Book picks similar to
Johnny Hangtime by Dan Gutman


children-s
adventure
realistic-fiction
sports

Mercedes Ice: An Urban Fairy Story For Modern Children


Philip Ridley - 1989
    But soon the shining concrete began to crack and the gleaming windows became grimy and dull. Into this colourless decay comes Mercedes Ice, Crown Prince of Shadow Point, with an impossible demand: colour.

The Pushcart War


Jean Merrill - 1964
    There were so many trucks making deliveries that it might take an hour for a car to travel a few blocks. People blamed the truck owners and the truck owners blamed the little wooden pushcarts that traveled the city selling everything from flowers to hot dogs. Behind closed doors the truck owners declared war on the pushcart peddlers. Carts were smashed from Chinatown to Chelsea. The peddlers didn’t have money or the mayor on their side, but that didn’t stop them from fighting back. They used pea shooters to blow tacks into the tires of trucks, they outwitted the police, and they marched right up to the grilles of those giant trucks and dared them to drive down their streets. Today, thanks to the ingenuity of the pushcart peddlers, the streets belong to the people—and to the pushcarts.The Pushcart War was first published more than fifty years ago. It has inspired generations of children and been adapted for television, radio, and the stage around the world. It was included on School Library Journal’s list of One Hundred Books That Shaped the Twentieth Century, and its assertion that a committed group of men and women can prevail against a powerful force is as relevant in the twenty-first century as it was in 1964.

My Teacher Is an Alien


Bruce Coville - 1989
    But she doesn't know how weird until she catches him peeling off his face -- and realizes that "Mr. Smith" is really an alien! At first no one will believe her except Peter Thompson, the class brain. When Peter and Susan discover Mr. Smith's horrible plans for their classmates, they know they have to act fast. Only they can get rid of their extraterrestrial visitor -- and save the rest of the sixth-grade class from a fate worse than math tests!

Ginger Pye


Eleanor Estes - 1951
    The disappearance of a new puppy named Ginger and the appearance of a mysterious man in a mustard yellow hat bring excitement into the lives of the Pye children.

Herbert's Wormhole


Peter Nelson - 2009
    This story concerns a scientific anomaly that opens a portal, allowing us to traverse the space-time continuum and triggering an adventure that those of limited intelligence might simply describe as "awesome."Hey! This is a book about how we get sucked into this wormhole thingy and it drops us in the future where there's all this really cool futuristic stuff, but also these super-freaky aliens and we mess everything up and have to save the world. How awesome is that?

The Thornthwaite Inheritance


Gareth P. Jones - 2009
    But whoever struck first, trying to take each other's lives is simply what they do.