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Welcome to Wonderland #3: Sandapalooza Shake-Up

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"Outrageous hijinks and nonstop hilarity--five stars!" --Lincoln Peirce, author of the Big Nate series

Dive into summer fun with this hilarious illustrated middle-grade series by Chris Grabenstein, New York Times bestselling author of Escape from Mr. Lemoncello's Library and coauthor with James Patterson of the I Funny and House of Robots series!


Life's a vacation when you live in the world's wackiest motel! P.T. and his best friend, Gloria, are getting ready for St. Pete Beach's first-ever Sandapalooza! The Wonderland's biggest rival, the Conch Reef Resort, is doing everything it can to win the sand sculpture contest, but P.T. has bigger problems: The Wonderland has opened a new restaurant--the Banana Shack--and running a restaurant is harder than it looks! And to make matters worse, a royal guest's priceless tiara has gone missing, and the prime suspect is the Wonderland's beloved housekeeper! Can P.T. and Gloria win the contest, keep the restaurant going, and clear Clara's name?
“To tell you the truth, I don’t know how I survived the fourteen-story plunge,”  I told my audience.

They were all sipping frosty fruit drinks and nibbling conch fritters at our motel’s brand-new poolside restaurant—the Banana Shack.

“I slid over the first waterfall and rocketed into a ninety-degree zero-gravity free fall! It was a steeper drop than the Summit Plummet at Disney’s Blizzard  Beach!”

“Woo-hoo!” cried my grandpa, Walt Wilkie, when I mentioned outdoing his archrival, the Walt over in Orlando.

“I slid around an awesome loop-de-loop that shot me like a cannonball across the sky and into a log flume! 

Next came a series of wicked switchbacks, plus an aqua tunnel that hurled me straight through a  tank swarming with live sharks!”

“That part was my idea,” added my business-savvy best friend, Gloria Ortega, because Shark Tank is her  favorite TV show.

“Finally,” I said, putting the cherry on top of the ice-cream sundae of my story, “I splashed down in a surf pool, where I caught a wave and went boarding with  n audio-animatronic Surf Monkey aqua-bot!”

“That is so cool!” said one of the kids at a nearby table.
 
He and his family were among the lucky guests who’d been  able  to book rooms at my family’s St. bPete Beach motel after it became super famous in the movie Beach Party Surf  Monkey—the Hollywood blockbuster starring Academy Award– winning actress Cassie McGinty, YouTube sensation Kevin the Monkey, and local hero Pinky Nelligan, who’s one of my best buds. The “No” neon in our No Vacancy sign had been lit for so long we were afraid it might burn  out.

“Where exactly is this waterslide?” asked the boy’s mom.

“Right now,  only in my computer.”

“He used a RollerCoaster Tycoon expansion kit,” explained Gloria.

“But,” I said, gazing at the towering concrete hotel on the other side of our short stucco wall, “someday we might buy the place next door and actually build it.”
 “What?” said Grandpa. “All of a sudden you want to buy the Conch Reef Resort?”

“Hey,” I said with a shrug, “it’s the perfect height. Fourteen stories tall.”

“Whoa, dude,” said our new chef, Jimbo. “Are they,  like, selling,man?”

Jimbo is what they call a Parrothead.  That means he loves the  laid-back, island-breezy music of Jimmy Buffett. Jimbo is extremely mellow and always wears a baggy Hawaiian shirt and sunglasses and has a ponytail sticking out the back of his baseball cap. He doesn’t shave too often, either. “Mr. Conch should sell his resort to somebody,”

I told Jimbo. “Because ever since our movie came out, nobody wants to stay over there except the people who wanted to stay over here and couldn’t.”

My audience laughed. Grandpa and I grinned.

Fact: Conch Enterprises, the company that tried to sabotage our motel’s movie, wasn’t doing so well anymore.

Double fact: Grandpa and I couldn’t’ve been happier if all the doughnuts in the world were wrapped in bacon and dripping with cheese.
© Elena Seibert

When I talk to kids about my new book THE ISLAND OF DR. LIBRIS, I torture them with a tale of electronics deprivation.
     "My main character, Billy Gillfoyle," I say, "is spending the summer in a cabin on a lake.  There is no cable, no TV, no DVR, no X-Box, no PlayStation 3.  There isn't even an old-fashioned VCR."
     By this point, the kids' gasps become audible.
     "On his first day at the cabin," I continue, "Billy drops his iPhone and it shatters.  The nearest Apple store is several hundred miles away."
     Jaws drop.  The kids are practically weeping – just like my hero, Billy Gillfoyle.  He mopes around the cabin after the demise of his iPhone and ends up in this scene with his mother:
    
  "Billy, what do you think kids did back before video games or TV or even electricity?"
  "I don't know.  Cried a lot?"  He plopped down dramatically on the couch.
  "No, Billy. They read books.  They made up stories and games.  They took nothing and turned it into something."
 
