This collection introduces The Losers, formerly an elite U.S. Special Forces unit that served as the covert bloody hand of America until they stumbled across a C.I.A. secret they couldn't ignore. The C.I.A. tried to kill them, but they're about tolearn that it takes more than one try to eliminate The Losers.

This collection introduces The Losers, formerly an elite U.S. Special Forces unit that served as the covert bloody hand of America until they stumbled across a C.I.A. secret they couldn't ignore. The C.I.A. tried to kill them, but they're about to learn that it takes more than one try to eliminate The Losers.

The beloved New York Times bestselling author of the modern classic Frindle celebrates books and the joy of reading with a new school story to love! Sixth grader Alec can’t put a good book down. So when Principal Vance lays down the law—pay attention in class, or else—Alec takes action. He can’t lose all his reading time, so he starts a club. A club he intends to be the only member of. After all, reading isn’t a team sport, and no one would want to join something called the Losers Club, right? But as more and more kids find their way to Alec’s club—including his ex-friend turned bully and the girl Alec is maybe starting to like—Alec notices something. Real life might be messier than his favorite books, but it’s just as interesting. With The Losers Club, Andrew Clements brings us a new school story that’s a love letter to books and to reading and that reminds us that sometimes the best stories are the ones that happen off the page—our own! Winner of the Rhode Island Children's Book Award (2019) Winner of the International Reading Association and Children's Book Council: Children's Choices List (2018) Winner of the Garden State Children's Book Award (2020) 2021 Grand Canyon Reader Award Nominee A Kansas William White Master List Selection (2018 & 2019) An Arkansas Charlie May Simon Children's Book Award Nominee (2019) A California Young Reader Medal Nominee (2019) A Nebraska Golden Sower Award Nominee (2019) A Virginia Young Readers Program Award Nominee (2019) A Minnesota Maud Heart Lovelace Award Nominee (2019) A Missouri Mark Twain Award Nominee (2019) An Oregon Reader’s Choice Award Nominee (2019) Praise for The Losers Club! * "Clements’s latest is engaging and funny. A laugh-out-loud first purchase for all middle grade collections, and a solid read-aloud choice for classrooms."—School Library Journal, Starred Review "Clements is out to celebrate reading in all its obsessiveness, and...tosses in shout-outs to a passel of other writers. [The Losers Club] gives fried bookworms everywhere the satisfaction of knowing that friends may desert them (if only temporarily) but books never will. "—The New York Times Praise for Andrew Clements! “Clements is a genius.” —The New York Times “We have never read an Andrew Clements book that we haven’t loved.” —The Washington Post

"At a sports-crazy NJ high school where all kids must play on a team, a group of rebels start[s] a soccer team designed to undermine the jock-culture of the school"--

When Danny Shine finds out he's on the infamous Loser List in the girls' bathroom, his mission to erase it lands him in detention. After the school's bullies discover he can draw, Danny enjoys a new bad boy status--until he's drawn into a crime.

When a family argument turns into an urgent hunt for a missing child, seventeen-year-old Annie Boots must do everything in her power to bring her nephew home safely. Chris Crutcher, the acclaimed and bestselling author of Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes, shares a provocative story about family, loss, and loyalty that is perfect for fans of Jason Reynolds and Laurie Halse Anderson. The Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books called Losers Bracket “Genuine and affecting.” When it comes to family, Annie is in the losers bracket. While her foster parents are great (mostly), her birth family would not have been her first pick. And no matter how many times Annie tries to write them out of her life, she always gets sucked back into their drama. Love is like that. But when a family argument breaks out at Annie’s swim meet and her nephew goes missing, Annie might be the only one who can get him back. With help from her friends, her foster brother, and her social service worker, Annie puts the pieces of the puzzle together, determined to find her nephew and finally get him into a safe home. Award-winning author Chris Crutcher’s books are strikingly authentic and unflinchingly honest. Losers Bracket is by turns gripping, heartbreaking, hopeful, and devastating, and hits the sweet spot for fans of Andrew Smith and Marieke Nijkamp.

Born in Russia and seeing things in a different way than his American-born peers, Jupiter struggles to figure out where he belongs in the social structure at school while dealing with the torment of a bully in an unusual way in this humorous coming-of-age story.