King Dork

King Dork
Author: Frank Portman
Publisher: Delacorte Press
Total Pages: 370
Release: 2008-02-12
Genre: Young Adult Fiction
ISBN: 037589070X

As John Green, New York Times bestselling author of The Fault in Our Stars said, “King Dork will rock your world.” The cult favorite from Frank Portman, aka Dr. Frank of the Mr. T. Experience, is a book like nothing ever done before--King Dork literally has something for everyone: At least a half-dozen mysteries, love, mistaken identity, girls, monks, books, blood, bubblegum, and rock and roll. This book is based on music--a passion most kids have--and it has original (hilarious) songs and song lyrics throughout. When Tom Henderson finds his deceased father’s copy of J. D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye, his world is turned upside down. Suddenly high school gets more complicated: Tom (aka King Dork) is in the middle of at least half a dozen mysteries involving dead people, naked people, fake people, a secret code, girls, and rock and roll. As he goes through sophomore year, he finds clues that may very well solve the puzzle of his father’s death and—oddly—reveal the secret to attracting semi-hot girls (the secret might be being in a band, if he can find a drummer who can count to four. A brilliant story told in first person, King Dork includes a glossary and a bandography, which readers will find helpful and hilarious. Praise for King Dork: “Basically, if you are a human being with even a vague grasp of the English language, King Dork, will rock your world.”—John Green, author of The Fault in Our Stars “[No account of high school] has made me laugh more than King Dork. . . . Grade A.”—Entertainment Weekly “Impossibly brilliant.”—Time “Provides a window into what it would be like if Holden Caulfield read The Catcher in the Rye.”—New York Post [STAR] “Original, heartfelt, and sparkling with wit and intelligence. This novel will linger long in readers’ memories.”—School Library Journal, Starred [STAR] “A biting and witty high-school satire.”—Kirkus Reviews, Starred [STAR] “Tom’s narration is piercingly satirical and acidly witty.”—The Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books, Starred “Loaded with sharp and offbeat humor.”—USA Today “King Dork is smart, funny, occasionally raunchy and refreshingly clear about what it’s like to be in high school.”—San Francisco Chronicle “King Dork: Best Punk Rock Book Ever.”—The Village Voice “I love this book as much as I hated high school, and that’s some of the highest praise I can possibly give.”—Bookslut.com

King Dork Approximately

King Dork Approximately
Author: Frank Portman
Publisher:
Total Pages: 386
Release: 2014
Genre: Dating (Social customs)
ISBN: 0385736185

With stitches in his head and after-effects from surgery, Tom Henderson finds some of his most deeply-held beliefs shattered, but, somehow, makes out with at least two girls by the end of tenth grade.

Andromeda Klein

Andromeda Klein
Author: Frank Portman
Publisher: Delacorte Press
Total Pages: 434
Release: 2010-12-14
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
ISBN: 038573526X

High school sophomore Andromeda, an outcast because she studies the occult and has a hearing impairment and other disabilities, overcomes grief over terrible losses by enlisting others' help in her plan to save library books--and finds a kindred spirit along the way.

Motherless Brooklyn

Motherless Brooklyn
Author: Jonathan Lethem
Publisher: Vintage
Total Pages: 373
Release: 2011-04-20
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0307789128

NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD WINNER • A complusively readable riff on the classic detective novel from America's most inventive novelist. "A half-satirical cross between a literary novel and a hard-boiled crime story narrated by an amateur detective with Tourette's syndrome.... The dialogue crackles with caustic hilarity.... Unexpectedly moving." —The Boston Globe Brooklyn's very own self-appointed Human Freakshow, Lionel Essrog is an orphan whose Tourettic impulses drive him to bark, count, and rip apart our language in startling and original ways. Together with three veterans of the St. Vincent's Home for Boys, he works for small-time mobster Frank Minna's limo service cum detective agency. Life without Frank Minna, the charismatic King of Brooklyn, would be unimaginable, so who cares if the tasks he sets them are, well, not exactly legal. But when Frank is fatally stabbed, one of Lionel's colleagues lands in jail, the other two vie for his position, and the victim's widow skips town. Lionel's world is suddenly topsy-turvy, and this outcast who has trouble even conversing attempts to untangle the threads of the case while trying to keep the words straight in his head. Motherless Brooklyn is a brilliantly original, captivating homage to the classic detective novel by one of the most acclaimed writers of his generation.

King Dork

King Dork
Author: Frank Portman
Publisher: Delacorte Press
Total Pages: 370
Release: 2008-02-12
Genre: Young Adult Fiction
ISBN: 037589070X

