Most Popular Books by Todd Strasser

Based on the Screenplay by Ian McEwan.

Twelve-year-old Steven and his younger brother Benjy make a desperate attempt to force their extremely busy parents to spend more time together with them.

The summer before Scott''s senior year, when his libido is especially high, he befriends his neighbor, a troubled girl of questionable repute, and surprisingly develops a new slant on life.

Ben joins the Indian Guides with his mom''s boyfriend to try and drive Jack away, but ends up liking both the Guides and Jack.

A group of fifth and sixth graders find a way to deal with personal differences, family problems, and some rock-throwing high school boys so that they can play the game they love.

Guile and his companions find their prowess in the martial arts to be useful as they pursue an adventure in Southeast Asia.

New to town, seventh-grader Tony worries that he''ll never have a social life since his father works for the unpopular nuclear plant and his only friend, Paul, is a social recluse whose primary interest is his science fair project.

Left on their own for an afternoon, two bored and restless children find more excitement than they bargained for in a mysterious and mystical jungle adventure board game.

The new student in the senior class develops leukemia and affects the lives of his fellow students in various ways.

In this convincing, crisply written novel, Strasser tackles head-on a very real middle-school predicament--the price one can be tempted to pay for popularity. Referring to herself throughout in the second person, narrator Lauren immediately draws readers into her life as she explains that she andher best friend Tara are eating lunch in that part of the cafeteria she dubs "the realm of the socially inferior," while the popular girls sit at the "Don''t-You-Wish-You-Were-Me table." Though she longs to be part of the in-crowd, Lauren lacks the confidence to even attempt to belong; she refuses to wear makeup, for example, because she fears that her classmates would "snigger and say you were trying to be an A-list girl. It''s safer not to try." The author carefully tracks the girl''s growing self-confidence after Celeste, an outgoing new girl who instantly becomes a member of the elite group, befriends Laurenand convinces her to run with her for co-treasurer in their class elections. Unlike Lauren, basking in the glow of her new popularity, readers will pick up on the numerous clues that the manipulative, plotting Celeste is hardly trustworthy. Strasser caps his story with a believable denouement, in which Laurenlearns a painful lesson about the value of genuine friendship and of confidence that comes from within.

The author of the "Against the Odds" series introduces a four-title miniseries featuring a tattooed, pierced, and magical nanny--a Mary Poppins for the new millennium. Heavenly Litebody comes to the rescue of the Rand family and helps the teenagers cruise through trials and tribulations.

High school rock musicians Gary, Susan, Oscar, and Karl, the Electric Outlet, pursue their dream of stardom by trying to get their pictures in the paper and their records on the radio.

A bully is beating up students in Jake Sherman''s eighth grade class and it looks as if no one can stop him, until Jake causes his buddy Josh to switch bodies with the principal.

When her intended prom date asks someone else, Nicole is faced with the challenge of turning her grungy next door neighbor into a suitable Prom King candidate. Ties in with the movie starring Melissa Joan Hart and Adrian Grenier.

Jake got involved in a crazy experiment, now he''s swapped bodies with the geekiest teacher in school Being trapped in Mr Dirksen''s body is bad, but at least Jake can make lessons more fun for his friends. Jake has to get back into his own body, or he could become the most unpopular kid in school.

After four of his friends leave a beer party and suffer a fatal accident, eighteen-year-old Matt senses something peculiar about the police investigation and suspects a cover-up to hide the identity of who was really responsible for the accident.

Provides the tale of Anakin Skywalker''s early years when he left his homeland of Tatooine behind in order to join the Jedi ranks and begins the journey of his life that eventually led him to become Darth Vader. Original. Movie tie-in.

Food fights in the cafeteria are raging out of control. So Principal Chump hires some psycho lunch monitors to bust up the trouble. Armed with dishrags, hairnets, and a hidden camera, Kyle and his friends are about to strike back.

Drawing from his teenage years, Todd Strasser’s novel revisits a tumultuous era and takes readers on a psychedelically tinged trip of a lifetime. With his girlfriend, Robin, away in Canada, eighteen-year-old Lucas Baker’s only plans for the summer are to mellow out with his friends, smoke weed, drop a tab or two, and head out in his microbus for a three-day happening called the Woodstock Music and Art Fair. But life veers dramatically off track when he suddenly finds himself in danger of being drafted and sent to fight in Vietnam. If that isn’t heavy enough, there’s also the free-loving (and undeniably alluring) Tinsley, who seems determined to test Lucas’s resolve to stay faithful to Robin; a frighteningly bad trip at a Led Zeppelin concert; a run-in with an angry motorcycle gang; parents who appear headed for a divorce; and a friend on the front lines in ’Nam who’s in mortal danger of not making it back. As the pressures grow, it’s not long before Lucas finds himself knocked so far down, it’s starting to look like up to him. When tuning in, turning on, and dropping out is no longer enough, what else is there?

Nicole wants to stop global warming or find a cure for cancer--but all that can wait until after Brad invites her to the prom. When Brad invites Dulcie instead, Nuicole recruits grunge king Chase, her next-door neighbor and sandbox partner. She does a complete makeover on his image, transforming him into a stud muffin, and he gets his first taste of the P word--popularity. Young Adult.

