Jack Gantos

In the historic town of Norvelt, Pennsylvania, twelve-year-old Jack Gantos spends the summer of 1962 grounded for various offenses until he is assigned to help an elderly neighbor with a most unusual chore involving the newly dead, molten wax, twisted promises, Girl Scout cookies, underage driving, lessons from history, typewriting, and countless bloody noses.

Read by the author
2 hours 58 minutes, 2 cassettes
Joey Pigza is wired just like his dad and his grandma. Unfortunately, thet "wiring" often makes him feel as if he's about to explode. His prescription meds never seem to last long enough to get him through lunch, and soon he's got himself neck-deep in a big mess. The problem is, he usually can't figure out how he's gotten there.
If only Joey could learn to make better decisions,...

Hoping to beat his cousin Percy in the cat show, Ralph allows Sarah to help him spruce up his image and get in shape.

Sarah's rotten cat Ralph goes to a Halloween costume party dressed as her and creates horrible mischief under the protection of his disguise.

Jack Gantos' rocket-paced follow-up to the Newbery Medal–winning novel Dead End in Norvelt opens in the 1960s, deep in the shadow of the Cold War and the Cuban missile crisis. But instead of Russian warheads, other kinds of trouble are raining down on young Jack Gantos and his utopian town of Norvelt in western Pennsylvania. After an explosion, a new crime by an old murderer, and the sad passing of the town's founder, twelve-year-old

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Jack Henry has moved to the island of Barbados with his offbeat family and his secret diary. But still, he can't escape his penchant for wacky misadventure. Because of a headless chicken, he gets a violent case of blood poisoning. In a pepper-eating contest with his father, he discovers the perils of male bonding. And then, he has his heartstrings twanged by an older woman who just happens to be his sister's best friend. These are just a few of...

On an unseasonably warm Easter Sunday, a young girl named Ivy discovers a chilling secret in the basement of the Rumbaugh pharmacy across the street from the hotel where she lives with her mother. The discovery reveals a disturbing side to the eccentric lives of family friends Abner and Adolph Rumbaugh, known throughout their small western Pennsylvania town simply as the Twins. It seems that Ab and Dolph have been compelled by a powerful mutual...

As the Henry family sets sail for a new life on Cape Hatteras, fourth-grader Jack is struggling to chart a course between his parents' contradictory advice on making friends and influencing people. Just tell people what they want to hear, Dad advises. Just tell the truth, Mom cautions. Jack finds there are no easy answers as he drifts through his crazy school year, falling desperately in love with his young teacher, getting suckered into becoming...

In Jack on the Tracks, fifth-grader Jack Henry is hoping for fresh adventure when he moves to a new home in Miami with his family, but he can't escape his old worrying ways. He worries about being fascinated with all things gross and disgusting. He worries about his crazy French-obsessed schoolteacher. And, most of all he worries about worrying so much. In this cycle of interrelated stories, there may be light at the end of the tunnel, if only Jack...

Jack isn't like the Pagoda brothers. He knows the difference between fun and stupid. Launching yourself across the backyard in a makeshift Roman catapult? Fun. Smoking an entire pack of cigarettes as fast as possible? Stupid. But when it comes to emergency self-surgery…Jack still has something to learn. A short story from the acclaimed collection Guys Read: Funny Business, edited by Jon Scieszka.