     And that's what happens to Billy in this book:  He learns to start using and trusting his own imagination.
     Characters from books that he reads in Dr. Libris' study start coming to life out on the island in the middle of the lake.   In no time, Hercules, the monster Antaeus, Robin Hood, Maid Marian, The Three Musketeers, D'Artagnan, Pollyanna, and Tom Sawyer are all bumping into each other's stories.  It's up to Billy, with the help of his new friend Walter, and a bookcase filled with classic literature, to "imagine" a scenario that will bring all the conflicts to a tidy resolution. 
     Yep.  In THE ISLAND OF DR. LIBRIS, Billy Gillfoyle is learning how to become a writer.  He puts his characters into situations and conflicts that will, ultimately, take him to the happy ending he, and everybody else, is looking for.
     When all seems lost, he is on the island with his new friends Robin Hood, Maid Marian, and Hercules, despairing that he's not heroic enough to rescue his asthmatic friend Walter from the clutches of the evil Space Lizard (yes, hideous creatures from video games and fairy tales eventually come to life on the island, too.) 
 
  "Ho, lads and lassie!" said Robin Hood.  "All is not lost!  Look you, Sir William – I remember a time when Sir Guy of Gisbourne held me captive in his tower.  Did my band of merry followers let a moat or castle walls stand in their way?"
  "Nay!" said Marian.  "Little John and I didst lead the charge.  Oh, how the arrows did fly that day!"
  "I'm not Little John," Billy said quietly.  "Or you, Maid Marian.  I'm not a hero."  He looked down at Walter's inhaler.  "I'm just a kid who can't even save his own family."
  "Nonsense," said Maid Marian. "Each of us can choose who or what we shall be.  We write our own stories, Sir William.  We write them each and every day."
  "And," added Hercules, "if you write it boldly enough, others will write about you, too."
 
     In my book ESCAPE FROM MR. LEMONCELLO'S LIBRARY, I wanted to make young readers excited about reading and doing research.  I tried to turn a trip to the library into an incredibly fun scavenger hunt, filled with puzzles and surprises.  (In my perpetually twelve-years-old mind, that's what doing research actually is.)
     With THE ISLAND OF DR. LIBRIS, I am hoping to excite young readers about the power and awesomeness of their own imaginations. I want them to take nothing and turn it into something.  To take two old ideas, toss them together, and create something new.
     And, when they write their own stories, maybe some of them will decide they want to become authors, writing stories for the rest of us, too!
     
     
 

View titles by Chris Grabenstein

About

"Outrageous hijinks and nonstop hilarity--five stars!" --Lincoln Peirce, author of the Big Nate series

Dive into summer fun with this hilarious illustrated middle-grade series by Chris Grabenstein, New York Times bestselling author of Escape from Mr. Lemoncello's Library and coauthor with James Patterson of the I Funny and House of Robots series!


Life's a vacation when you live in the world's wackiest motel! P.T. and his best friend, Gloria, are getting ready for St. Pete Beach's first-ever Sandapalooza! The Wonderland's biggest rival, the Conch Reef Resort, is doing everything it can to win the sand sculpture contest, but P.T. has bigger problems: The Wonderland has opened a new restaurant--the Banana Shack--and running a restaurant is harder than it looks! And to make matters worse, a royal guest's priceless tiara has gone missing, and the prime suspect is the Wonderland's beloved housekeeper! Can P.T. and Gloria win the contest, keep the restaurant going, and clear Clara's name?

Excerpt

“To tell you the truth, I don’t know how I survived the fourteen-story plunge,”  I told my audience.

They were all sipping frosty fruit drinks and nibbling conch fritters at our motel’s brand-new poolside restaurant—the Banana Shack.

“I slid over the first waterfall and rocketed into a ninety-degree zero-gravity free fall! It was a steeper drop than the Summit Plummet at Disney’s Blizzard  Beach!”

“Woo-hoo!” cried my grandpa, Walt Wilkie, when I mentioned outdoing his archrival, the Walt over in Orlando.

“I slid around an awesome loop-de-loop that shot me like a cannonball across the sky and into a log flume! 

Next came a series of wicked switchbacks, plus an aqua tunnel that hurled me straight through a  tank swarming with live sharks!”

“That part was my idea,” added my business-savvy best friend, Gloria Ortega, because Shark Tank is her  favorite TV show.

“Finally,” I said, putting the cherry on top of the ice-cream sundae of my story, “I splashed down in a surf pool, where I caught a wave and went boarding with  n audio-animatronic Surf Monkey aqua-bot!”

“That is so cool!” said one of the kids at a nearby table.
 
He and his family were among the lucky guests who’d been  able  to book rooms at my family’s St. bPete Beach motel after it became super famous in the movie Beach Party Surf  Monkey—the Hollywood blockbuster starring Academy Award– winning actress Cassie McGinty, YouTube sensation Kevin the Monkey, and local hero Pinky Nelligan, who’s one of my best buds. The “No” neon in our No Vacancy sign had been lit for so long we were afraid it might burn  out.

