How could two hardworking people do everything right in life, a woman asks, and end up destitute? Willa Knox and her husband followed all the rules as responsible parents and professionals, and have nothing to show for it but debts and an inherited brick house that is falling apart. The magazine where Willa worked has folded; the college where her husband had tenure has closed. Their dubious shelter is also the only option for a disabled father-in-law...

George and Harold are fourth-grade buddies with a penchant for practical jokes. When the boys' latest prank drives their science teacher over the edge, their clueless principal, Mr. Krupp, quickly hires a replacement: Professor Pippy P. Poopypants. Of course, George and Harold can't resist making fun of the Professor's silly name. But then the Professor retaliates by forcing everyone in town to change their own names to be equally silly, with colossal...

Rory and Felix are housesitting for the sinister science teacher Ms. Fleek, and she has given them a very specific list of duties, including making sure the basement door is locked--but when one day they find the door open and venture into the basement, what they find there convinces them that they never want to go to that house again.

On her first day of seventh grade MJ meets the nice new science teacher--but when Ms. Fleek finally gets the door to the laboratory, room 201, open she changes and suddenly MJ does not want to go anywhere near her or that room.

Abe Ravelstein is a brilliant professor at a prominent midwestern university and a man who glories in training the movers and shakers of the political world. He has lived grandly and ferociously-and much beyond his means. His close friend Chick has suggested that he put forth a book of his convictions about the ideas which sustain humankind, or kill it, and much to Ravelstein's own surprise, he does and becomes a millionaire. Ravelstein suggests in...

"This novel maps the romantic history and emotional inheritance of one couple newly in love. Monster in the Middle moves from the U.S. to the Virgin Islands to Ghana and back again, to show how one couple's romance is influenced by the family lore and love stories that preceded their own pairing"-- When Fly and Stela meet in 21st Century New York City, it seems like fate. He is a Black American musician from a mixed-religious background who knows...