Larry, Teresa, and Elliot are so tight, there's no room in their circle for more than three: boy, girl, boy. And when they graduate, they plan to move to California tostart their "real" lives--together.
Larry, Teresa, and Elliot are so tight, there's no room in their circle for more than three: boy, girl, boy. And when they graduate, they plan to move...
"This funny and poignant novel celebrates the power of writing to help young people make sense of their lives and unlock and confront their problems." - SCHOOL LIBRARY JOURNAL (starred review) When MVP Kevin Boland gets the news that he has mono and won't be seeing a baseball field for a while, he suddenly finds himself scrawling a poem down the middle of a page in his journal. To get some help, he cops a poetry book from his dad's den - and before Kevin knows it, he's writing in verse about stuff like, Will his jock friends give up on him? What's the deal with girlfriends?...
"This funny and poignant novel celebrates the power of writing to help young people make sense of their lives and unlock and confront their problem...
In Plain, Unpretentious Language, with brutal honesty, Ron Koertge can meld violence, love, human ugliness, joy, and modern depravity into a short lyric that makes us laugh out loud or socks us in the gut. His images arrive in giant clown shoes -- cigars the size of Florida, the plastic man's counter-length arms -- or Koertge neatly packages them in carefully observed detail, writing of an ant's black little heart or the dark and leathery breast of an ape. Through every poem there runs a constant and sincere humanity, a voice that laughs at itself, goads us a bit, but just as often lifts us...
In Plain, Unpretentious Language, with brutal honesty, Ron Koertge can meld violence, love, human ugliness, joy, and modern depravity into a short lyr...
From short, acerbic lyrics to hilarious prose poems about nutty German professors and Dracula's teenage girlfriend, readers laugh out loud at simple turns of phrase before they are jerked sober by startling insights into the way we live--and Koertge knows how we live. Nothing in American culture is safe from the scythe of his irony--not Joan Crawford, not Superman, nor Frank Sinatra. He lampoons our literary heroes and historical giants with the gentlest touch, and we find ourselves grinning before we realize that Koertge is redefining what we thought we knew. His poems are alternately...
From short, acerbic lyrics to hilarious prose poems about nutty German professors and Dracula's teenage girlfriend, readers laugh out loud at simple t...
"Ron Koertge can elevate the ordinary places of America the backyard, the classroom, the mall into scenes of mock-epic significance. He can just as easily lower the mythic worlds of Superman, Ozymandias and Cinderella to a level just a few inches above the bathetic. And he does all this with a charming combination of wit and empathy, satire and sweetness."
Billy Collins
"I would think a poem entitled Getting Tough with John Ruskin, Ozymandias and Harriet, or Teen Jesus would be enough to entice any reader. But permit it to be known that Koertge also carries around a...
"Ron Koertge can elevate the ordinary places of America the backyard, the classroom, the mall into scenes of mock-epic significance. He can just as...
Ron Koertge wants to do nothing but delight. Armed with his trademark wit, he introduces readers to Little Red Riding Hood all grown up with a fondness for salsa and chips, explores the thorny relationship of Jackie Robinson and Pee Wee Reese, spies a Trojan pony and the children it bamboozles, and offers an alternate reading to the Icarus story. He meets Walt Whitman on the set of an X-rated movie, attends his gardener s funeral, and goes to his beloved race track. Seminal figures from pop mythology speak up in unexpected ways: The Beast, transformed by Beauty, hints that his new life isn...
Ron Koertge wants to do nothing but delight. Armed with his trademark wit, he introduces readers to Little Red Riding Hood all grown up with a fond...
Ron Koertge eagerly tries his talented hand at Flash Fiction. In BFF, a teenage girl from the near-future orders friends from Amazon. A few pages later, a robot who travels what is left of the world and observes through well-engineered eyes claims that the sound of turbines is his lullaby. A fed-up daughter finds a foolproof way to do away with her awful mother, while in Jesus Dog a mysterious animal helps a broken man recover. A page from Lois Lane s diary reveals a shocking secret. Many mothers and daughters will see themselves in Ron s version of the Persephone & Demeter story. Readers are...
Ron Koertge eagerly tries his talented hand at Flash Fiction. In BFF, a teenage girl from the near-future orders friends from Amazon. A few pages late...
The second book of the Backyard Witch series by acclaimed authors Christine Heppermann and Ron Koertge, starring Ms. M, the mysterious witch who appears just when you need her. Booklist called Jess's Story a "humorous, bewitching tale." A must-have for newly independent readers and fans of Ivy + Bean, Clementine, and the Food Network
Jess is a superstar on the field and on the court. Soccer, basketball, baseball, tennis--you name it, she loves it. But she's a disaster in the kitchen, much to the dismay of her mother, who is a chef. When Jess's mom gets a chance to...
The second book of the Backyard Witch series by acclaimed authors Christine Heppermann and Ron Koertge, starring Ms. M, the mysterious witch who ap...
