Great Junior Reads-Adventure Series

The Cheeseman family is back from back-in-time. Or at least, they're in the LVR (their super-secret time machine) and on their way to save the life of their beloved mother, Olivia. But then the LVR gets kicked off the Time Arc into a place called Sometimes. And unlike olden times or present times, Sometimes doesn't make a whole lot of sense. It's got dinosaurs and Vikings and jumbo jets, all in one place, at one time. Luckily, it's not a long time before the family is back on course again. And just as they're about to rescue their mother at last, the kids confront something utterly surprising. Something wilder than dinosaurs, Vikings, or jumbo jets. More unbelievable than cowboy poets and psychic dogs.They are about to encounter... Dr. Cuthbert Soup.And the alternate versions of themselves!

The plan was simple. Ethan Cheeseman, along with his three smart, polite, and relatively odor-free children, would travel back in time to save their mother and end an ancient family curse. With their super-secret time machine, it should be easy peasy. Except for one basic rule of science: Murphy's Law, where everything that possibly could go wrong, does. Loved by both critics and kids, the hilarious Dr. Soup brings us another madcap adventure, this time through stormy seas and haunted castles.

Mr. Cheeseman, his three relatively odor-free children, a psychic hairless dog, and a sock puppet named Steve are on the run. Why? Because Mr. Cheeseman invented a time machine, of course. Now they're being chased by international super spies, top secret government agents, and a genius monkey. Dr. Cuthbert Soup, the head of the Center of Unsolicited Advice, narrates this wild adventure that will lead readers straight into next season's sequel: Another Whole Nother Story.

When a mysterious envelope arrives for Jake Ransom, he and his older sister, Kady, are plunged into a gripping chain of events. An artifact found by their parents—on the expedition from which they never returned—leads Jake and Kady to a strange world inhabited by a peculiar mix of long-lost civilizations, a world that may hold the key to their parents' disappearance.

But even as they enter the gate to this extraordinary place, savage grackyls soar across the sky, diving to attack. Jake's new friends, the pretty Mayan girl Marika and the Roman Pindor, say the grackyls were created by an evil alchemist—the Skull King. And as Jake struggles to find a way home, it becomes obvious that what the Skull King wants most is Jake and Kady—dead or alive.

Upon arriving in the Romany homeland to deliver the Mercator Globes, Petra Kronos, Tomik, and Neel formulate a plan to save Petra's father, who has been transformed into a Gray Man. But when a long-held secret is revealed, Neel finds himself bound to his country. The friends are quickly swept up in an epic battle for power. Thrones are at stake. Spies are afoot. Murder is common. Worst of all, Prince Rodolfo is close to becoming emperor, and ruling half of Europe.

How much is Petra willing to sacrifice to defend the people she loves? Her search for answers will take her to castles and cities, through mountains, and even underwater as she tests her strength and gambles her life.

Petra Kronos has a simple, happy life. But it's never been ordinary. She has a pet tin spider named Astrophil who likes to hide in her snarled hair and give her advice. Her best friend can trap lightning inside a glass sphere. Petra also has a father in faraway Prague who is able to move metal with his mind. He has been commissioned by the prince of Bohemia to build the world's finest astronomical clock. Petra's life is forever changed when, one day, her father returns home―blind. The prince has stolen his eyes, enchanted them, and now wears them. But why? Petra doesn't know, but she knows this: she will go to Prague, sneak into Salamander Castle, and steal her father's eyes back. Joining forces with Neel, whose fingers extend into invisible ghosts that pick locks and pockets, Petra finds that many people in the castle are not what they seem, and that her father's clock has powers capable of destroying their world.
The Cabinet of Wonders is the first book in the Kronos Chronicles by Marie Rutkoski.