone in the shore community is involved. Suddenly, the boys find themselves involved as well: didn't the dead man have something on him, and didn't they take it? It isn't long before Ruben is actually on the legendary Black Duck itself, caught in a war between two ferocious prohibition gangs.

The year is 79 A.D. The place is Ostia, the port of Rome. Flavia Gemina, a Roman sea captain's daughter, is about to embark on a thrilling adventure.

Ellen Tebbits is convinced she'll die of embarrassment if any of the girls at school discover her secret. But then she meets Austine Allen, a new girl in class who's hiding the very same secret. Instantly, the two become best friends. They do everything together, from clapping erasers to riding horses. Ellen quickly learns that embarrassing secrets and pesky troublemakers like Otis Spofford aren't so bad when you have someone special to stick up for you.

Araminta Spookie lives in a wonderful old haunted house, but her crabby Aunt Tabby wants to move. Aunt Tabby is determined to sell their house; Araminta has to stop her! With the help of a haunted suit of armor named Sir Horace, a ghost named Edmund, and a lot of imagination, Araminta hatches a plot for an Awful Ambush that is so ghoulish, it just might work!

Molly Moon returns...and bumps into earlier versions of herself, four of them, to be exact, all kidnapped and transported back in time to nineteenth-century India by Molly's most fearsome nemesis yet, an insane maharaja. Molly foiled his plans once already, by stopping Primo Cell from becoming president of the United States. This time around, the maharaja is determined to alter the course of history. The only thing standing in his way is Molly and her brave pug, Petula.

Is this town haunted? Jack and Annie wonder when the Magic Tree House carries them to the Wild West. But before they can say "Boo!" they rush headlong into an adventure filled with horse thieves, a lost colt, rattlesnakes, and a cowboy named Slim. Will Jack and Annie have time to solve the next Tree House riddle? The answer may depend on a ghost!