A reluctant Mafia prince . . .Vince Luca is just like any other high school guy. His best friend, Alex, is trying to score vicariously through him; his brother is a giant pain; and his father keeps bugging him to get motivated. There is just one thing that really sets him apart for other kids - his father happens to be the head of a powerful crime organization.Needless to say, while Vince's family's connections can be handy for certain things (like when teachers are afraid t...

Tyler Stewart knows he’s going to be a television star. He’s funny, and his uncle Pete is a writer for the most popular show on TV. Best of all, Tyler’s parents have just sent him to visit Pete in Hollywood. Talk about luck—no more of his mom’s worrying and his dad’s instructions, for the rest of his summer vacation. Everyone in show business needs a break, and Tyler is sure this is going to be his.Now Tyler has two weeks to land an audition and impress the sitcom’s moody ...

In this entertaining and insightful essay, Mario Puzo chronicles his rise from struggling writer to overnight success after the publication of The Godfather.With equal parts cynicism and humor, Puzo recounts the book deal and his experiences in Hollywood while writing the screenplay for the movie. Francis Ford Coppola, Robert Evans, Peter Bart, Marlon Brando, and Al Pacino all make appearances-as does Frank Sinatra, in his famous and disastrous encounter w...

New kid Jake Garrett seems to have it all figured out. He's a star athlete, he hosts the best parties, and every girl in school wants to date him. But who is Jake Garrett, really? And why has he gone to all the trouble to reinvent himself? Gordon Korman's brilliant and intense writing and cutting edge dialogue quickly draw readers into the adolescent struggle of popularity and acceptance.

Gordon Korman is an award-winning young adult author with over 50 titles to his credit. Told in an electrifying, hard-edged style, The Juvie Three follows a trio of young delinquents who are granted a very special opportunity in New York City. Accessory to robbery, grand theft auto, driving without a license-these boys did it all, and now they're doing hard time in various juvenile detention centers. Then, however, a mysterious stranger visits each of them, offering to pull them out of "ja...

Leo Caraway-high school senior, president of the Young Republicans club, 4.0 GPA, future Harvard student-had his entire future perfectly planned out. That was, until the X factor. As in Marion X. McMurphy, aka King Maggot, the lead singer of Purge, the most popular, most destructive band punk rock has ever seen. He's also Leo's biological father.When Leo discovers that his real father is a punk rock legend, he is disgusted. Not only is Leo not a punk rock fan, but he believes the X...

Luthor, a former attack dog, is supposed to be on his best behavior now that he's in the care of Savannah, a girl who's easily a dog's best friend. But every time a certain truck passes by Savannah's house, Luthor goes into attack mode, and chaos follows.Meanwhile, Griffin Bing is locked in the fight of his life with his archenemy, Darren Vader. Both are trying to win an invention contest, and will stop at nothing to be victorious.A runaway dog. Some majorly strange inventi...

Popular author Gordon Korman pens a funny fish-out-of-water tale that even the most reluctant reader will find impossible to resist. Capricorn Anderson has spent his entire life on a farm with his hippie grandmother. After an accident puts Grandma in the hospital, Cap is forced to attend Claverage Middle School and live with his guidance counselor. The tradition at Claverage is for students to nominate the biggest nerd for class president, and Cap is the obvious choice. But with his odd wa...

Teens and pre-teens flock to any new offering from New York Times best-selling author Gordon Korman. Told through multiple viewpoints, Ungifted follows Donovan Curtis and his year at a magnet school for gifted and talented kids. Thanks to an administrative foul-up, the decidedly mediocre student Donovan finds himself enrolled in the Academy of Scholastic Distinction. Out of place and out of luck, Donovan joins the robotics team. And while he learns a few lessons from his gifted classmates,...

The sixth installment in the Swindle series, in which The Man With The Plan gets a new rival … and the search for a missing lottery ticket becomes a hunt of epic proportions.JACKPOT: the top prize in a game or lottery; a sensational and unexpected success, stroke of luck, windfall, bounty, pay day …What would you do with $30,000,000? That's the question everyone in Cedarville and every town near it is asking, because right now there's an unclaimed lottery ticket worth that ...

HIDEOUT: a place to escape detection, especially when being chased by someone determined to have revenge …When Griffin Bing and his friends first met Luthor, he was a vicious attack dog working for the slimy S. Wendell Palomino—also known as Swindle. The kids rescued Luthor, and never thought they’d see Swindle again.But now Swindle’s returned. And he wants his dog back.Swindle has manipulated the law so that there’s no way for Savannah Drysdale to keep Luthor in he...

SHOWOFF: someone who is given to bragging, having a swelled head, boasting, swaggering, knowing it all …Griffin Bing and his friends are back—and this time, things have gone to the dogs!After former attack dog Luthor goes berserk at a dog show, he’s accused of ruining the career of the three-time national champion. Griffin has always wondered whether you could teach such a vicious dog new tricks … but he also smells a setup of some kind. He feels bad for Luthor—bad enough t...