Sachar, Louis

Red-haired Marvin is convinced that the reason he looks different from the rest of his family is that he is really the lost prince of Shampoon.

Afraid of his new mountain bike, third-grader Marvin finds himself in a desperate situation when he accepts a challenge to ride down Suicide Hill.

Two days after Marvin sees a glowing green thing that looks like a flying birthday cake in the night sky, his third-grade class is joined by a mysterious new boy with peculiar behavior.

When Marvin Redpost's new friend Casey shares with him her magic crystal that can make wishes come true, things get out of control.

"Two middle-grade kids take a shortcut home from school and discover what looks like fuzzy mud but is actually a substance with the potential to wreak havoc on the entire world"--Provided by publisher.

An unmanageable, but lovable, eleven-year-old misfit learns to believe in himself when he gets to know the new school counselor, who is a sort of misfit too.

As further evidence of his family's bad fortune which they attribute to a curse on a distant relative, Stanley Yelnats is sent to a hellish correctional camp in the Texas desert where he finds his first real friend, a treasure, and a new sense of himself.