Showing results by author "Louis Sachar" in All Categories

Bradley Chalkers IS the oldest kid in the fifth grade. He tells enormous lies. He picks fights with girls. No one likes him - except Carla, the new school counselor. She thinks Bradley is sensitive and generous, and knows that Bradley could change, if only he weren’t afraid to try. But when you feel like the most-hated kid in the whole school, believing in yourself can be the hardest thing in the world....

Is your school just a little too…NORMAL? Maybe you should go to Wayside School. You'll meet Bebe, the fastest draw in art class; John, who only reads upside down; and Sammy, the new kid—he's a real rat. Come on! Hurry up! If you're late for class, Mrs. Gorf will turn you into an app…Oops. Sorry about that. More than 6 million kids have laughed at the wacky stories of Wayside School.

Armpit and X-Ray are living in Austin, Texas. It is three years since they left the confines of Camp Green Lake Detention Centre and Armpit is taking small steps to turn his life around. He is working for a landscape gardener because he is good at digging holes, he is going to school and he is enjoying his first proper romance, but is he going to be able to stay out of trouble when there is so much building up against him?

Stanley Yelnats' family has a history of bad luck, so when a miscarriage of justice sends him to Camp Green Lake Juvenile Detention Centre (which isn't green and doesn't have a lake), he is not surprised. Every day he and the other inmates are told to dig a hole, five feet wide by five feet deep, reporting anything they find. The evil warden claims that it is character building, but this is a lie, and Stanley must dig up the truth.

More teetering tales and quirky characters from the 30th floor of towering Wayside School. The craziness continues.

When their teacher, Mrs. Jewls, leaves to have her baby, the kids go through a series of substitutes, each one a little stranger than the last.

When Laura Sibbie starts a secret club at school she calls it Pig City, after the funny hat she always wears. To make sure that none of the members tells anyone else about the club, Laura makes them give her something totally embarrasing as 'insurance'. She promises to keep the insurance secret - unless someone talks about Pig City.

If you go down to the woods today... Well, all children know not to, don't they? Tamaya is on a scholarship to the prestigious Woodridge Academy, and every day she and seventh-grader Marshall walk to school together. They never go through the woods. And when they arrive at school, they stop talking to each other - because Marshall can't be seen to be friends with a little kid like Tamaya. Especially not with Chad around. Chad-the-bully, who makes Marshall's life utterly miserable.

When Alton's ageing, blind uncle asks him to attend bridge games with him, he agrees. After all, it's better than a crappy summer job in the local shopping mall, and Alton's mother thinks it might secure their way to a good inheritance sometime in the future. But, like all apparently casual choices in any of Sachar's books, this choice soon turns out to be a lot more complex. As his relationship with his uncle develops, and he meets the very attractive Toni, deeply buried secrets are uncovered and a romance that spans decades is finally brought to a conclusion.

In 1523, in a far-away, bankrupt kingdom, there lives a magician named Anatole who considers himself to be the greatest in the land, having cured the King of a deadly illness decades ago. Except now, Anatole's spells have dried up. He can't even turn sand into gold - the most basic magic. Anatole's chance presents itself. The wedding of the century approaches, with the princess to marry a neighbouring prince. The only problem is she's fallen in love with a lowly apprentice scribe.

David is only trying to be cool when he helps some of the popular kids steal Old Lady Bayfield’s cane. But when the plan backfires, he’s the one the “old witch” curses. Now David can’t seem to do anything right. The cool kids taunt him and his only friends are freaks. He even walks into Spanish class with his fly unzipped! And when he finally gets up the nerve to ask out a cute girl, his pants fall down in mid-sentence. Is it the Bayfield curse at work?

Gary W. Boone knows he was born to be a stand-up comedian. It’s the rest of the kids in his class who think he’s just a goon. Then the Floyd Hicks Junior High School Talent Show is announced, and he starts practicing his routine nonstop to get it just right. Gary’s sure this will be his big break—he’ll make everyone laugh and win the $100 prize. But when an outrageous surprise threatens to turn his debut into a disaster, it looks as if the biggest joke of all may be on Gary himself.

Stanley Yelnats ist einfach ein Pechvogel. Kein Wunder also, dass er sich eines Tages in der Besserungsanstalt Camp Green Lake wiederfindet, weil er angeblich die Turnschuhe eines Baseball-Helden geklaut hat. Und hier, mitten in der Wüste, soll Stanley nun täglich tiefe Löcher in den harten texanischen Wüstenboden buddeln, um seinen Charakter zu festigen. Doch bald schon wird ihm klar, dass es im Camp eigentlich um ganz andere Dinge geht.

Als Marshall und Tamaya auf dem Nachhauseweg eine Abkürzung durch den Wald einschlagen, geraten sie in ein Schlammloch mit giftigen Erregern. Die Jugendlichen stecken sich dabei lebensbedrohlich an und lösen eine rasante Infektionswelle in Heath Cliff aus. Um sie einzudämmen und ihren Ursprung zu finden, wird eilig ein Untersuchungsausschuss einberufen. Schon bald zeigt sich das Ausmaß der Katastrophe und die Hilflosigkeit der Regierung. Was kann Heath Cliff retten?

Angeline could read before she was old enough to turn the pages of a book, and she mastered the piano without a single lesson. But being so clever doesn't make life easy for Angeline. Mean kids at school call her a 'genius freak', and her dad seems a bit worried about how to look after her. It is not until she makes friends with a boy who tells the best jokes, and a teacher who loves tropical fish, that things start to get better in some surprising ways for Angeline.