Showing results by author "Jon Scieszka" in All Categories

How did Jon Scieszka get so funny, anyway? Growing up as one of six brothers was a good start, but that was just the beginning. Throw in Catholic school, lots of comic books, lazy summers at the lake with time to kill, babysitting misadventures, TV shows, jokes told at family dinner, and the result is Knucklehead. Part memoir, part scrapbook, this hilarious trip down memory lane provides a unique glimpse into the formation of a creative mind and a free spirit.

Funny Business is based around the theme of - what else? - humor, and if you’re familiar with Jon and the Guys Read Library, you already know what you’re in store for: 10 hilarious stories from some of the funniest writers around. Before you’re through, you’ll meet a teenage mummy; a kid desperate to take a dip in the world’s largest pool of chocolate milk; a homicidal turkey; parents who hand over their son’s room to a biker; and more.

The classic story told from the wolf's point of view.

A lineman with something to prove. A vendetta against a baseball legend. The rise of a real-life NHL all-star. The luckiest grapefruit in sports history. Open up The Sports Pages, the third volume in the Guys Read Library of Great Reading, and you're in for all of this and more. From fiction to nonfiction, from baseball to mixed martial arts and everything in between, these are 10 stories about the rush of victory and the crush of defeat on and off the field. Compiled by kid-lit all-star Jon Scieszka, Guys Read: The Sports Pages is a thrilling collection of brand-new short stories.

When the world's most horrible editor turns up dead, investigator Jon Scieszka has his work cut out for him. The suspect list is long. Very long. Think eighty-three-famous-YA-authors long, including Libba Bray, David Levithan, John Green, Lemony Snicket, Lauren Myracle - you get the picture. They've all got alibis, collected in this very anthology. But the question is ... Who done it? A 2013 AudioFile Editors' Pick.

It's been years since Jon Scieszka and Lane Smith introduced the world to the Cinderumpelstiltskin, Little Red Running Shorts, Chicken Licken, and the rest of the hilarious cast of characters in The Stinky Cheese Man. In this audio edition, listen to some really off-the-wall fairy tales, including "The Princess and the Bowling Ball", "The Really Ugly Duckling", and "Jack's Bean Problem".

How did Joe, Fred, and Sam end up in King Arthur's court? It all started with The Book, a present from Joe's magician uncle. One minute they were looking at pictures of knights in The Book - and the next minute they are knights, battling fire-breathing dragons and gross-smelling giants! Can the Time Warp Trio escape death and destruction - and make it back to the twentieth century in time for lunch?

A star-studded group of award-winning nonfiction authors and journalists provides something for every listener, all aligned with the Common Core State Standards. Compiled and edited by real-life literature legend Jon Scieszka, Guys Read: True Stories is a mind-blowing collection of essays, biographies, travelogues, and more, all proving that the truth is most definitely out there.

Humans have gone too far, wrecking planet Earth. We might need to find a new planet. But who could possibly help us do that? The AstroNuts! Lucky for us, back in the 1980s, NNASA (NotNASA) created four secret superpowered Animal Astronauts - AlphaWolf, SmartHawk, LaserShark, and StinkBug. They were built to be automatically launched into space to check out possible Goldilocks planets if things on Earth ever got too bad. Unlucky for us, things just got too bad.

Thanks to The Book, Joe, Sam, and Fred are back in the Stone Age, where there aren't any math problems. But there's a tribe of hostile cavewomen, a hungry-looking saber-toothed tiger, a bone-rattling earthquake, and a woolly mammoth who wants to turn them into toe jam. Worst of all, Joe, Sam, and Fred have discovered that writing hasn't been invented yet - so how can The Book get them back home?

Frank Einstein loves figuring out how the world works by creating household contraptions that are part science, part imagination, and definitely unusual. After an uneventful experiment in his garage-lab, a lightning storm and flash of electricity bring Frank's inventions - the robots Klink and Klank - to life! Not exactly the ideal lab partners, the wisecracking Klink and the overly expressive Klank nonetheless help Frank attempt to perfect his Antimatter Motor...until Frank's archnemesis, T. Edison, steals Klink and Klank.

Blackbeard, the meanest, ugliest pirate ever, has our accidental time travelers cornered. Can Fred, Sam, and Joe find The Book in time - or will they become shark munchies?

When Joe's sister, Anna, accidentally opens The Book, Joe, Sam, and Fred suddenly find themselves in ancient Egypt. Soon, the Time Warpers are dodging crocodiles on the Nile, outwitting the evil high priest, and searching for an escape route from the mummy-making chamber.

One morning a little girl wakes up to find everything in life arranging itself into a math problem, and she must find her way out of the Math Curse!

Heroes & Villains, the seventh volume in Jon Scieszka's Guys Read Library of Great Reading, is chock-full of adventure featuring an array of characters - with and without capes. Featuring 10 all-new, original stories that run the gamut from fantasy to contemporary adventure to nonfiction, and featuring 11 of the most acclaimed, exciting writers for kids working today, this collection is the perfect book for you, whether you use your powers for good - or evil.

Frank is working on a revamped version of one of Nikola Tesla's inventions, the "Electro-Finger", a device that can tap into energy anywhere and allow all of Midville to live off the grid, with free wireless and solar energy. But this puts Frank in direct conflict with Edison's quest to control all the power and light in Midville, monopolize its energy resources, and get "rich rich rich".

Frank Einstein (kid-genius scientist and inventor) and his best friend Watson, along with Klink (a self-assembled artificial intelligence entity), create the BrainTurbo to power-boost the human body and help their baseball-pitching pal Janegoodall make the team. But when Klank (a mostly self-assembled and artificial almost intelligence entity) goes missing, they must first rescue their robot pal and stop T. Edison - Frank’s classmate and archrival - from stealing their latest invention and using it against them!

"I cannot tell a lie," said General George Washington. "The Time Warp Trio helped me cross the Delaware River and surprise the enemy troops." So how did Christmas Eve in the 21st century turn into Christmas Day in 1776? Well, it was sort of an accident. And for once, it wasn't Joe, Sam, and Fred's fault! Can American history survive the Time Warp Trio? You'll just have to ask Sam's time-warping great-granddaughter Samantha... and her leaky cat.

What would happen if someone had a time-warping book he got from his uncle who was a magician, and he took it to the local YMCA pool while he played Marco? Polo! with his best friends? In the 16th adventure of the Time Warp Trio, it happens to Joe (and Fred and Sam). And what happens is sandstorms, desert bandits, a smelly camel, strange horoscopes, the emperor of all China, and one very famous explorer. If the explorer is Marco Polo, this must be 13th century China!

Eleven masters of suspense - Kelly Barnhill, Michael Buckley, Adam Gidwitz, Adele Griffin and Lisa Brown, Claire Legrand, Nikki Loftin, Daniel José Older, Dav Pilkey, R. L. Stine, and Rita Williams-Garcia - have come together to bring you a bone-chilling collection of original ghost stories, perfect for sharing around the campfire, listening under the covers with a flashlight, and scaring your friends' pants off.