Dan Gemeinhart

Twelve-year-old Jonathan Grisby has been sent to the Slabhenge Reformatory School for Troubled Boys, a former lunatic asylum which is currently run by a sadist who enjoys punishing the boys and setting them against each other; but when a lightning strike kills all the adults the boys find themselves suddenly free--and trapped on Scar Island which seems to be sinking into the ocean.

"In the dead of night, a truck arrives in Slaughterville, a town named after its windowless slaughterhouse. Seven mysterious kids with suitcases stealthily step out of the vehicle and into an abandoned home on a dead-end street. But lonely Ravani Foster witnesses their arrival and is eager to learn everything he can about his new neighbors: What are they hiding? And where are the adults?Yet amid this group of children, Ravani finds an unexpected friend...

Brodie was a good dog. And good dogs go to heaven. Except Brodie can't move on. Not just yet. As wonderful as his glimpse of the afterlife is, he can't forget the boy he left behind. The boy he loved, and who loved him in return. The boy who's still in danger. So Brodie breaks the rules of heaven. He returns to Earth as a spirit. With the help of two other lost souls -- lovable pitbull Tuck and surly housecat Patsy -- he is determined to find his...

A boy named Mark, tired of being sick with cancer, conceives a plan to climb Mount Rainier, and runs away from home with his dog, Beau--but with over two hundred miles between him and his goal, and only anger at his situation to drive him on nothing will be easy, and only his best friend, Jessie, suspects where he is heading.

Once upon a time, I met my reader... As soon as our young reader opens the cover of Meego's book, the pair are the best of friends. Side by side, they leap from the adventures in Meego's stories to the adventures in the child's real life. From courageously creeping into shadowy caves to weathering Very Big Days like the first day of school, the friends journey and grow together through thick and thin. Though seasons turn, just like pages, the friends...