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You could say that my railroad, the Madham Line, is almost the most important thing in my life. Next to Andy Morrow, my best friend. Lots of people think Doug Hanson is a freak -- he gets beat up after school, and the girl of his dreams calls him a worm. Doug's only refuge is creating an elaborate... More

Consumption of alcohol: Illegal. Football and other "violent" sports: Illegal. Ownership of guns, chain saws, and/or large dogs: Illegal. Body piercings, tattoos: Illegal. It's late in the twenty-first century, and the United Safer States of America (USSA) has become a nation obsessed with sa... More

Dennis Doyle is feeling lucky. His landscaping business is thriving, his girlfriend loves him, he's got money in the bank, and the city bus that ran into him that morning left him alive and well. Soon he'll turn sixteen and buy himself a car. Everything is going his way. So when his buddies ask him ... More

People all over Flinkwater are losing their memories--and it's up to Ginger to figure out what's going on--in this sequel to the "quirky, dryly funny" (Booklist) The Flinkwater Factor from National Book Award-winning author Pete Hautman.Absentmindedness in Flinkwater, a town overflowing with eccentr... More

Tackling faith, doubt, and transformation, National Book Award winner Pete Hautman explores a boy’s unraveling allegiance to an insular cult.<P><P> Twelve square miles of paradise, surrounded by an eight-foot-high chain-link fence: this is Nodd, the land of the Grace. It is all seventeen-year-old... More

"Why mess around with Catholicism when you can have your own customized religion?" Fed up with his parents' boring old religion, agnostic-going-on-atheist Jason Bock invents a new god -- the town's water tower. He recruits an unlikely group of worshippers: his snail-farming best friend, Shin, cute-... More

Sixteen-year-old Lucy Szabo is Undead -- at least according to her own theories about vampirism. Lucy believes that the first vampires -- with their pale skin, long teeth, and uncontrollable thirst -- were dying diabetics. And she should know. She's a diabetic herself. When Lucy becomes involved wi... More

Jack Lund figures a good day is when his dad's too drunk to beat up his mom. For Jack, Bogg's End is the end. The end of the turbulent, see-saw years of watching his father go on the wagon and fall right back off gain. Once it took two years, but the inevitable inevitably happened. Now it's just Jac... More

"All I want is to play cards, to run my fingers over those slick, hard surfaces, to feel that cold power flowing in and out through my hands and eyes." Dennis Doyle is feeling lucky. His landscaping business is thriving, his girlfriend loves him, he's got money in the bank, and the city bus that ra... More

Nick Fashon is having a bad day. He's just found out his estranged grandfather has died mysteriously in the Arizona desert. Then he meets his potential father-in-law, who turns out to be an ex-cop with a screw loose and a penchant for bean dip. To top it off, he returns home to find his successful c... More

"You know how they say you can't climb out of a hole till you hit bottom?" "Yeah?" "I'm trying to find the bottom." At seventeen, Denn Doyle isn't old enough to gamble legally, but thanks to his talent for reading tells, he's made a fortune -- and along the way, he's upset some of the most no... More

Shayne Blank is the new kid in town--but that doesn't stop him from getting into a lot of trouble, very quickly. The other kids don't understand him. He's not afraid of anything. He seems too smart. His background doesn't add up. And when he walks into the police department to confess to a murder, i... More

Ginger must save her high-tech hometown from robots gone rogue in this hilariously quirky science fiction novel from National Book Award-winning author Pete Hautman.Welcome to Flinkwater, Iowa, home of the largest manufacturer of Articulated Computerized Peripheral Devices in the world. If you own a... More

From a contest that pits a hapless teen against his girlfriends redneck family, to a midnight game with the Devil, to an Internet poker scheme gone horribly wrong, the stories here brilliantly reveal how poker can both irrevocably affect and eerily imitate teenage life.... More

<p>Competitive eating vies with family expectations in a funny, heartfelt novel for middle-grade readers by National Book Award winner Pete Hautman. <p>David can eat an entire sixteen-inch pepperoni pizza in four minutes and thirty-six seconds. Not bad. But he knows he can do better. In fact, he’... More

From National Book Award winner Pete Hautman, the story of a girl who acts out by stealing cars. Some girls act out by drinking or doing drugs. Some girls act out by sleeping with guys. Some girls act out by starving themselves or cutting themselves. Some girls act out by being a bitch to other ... More

A funny, clear-eyed view of the realities of teenage love from National Book Award winner Pete Hautman. Jen and Wes do not "meet cute." They do not fall in love at first sight. They do not swoon with scorching desire. They do not believe that they are instant soul mates destined to be together f... More

National Book Award winning author Pete Hautman lets us in on the secret. Lita is the writer. Adam is the entrepreneur. They are JUST FRIENDS. So Adam would never sell copies of a self-help book before he'd even written it. And Lita would never try to break up Adam's relationship with Blair, the s... More

In this captivating story about loss, love, and changing your ways, National Book Award­–winning author Pete Hautman imbues the classic road trip novel with clever wit and heartfelt musings about life and death. <P><P>Steven Gerald Gabel—a.k.a. Stiggy—needs to get out of Minnesota. His father rece... More

“Hatred combined with lies and secrets can break the world.” Grandpa Zach used to say that before he died, but Stuey never really knew what he meant. It was kind of like how he used to talk about quantum physics or how he used to say ghosts haunted their overgrown golf course. But then one day, afte... More

After losing a poker hand to a sleazy stockbroker, an ex-cop must work to pay off his debtBefore cocaine, Joe Crow had a wife and a job with the Big River Police Department. Now he has neither--and he's left behind coke, too. Sober, quiet, and reflective, his only vice is poker. One night he gets in... More

Targeted by drug addicts, a carnival taco vendor must defend his fortuneAfter years playing professional poker, Axel Speeter knows not to trust people. Retired from the table, this no-nonsense old salt makes ends meet by selling tacos at the Minnesota State Fair, and he's got two things on his mind:... More

Desperate for cash, small town cop Joe Crow takes a security job that could cost him his lifeJoe Crow celebrates his thirty-third birthday in his patrol car, watching for speeders and sniffing fat lines of cocaine. A depressed cop with a faltering marriage, a rotten stomach, and an increasingly expe... More

A lottery jackpot winner decides to turn one of her millions into a bounty for the man who left herBarbaraannette is decorating a cake when the Powerball numbers come in. They sound suspiciously familiar, but she finishes the cake before checking her ticket, knowing that if she wins her hands will b... More

To save a friend's daughter from a bad marriage, Joe Crow confronts cultists, carnies, and cocaine wackosPoker-playing ex-cop Joe Crow has been dealt some rotten hands in his life, but he's survived them all. When Axel Speeter starts begging for help, Crow suspects his luck is about to run out. A ta... More