After an explosion, a new crime by an old murderer, and the sad passing of the founder of Norvelt, Pennsylvania, twelve-year-old Jack accompanies his slightly mental elderly mentor, Miss Volker, on a cross-country run as she pursues the oddest of outlaws.

From the perils of French dentistry to the eating habits of the Australian kookaburra, from the squat-style toilets of Beijing to the particular wilderness of a North Carolina Costco, we learn about the absurdity and delight of a curious traveler's experiences. Whether railing against the habits of litterers in the English countryside or marveling over a disembodied human arm in a taxidermist's shop, Sedaris takes us on side-splitting adventures that...

"A debut book by the education columnist for Slate traces her experiences as a Jewish teen intellectual whose fateful relationship with a boy who introduced her to Kafka inspired her love for German language and culture"--NoveList.

Relates the surprising gifts bestowed on twelve-year-old Bob Barnhart and his family, who have recently moved to a small Illinois town in 1958, by their larger-than-life neighbor, Mrs. Dowdel.

In 1983 seventh-grader David Da-Wei Horowitz has a lot to worry about -- his bar mitzvah is coming soon, his Jewish and Chinese grandmothers argue about everything, his teammates for the upcoming trivia contest, Scott and Hector, do not like each other, he is beginning to notice girls, and Scott has persuaded him to begin digging a fallout shelter just in case the Cold War heats up.

"This is Eduardo Galeano's last book, a masterful, deeply considered, and poetic autobiography, written in his signature style of short essays, fables, stories, snippets of dialogue, and epigraph-length fragments with illustrations. A mix of old and new autobiographical material, Hunter of Stories includes Galeano's reflections on death, written during the very last months of his life"-- "Master storyteller Eduardo Galeano was unique among his contemporaries...

"OK. It's time to stop messin' around. In this book, the One is going to be reunited with the Others. You are going to actually meet the real dread overlord Splaarghön. And one character is going to change everything you thought you knew. This is the one you've been waiting for!"--

When George and Harold use their traveling purple potty to travel to another dimension where the school is nice and the principal, Mr. Krupp, thinks they're funny, they meet up with their evil twins and must face their cleverest enemies ever -- themselves.

"No voy a pedirle a nadie que me crea ..., nos advierten con frecuencia los distintos narradores y personajes de esta historia, en la que lo corriente se transforma en un delirio sin que uno sepa muy bien cómo, en la que lo raro acaba siendo normal y en la que no podemos hacer otra cosa que reírnos, porque todo es hilarante, cotidiano y surrealista a la vez, como la vida misma." -- "In this story, the ordinary becomes a delirium without one knowing...

"With her signature humor and compassion, A.M. Homes exposes the heart of an uneasy America in her new collection - exploring our attachments to each other through characters who aren't quite who they hoped to become, though there is no one else they can be. In "A Prize for Every Player," a man is nominated to run for president by the customers of a big box store, while he and his family do their weekly shopping. At a conference on genocide(s) in...