“Where exactly is this waterslide?” asked the boy’s mom.

“Right now,  only in my computer.”

“He used a RollerCoaster Tycoon expansion kit,” explained Gloria.

“But,” I said, gazing at the towering concrete hotel on the other side of our short stucco wall, “someday we might buy the place next door and actually build it.”
 “What?” said Grandpa. “All of a sudden you want to buy the Conch Reef Resort?”

“Hey,” I said with a shrug, “it’s the perfect height. Fourteen stories tall.”

“Whoa, dude,” said our new chef, Jimbo. “Are they,  like, selling,man?”

Jimbo is what they call a Parrothead.  That means he loves the  laid-back, island-breezy music of Jimmy Buffett. Jimbo is extremely mellow and always wears a baggy Hawaiian shirt and sunglasses and has a ponytail sticking out the back of his baseball cap. He doesn’t shave too often, either. “Mr. Conch should sell his resort to somebody,”

I told Jimbo. “Because ever since our movie came out, nobody wants to stay over there except the people who wanted to stay over here and couldn’t.”

My audience laughed. Grandpa and I grinned.

Fact: Conch Enterprises, the company that tried to sabotage our motel’s movie, wasn’t doing so well anymore.

Double fact: Grandpa and I couldn’t’ve been happier if all the doughnuts in the world were wrapped in bacon and dripping with cheese.

Author

© Elena Seibert

When I talk to kids about my new book THE ISLAND OF DR. LIBRIS, I torture them with a tale of electronics deprivation.
     "My main character, Billy Gillfoyle," I say, "is spending the summer in a cabin on a lake.  There is no cable, no TV, no DVR, no X-Box, no PlayStation 3.  There isn't even an old-fashioned VCR."
     By this point, the kids' gasps become audible.
     "On his first day at the cabin," I continue, "Billy drops his iPhone and it shatters.  The nearest Apple store is several hundred miles away."
     Jaws drop.  The kids are practically weeping – just like my hero, Billy Gillfoyle.  He mopes around the cabin after the demise of his iPhone and ends up in this scene with his mother:
    
  "Billy, what do you think kids did back before video games or TV or even electricity?"
  "I don't know.  Cried a lot?"  He plopped down dramatically on the couch.
  "No, Billy. They read books.  They made up stories and games.  They took nothing and turned it into something."
 
     And that's what happens to Billy in this book:  He learns to start using and trusting his own imagination.
     Characters from books that he reads in Dr. Libris' study start coming to life out on the island in the middle of the lake.   In no time, Hercules, the monster Antaeus, Robin Hood, Maid Marian, The Three Musketeers, D'Artagnan, Pollyanna, and Tom Sawyer are all bumping into each other's stories.  It's up to Billy, with the help of his new friend Walter, and a bookcase filled with classic literature, to "imagine" a scenario that will bring all the conflicts to a tidy resolution. 
     Yep.  In THE ISLAND OF DR. LIBRIS, Billy Gillfoyle is learning how to become a writer.  He puts his characters into situations and conflicts that will, ultimately, take him to the happy ending he, and everybody else, is looking for.
     When all seems lost, he is on the island with his new friends Robin Hood, Maid Marian, and Hercules, despairing that he's not heroic enough to rescue his asthmatic friend Walter from the clutches of the evil Space Lizard (yes, hideous creatures from video games and fairy tales eventually come to life on the island, too.) 
 
  "Ho, lads and lassie!" said Robin Hood.  "All is not lost!  Look you, Sir William – I remember a time when Sir Guy of Gisbourne held me captive in his tower.  Did my band of merry followers let a moat or castle walls stand in their way?"
  "Nay!" said Marian.  "Little John and I didst lead the charge.  Oh, how the arrows did fly that day!"
  "I'm not Little John," Billy said quietly.  "Or you, Maid Marian.  I'm not a hero."  He looked down at Walter's inhaler.  "I'm just a kid who can't even save his own family."
  "Nonsense," said Maid Marian. "Each of us can choose who or what we shall be.  We write our own stories, Sir William.  We write them each and every day."
  "And," added Hercules, "if you write it boldly enough, others will write about you, too."
 
     In my book ESCAPE FROM MR. LEMONCELLO'S LIBRARY, I wanted to make young readers excited about reading and doing research.  I tried to turn a trip to the library into an incredibly fun scavenger hunt, filled with puzzles and surprises.  (In my perpetually twelve-years-old mind, that's what doing research actually is.)
     With THE ISLAND OF DR. LIBRIS, I am hoping to excite young readers about the power and awesomeness of their own imaginations. I want them to take nothing and turn it into something.  To take two old ideas, toss them together, and create something new.
     And, when they write their own stories, maybe some of them will decide they want to become authors, writing stories for the rest of us, too!
     
     
 

View titles by Chris Grabenstein