When Heavenly Litebody, the Rand family''s magical nanny, tries to solve 14-year-old Kit''s romantic problems by attending the school dance, she turns everything topsy-turvy instead.

Kennin is determined to go legit despite the popularity he has gained with racing, but when his sister''s boyfriend starts causing trouble, Kennin decides he must put his family first and accept the risks involved.

Daniel is entrusted with the deed to the family farm and gets help from legendary characters.

BUS-TED! WILSON: invents stuff -- and trouble DUSTY: can talk his way out of anything KYLE: the nice guy no one ever suspects Together they bend every rule in school -- but they never get caught! Now there''s a new driver on the bus route. Sarge used to work at a prison, and he treats all kids like they''re criminals. But Wilson, Dusty, and Kyle can''t take it. They''ll show Sarge who''s in charge!

Master storyteller Todd Strasser reimagines the classic tale of Moby Dick as set in the future—and takes readers on an epic sci-fi adventure. When seventeen-year-old Ishmael wakes up from stasis aboard the Pequod, he is amazed by how different this planet is from the dirty, dying, Shroud-covered Earth he left behind. But Ishmael isn’t on Cretacea to marvel at the fresh air, sunshine, and endless blue ocean. He’s here to work, risking his life to hunt down great ocean-dwelling beasts to harvest and send back to the resource-depleted Earth. Even though easy prey abounds, time and again the chase boat crews are ordered to ignore it in order to pursue the elusive Great Terrafin. It’s rumored that the ship’s captain, Ahab, lost his leg to the beast years ago, and that he’s now consumed by revenge. But there may be more to Captain Ahab’s obsession. Dark secrets and dangerous exploits swirl around the pursuit of the beast, and Ishmael must do his best to survive—if he can.

Henry Tompkins and his companions get lost in a desolate desert where they struggle to survive.

During the Spanish colonization of Mexico, a young girl invents a diving bell to save her brother and her people.

One group on the Jersey Shore, another in Laguna Beach. Both have the same summer-tastic setup: total strangers sharing a house. No one sleeps, no one cleans, and everybody parties. And to pay their ways, each housemate slags through crappy summer jobs while recuperating from the night before. Ah, summer shares! In the Jersey house, cheating and misleading are the name of the game as roommates hook up and hash it out. And at Laguna Beach, surfing is just one of several popular, uh, pastimes. But some of the people in this share are keeping secrets—dangerous ones that could blow the roof off their massive house on the beach. How will these clashing personalities survive two months together? With plenty of drama to share!

When Tyler Duvall arrives in Alaska for his dream vacation, He finds that his Uncle Jake is seriously ill and that he has to share Jake''s cabin with two other kids. Jake goes fishing when he disturbs a rogue grizzly bear, who follows him back to his uncle''s cabin.

A high school student is determined to get a day off with his friends by outwitting his principal.

"They always agreed to meet me. Of course, I told them I was bringing them money. I said it was cash and I didn''t want to send it through the mail. They might have hesitated at first about meeting me, but I never had to work very hard to convince them. Why?. . . It was the only way they could prolong their pathetic dreams of someday becoming rich, famous models." Shelby''s life in Soundview has always been comfortable. Her dad provides a luxurious lifestyle for his family through his photography business. He makes a ton of money taking headshots of pretty young teens who are desperate to become models. Shelby has always enjoyed driving around town in a red sports car, shopping with her best friend at her side. And her Mom is laidback,so it''s all good. However, as reports of girls disappearing from nearby towns start to appear on the news, Shelby''s seemingly perfect life begins to fall apart. The three missing girls have one thing in common--they were all clients of her dad''s photography business. Secrets begin to surface as the investigation continues. Shelby receives threatening e-mails, battles the nosy media, and tries to keep her family together. Now that her dad is implicated in the disappearances, can Shelby figure out a way to clear his name? Or is dad not as innocent as he seems? PRAISE FOR BLOOD ON MY HANDS: "[A] rare teen thriller with an actual mystery, this is as quickly paced as it is heart-wrenching." - Booklist "Author recognition, teen love of mystery, and a stellar cover will...make this a well-circulating title." - School Library Journal PRAISE FOR WISH YOU WERE DEAD: "Hits all the right notes of a teen thriller[...] his gripping plot will keep readers turning pages late into the night" - School Library Journal "Carefully plotted; this suspenseful novel blends the traditional with new tech details to successful end [...] will keep readers guessing right up to the satisfying conclusion." - Kirkus Reviews

When Jake Sherman finds Sant Claus in his backyard, Santa is tired of the demands, the schedules, the weather at the North Pole. He hands Jake an envelope, and suddenly Jake finds himself in a red suit at the mall being swarmed by small children and babies.

Disney''s greatest animated villains--from the queen in "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" to Jafar in "Aladdin"--appear in their nastiest moments

"The Wave" is based on a true incident that occurred when a teacher conducted an experiment dealing with group pressure in his classes.

Mario and Luigi travel to another dimension to rescue Daisy, a paleontologist, from the evil dictator Koopa and his henchmen, the goombas

When first published 20 years ago, Kaffir Boy changed the way the West understood South Africa. As powerful today as when it was first written, Mathabane''s remarkable story of life under apartheid is told with brutal honesty and gives the reader a rare gl