2016 National Indie Excellence Awards(r) FINALIST Most days, ten-year-old Tilly is crabby. Friendless and convinced the world is against her, she takes every chance she can to hide under her bed (her favorite place in the whole world) where she can make up stories and pretend she is popular. One night, after finishing her dreaded homework and her dreaded chores, she crawls under her bed, ready to relax and create another story, when she feels something underneath her. She squirms around to see what it is and finds an old trapdoor, right there under her bed It had never been there before, but...

Ten-year-old Daisy and her two pals, Michael and Patrick, stumble across an abandoned old shed on their way to the park. Inside, they find a life-sized dusty old gumball machine with thousands of colorful gumballs inside the clear globe at the top. When one of the kids inserts a coin, the gigantic machine begins to rumble and shake and their strange journey begins. They are unable to fight the strong force that sucks them up the swirling tunnel and inside the gumball machine. Once inside, they find themselves in a strange but colorful, magical world. Unable to escape, the kids explore this...

The magic gumball machine is back "Life in the Gumball Machine - Vinnie and Gordy's Return" is the second chapter book from this two-book series for middle school readers. The action and adventure resume as three friends, Daisy, Michael, and Patrick team up with others in a race to return their two tiny gumball friends, Vinnie and Gordy, to their magic gumball world. It's not easy keeping two little gumball people safe in the dangerous world of humans, and the children run into many problems as they try to get them back home. Their journey takes a dark and dangerous turn as they are once...