Audisee® eBooks with Audio combine professional narration and sentence highlighting to engage reluctant readers! Raf knows Megan is trouble from the moment she steps into his mom's pet food store asking for a tarantula. But there's one thing you can count on in Chicagoland: weird things happen several times a day. Megan is a vegetarian, manga-reading haiku writer. She definitely doesn't fit in at Stepford Academy, her new summer school. The other students are happy to be in class. Too happy. And everyone looks and acts exactly alike. That's weird. Megan is determined to dig into Stepford's secrets, but soon she's in way too deep. Raf may be the only human being she knows who can help. But with zombified students, very mad scientists, and the school psychiatrist on their trail, they're going to need a whole lot more help. We did say that Chicagoland is weird. . .

Covering genres from adventure and fantasy to horror, science fiction, and superheroes, this guide maps the vast terrain of graphic novels, describing and organizing titles to help librarians balance their graphic novel collections and direct patrons to read-alikes. New subgenres, new authors, new artists, and new titles appear daily in the comic book and manga world, joining thousands of existing titles—some of which are very popular and well-known to the enthusiastic readers of books in this genre. How do you determine which graphic novels to purchase, and which to recommend to teen and adult readers? This updated guide is intended to help you start, update, or maintain a graphic novel collection and advise readers about the genre. Containing mostly new information as compared to the previous edition, the book covers iconic super-hero comics and other classic and contemporary crime fighter-based comics; action and adventure comics, including prehistoric, heroic, explorer, and Far East adventure as well as Western adventure; science fiction titles that encompass space opera/fantasy, aliens, post-apocalyptic themes, and comics with storylines revolving around computers, robots, and artificial intelligence. There are also chapters dedicated to fantasy titles; horror titles, such as comics about vampires, werewolves, monsters, ghosts, and the occult; crime and mystery titles regarding detectives, police officers, junior sleuths, and true crime; comics on contemporary life, covering romance, coming-of-age stories, sports, and social and political issues; humorous titles; and various nonfiction graphic novels.

Want to identify fiction books that boys in grades three through nine will find irresistible? This guide reveals dozens of worthwhile recommendations in categories ranging from adventure stories and sports novels to horror, humorous, and science fiction books. In Get Those Guys Reading!: Fiction and Series Books that Boys Will Love, authors Kathleen A. Baxter and Marcia A. Kochel provide compelling and current reading suggestions for younger boys—information that educators, librarians, and parents alike are desperate for. Comprising titles that are almost all well-reviewed in at least one major professional journal, or that are such big hits with kids that they've received the "stamp of approval" from the most important reviewers, this book will be invaluable to anyone whose goal is to help boys develop a healthy enthusiasm for reading. It includes chapters on adventure books; animal stories; graphic novels; historical fiction; humorous books; mystery, horror, and suspense titles; science fiction and fantasy; and sports novels. Within each chapter, the selections are further divided into books for younger readers (grades 3–6) and titles for older boys in grades 5–8. Elementary and middle school librarians and teachers, public librarians, Title One teachers, and parents of boys in grades 3–9 will all benefit greatly from having this book at hand.

Chicagoland can't get much weirder than this: Raf, Megan, and Bradley have been abducted by aliens from the planet Fnarf III! And not just your ordinary, everyday aliens, either. These extraterrestrials are intelligent canines, as smart as Bradley, who come from a world where dogs rule and humans drool. And they have a case Bradley can really sink his teeth into: the Fnarfian princess has gone missing, and the space-dogs need help from planet Earth's home team—the Chicagoland Detective Agency—to track her down. After uncovering zombies, mummies, were-mutts, and ghosts, is the Chicagoland Detective Agency up to the job of investigating their first interstellar caper?

As the founders of the Chicagoland Detective Agency, a haiku-writing girl and a boy with a talking dog must deal with a missing friend, a missing mummy amulet, and an evil scientist who stalks human brains and hearts.

"Children are made readers on the laps of their parents." --Author Emilie Buchwald Filled with beautifully illustrated reviews and a wealth of recommendations, A Parent's Guide to the Best Kids' Comics lovingly and thoughtfully reveals a world of graphic novels sure to capture the imagination and curiosity of your child. Children's literature experts and library professionals Scott Robins and Snow Wildsmith select and review 100 age-appropriate books, and recommend another 750 titles for children from pre-kindergarten to eighth grade in this full-color, first-of-its-kind guide. You'll also find an educator's bibliography, website recommendations, and a bounty of resources to make this magical journey informative as well as delightful. Jeff Smith and Vijaya Iyer, producers of the highly acclaimed and award-winning Bone series, provide a Foreword for the book.

Yes, Chicagoland is an odd place. But the word is out that Megan, Raf, and Raf's talking dog Bradley are the team to go to when weirder things than usual start happening. Their Chicagoland Detective Agency takes danger in hand (and paw) to find a mysteriously missing puppy and an even more mysterious pack of dogs that only shows up once a month. Bradley's nose knows from the start that this is more than a simple case of stray pets...and a whole lot more than a stray case of full-moon transmogrification! Will high tech and haikus be enough to save them from the world's worst case of doggy breath?