Book Plug: Jack Gantos Dead End in Norvelt and Interview

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• Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: Yearling (29 Mar 2012)
• Language English
• ISBN-10: 0440870046
• ISBN-13: 978-0440870043

Jack's summer has hit a dead end . . .

After being 'grounded for life', Jack is facing a summer of doing nothing. But who's got time to die of boredom when there are so many more interesting ways to die in this town?

He might crash in his dad's homemade plane, or catch the disease that makes you dance yourself to death, or fall foul of the motorcycle gang that wants to burn the town to the ground. Old people seem to be dying faster than Miss Volker can write their obituaries, and Jack is starting to worry that it might not just be the rats that are eating the rat poison . . .

Dead End in Norvelt is author Jack Gantos's hilarious blend of the entirely true stories of his childhood, and the wildest ideas from his dark imagination. It won the prestigious Newbery Medal for excellence in children's literature in 2012 and was also a Washington Post Best Children's Book of 2011.

He is best known in this country for the bestselling Joey Pigza Swallowed the Key, which was a winner of a NASEN Special Educational Needs Award, and its sequels. Dead End in Norvelt is a novel for teen readers, and will appeal to fans of Mark Haddon, Louis Sachar and all lovers of dark humour.