Chapter book meets graphic novel in this first book in the series everyone will be talking about. Like most kids, Frankie Pickle hates cleaning his room. But what happens when his mom says he never has to clean it again? For Frankie and his unstoppable imagination, it means he and his sidekick, Argyle, can become explorers swinging on vines, forging paths through piles of clothes, and scooting past lava pits. They can perform flawless surgery on a broken action figure. They can spend time in the big house. They can even become superheroes. But when junk piles grow too high, will all this imagining be enough to conquer . . . the closet of DOOM?

Frankie is struggling. This time it’s not to keep his room clean, or to win the Pine Run 3000. It is something much more serious: MATH! He just doesn’t get it—it seems impossible. So instead of acing his quiz, the numbers become unconquerable monsters. When Frankie finally shares his problem with his family and his best friend, Kenny, they band together to create a math obstacle course that will teach Frankie everything from subtraction to long division—in the most fun of ways! Can Frankie and his imagination overcome the Mathematical Menace that haunts him?

Frankie Pickle returns for another imaginative adventure—drag racing! Well, not quite drag racing, but the Pine Run Derby for scouts. Frankie may not advance to the next rank with the rest of his troop if he doesn’t win the race. Frankie wants to do everything on his own and imagines himself as a mad scientist, a professional magician, and even a Greek sculptor completing his masterpiece. But in the end, Frankie learns that teamwork is the only way he won’t get left in the dust.

After visiting the Natural HIstory Museum with his family, Frankie Pickle convinces his fourth-grade classmates to help him dig for dinosaur bones at recess but first they must convince the fifth-graders to find another place to play. Comic strip illustrations are interspersed throughout the text.

Junkyard, Einstein, Wheels, Pencil, Spider, Hollywood, Spitball, Clips, and Google-Eyes team up to try to outwit their teacher Miss Breakbone.

"Magic tricks with instructions inside!"--Cover.