Meet Tugg and Teeny. Best friends since -- well, forever! Tugg (a gorilla) and Teeny (a monkey) live together in their jungle neighborhood, Sidekick Thicket. As opposite as night and day, the two friends work and play together, each helping the other face life's challenges. Lively, impulsive Teeny always wants to try new things. Sure and steady Tugg is always there to lend a hand or give a word of encouragement. In this beginning chapter book series, Book One's trio of stories has Teeny learning to become a musician, developing her talents as an artist, and fine-tuning her skills as a poet. Book Two has her pondering strange and quirky situations in the jungle. All with the help of her best friend Tugg. J. Patrick (Pat) Lewis lives in Westerville, Ohio, and is the author of more than 60 books for children. He writes full-time, visits elementary schools, and speaks at literature conferences. His other books with Sleeping Bear are First Dog and First Dog's White House Christmas. Christopher Denise is an award-winning illustrator whose books have appeared on The New York Times bestsellers list. Known for his work on the Redwall picture book series, he also works as a visual development artist and character designer for feature film animation. Christopher lives in Barrington, Rhode Island.

Essays by popular children's authors reveal the books that shaped their personal and literary lives, explaining how the stories they loved influenced them creatively, politically, and intellectually.

It used to be said that the night belonged to Charlie. But that wasn't true where SEALs patrolled. For six months in 1970, fourteen men in Juliett Platoon of the Navy's SEAL Team One--incuding the author--carried out over a hundred missions in the Mekong Delta without a single platoon fatality. Their primary mission: kidnap enemy soldiers--alive--for interrogation.

Interstellar kidnapping… or opportunity? A thousand teens and their teachers were stunned when the alien Garubis yanked Twenty-Nine Palms High School right out of California’s Mojave desert, plopping it into a jungle many light years away. It was supposed to be a “gift”—a new settlement for humanity. But tell that to Mark, Alexandra, Barry and Sophie when strange parasites attack… and they don’t know what to eat… and the island of Earth-buildings runs out of water! Some claim to have spotted strange tool-users in the forest. Are the Garubis back? Or is this some other possible alien menace? Whatever the skyjacked teenagers and their small number of adult companions face, they will need guts, ingenuity, hard work… and luck! But maybe the worst threat will come from the former students themselves. From basic human nature.

Teddy Fitzroy returns as FunJungle’s resident zoo sleuth when a rhinoceros is at risk in Big Game, a follow-up to Belly Up and Poached—which Kirkus Reviews called a “thrill-ride of a mystery.” When someone takes aim at Rhonda Rhino, FunJungle’s pregnant (and endangered) Asian greater one-horned rhinoceros, the zoo steps up security measures in order to protect this rare animal and her baby. But the extra security isn’t enough—someone is still getting too close for comfort. Teddy and company start to suspect that whoever is after Rhonda is really after her horn, which is worth a lot of money on the black market. For the first time ever, the head of the zoo enlists Teddy for help—for once, he doesn’t have to sneak around in order to investigate—and the results are even more wacky, and even more dangerous, than ever before.

Eric Hansen was the first westerner ever to walk across the island of Borneo. Completely cut off from the outside world for seven months, he traveled nearly 1,500 miles with small bands of nomadic hunters known as Penan. Beneath the rain forest canopy, they trekked through a hauntingly beautiful jungle where snakes and frogs fly, pigs climb trees, giant carnivorous plants eat mice, and mushrooms glow at night. At once a modern classic of travel literature and a gripping adventure story, Stranger in the Forest provides a rare and intimate look at the vanishing way of life of one of the last surviving groups of rain forest dwellers. Hansen's absorbing, and often chilling, account of his exploits is tempered with the humor and humanity that prompted the Penan to take him into their world and to share their secrets.