As John Green, New York Times bestselling author of The Fault in Our Stars said, “King Dork will rock your world.” The cult favorite from Frank Portman, aka Dr. Frank of the Mr. T. Experience, is a book like nothing ever done before--King Dork literally has something for everyone: At least a half-dozen mysteries, love, mistaken identity, girls, monks, books, blood, bubblegum, and rock and roll. This book is based on music--a passion most kids have--and it has original (hilarious) songs and song lyrics throughout. When Tom Henderson finds his deceased father’s copy of J. D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye, his world is turned upside down. Suddenly high school gets more complicated: Tom (aka King Dork) is in the middle of at least half a dozen mysteries involving dead people, naked people, fake people, a secret code, girls, and rock and roll. As he goes through sophomore year, he finds clues that may very well solve the puzzle of his father’s death and—oddly—reveal the secret to attracting semi-hot girls (the secret might be being in a band, if he can find a drummer who can count to four. A brilliant story told in first person, King Dork includes a glossary and a bandography, which readers will find helpful and hilarious. Praise for King Dork: “Basically, if you are a human being with even a vague grasp of the English language, King Dork, will rock your world.”—John Green, author of The Fault in Our Stars “[No account of high school] has made me laugh more than King Dork. . . . Grade A.”—Entertainment Weekly “Impossibly brilliant.”—Time “Provides a window into what it would be like if Holden Caulfield read The Catcher in the Rye.”—New York Post [STAR] “Original, heartfelt, and sparkling with wit and intelligence. This novel will linger long in readers’ memories.”—School Library Journal, Starred [STAR] “A biting and witty high-school satire.”—Kirkus Reviews, Starred [STAR] “Tom’s narration is piercingly satirical and acidly witty.”—The Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books, Starred “Loaded with sharp and offbeat humor.”—USA Today “King Dork is smart, funny, occasionally raunchy and refreshingly clear about what it’s like to be in high school.”—San Francisco Chronicle “King Dork: Best Punk Rock Book Ever.”—The Village Voice “I love this book as much as I hated high school, and that’s some of the highest praise I can possibly give.”—Bookslut.com

Confessions of a Dork Lord

Confessions of a Dork Lord
Author: Mike Johnston
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 354
Release: 2020-01-28
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
ISBN: 1524740810

Despicable Me meets Diary of a Wimpy Kid in this hilarious illustrated middle grade adventure that follows a hapless warlock-in-training as he struggles to live up to his great and terrible destiny. Meet Wick. He's the son of the Dark Lord, heir to the throne of black and broken glass, and next in line to be the leader of the Grim World. Too bad he's stuck in Remedial Spell Casting (he can barely even cast the fart-revealer spell), he's allergic to fire and brimstone, and the bullies at school insist on calling him Dork Lord. Full of humor, hijinks, and lively illustrations, Confessions of a Dork Lord follows Wick through the pages of his journal as he comes up with a genius plan to defeat his foes, achieve greatness . . . and survive Middle Ages School. "I loved every page, and your kid will too!" --Melissa de la Cruz, bestselling author of the Descendants series "It's not easy being bad. But this book will give you a head start." --Pseudonymous Bosch, bestselling author of the Secret series "Hilarious! Not to be missed!" --Eoin Colfer, bestselling author of the Artemis Fowl series

The Seven Torments of Amy and Craig (A Love Story)

The Seven Torments of Amy and Craig (A Love Story)
Author: Don Zolidis
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Total Pages: 302
Release: 2018-10-04
Genre: Young Adult Fiction
ISBN: 1368010393

Janesville, Wisconsin (cold in the sense that there is no God)1994 The best thing that's ever happened to Craig is also the worst: Amy. Amy and Craig never should've gotten together. Craig is an awkward Dungeons & Dragons-playing geek, and Amy is the beautiful, fiercely intelligent student-body president of their high school. Yet somehow they did until Amy dumped him. Then got back together with him. Then dumped him again. Then got back together with him again. Over and over and over. Unfolding during their senior year, Amy and Craig's exhilarating, tumultuous relationship is a kaleidoscope of joy, pain, and laughter as an uncertain future-and adult responsibility-loom on the horizon. Craig fights for his dream of escaping Janesville and finding his place at a quirky college, while Amy's quest to uncover her true self sometimes involves being Craig's girlfriend and sometimes doesn't. Seven heartbreaks. Seven joys. Told nonsequentially, acclaimed playwright Don Zolidis's debut novel is a brutally funny, bittersweet taste of the utterly unique and universal experience of first love.

Unfamiliar Fishes

Unfamiliar Fishes
Author: Sarah Vowell
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 174
Release: 2011-03-22
Genre: History
ISBN: 1101486457

From the author of Lafayette in the Somewhat United States, an examination of Hawaii, the place where Manifest Destiny got a sunburn. Many think of 1776 as the defining year of American history, when we became a nation devoted to the pursuit of happiness through self- government. In Unfamiliar Fishes, Sarah Vowell argues that 1898 might be a year just as defining, when, in an orgy of imperialism, the United States annexed Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and Guam, and invaded first Cuba, then the Philippines, becoming an international superpower practically overnight. Among the developments in these outposts of 1898, Vowell considers the Americanization of Hawaii the most intriguing. From the arrival of New England missionaries in 1820, their goal to Christianize the local heathen, to the coup d'état of the missionaries' sons in 1893, which overthrew the Hawaiian queen, the events leading up to American annexation feature a cast of beguiling, and often appealing or tragic, characters: whalers who fired cannons at the Bible-thumpers denying them their God-given right to whores, an incestuous princess pulled between her new god and her brother-husband, sugar barons, lepers, con men, Theodore Roosevelt, and the last Hawaiian queen, a songwriter whose sentimental ode "Aloha 'Oe" serenaded the first Hawaiian president of the United States during his 2009 inaugural parade. With her trademark smart-alecky insights and reporting, Vowell lights out to discover the off, emblematic, and exceptional history of the fiftieth state, and in so doing finds America, warts and all.

Not Exactly a Love Story

Not Exactly a Love Story
Author: Audrey Couloumbis
Publisher: Random House Books for Young Readers
Total Pages: 290
Release: 2012-12-11
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
ISBN: 037586783X

After his parents divorce, high school junior Vinnie Gold moves to Long Island with his mother and new stepfather and must negotiate a secret crush and a rather complicated connection with the popular girl next door.