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Welcome to Wonderland #1: Home Sweet Motel

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

From the bestselling author of Escape from Mr. Lemoncello’s Library and co-author with James Patterson of I Funny, House of Robots, and Treasure Hunters, comes a hilarious illustrated series about all the wacky things that happen when you live in a motel!

 
Eleven-year-old P. T. Wilkie may be the greatest storyteller alive. But he knows one thing for a fact: the Wonderland Motel is the best place a kid could ever live! All-you-can-eat poolside ice cream! A snack machine in the living room! A frog slide! A giant rampaging alligator! (Okay, that last one may or may not be made up.) There’s only one thing the Wonderland doesn’t have, though—customers. And if the Wonderland doesn’t get them soon, P.T. and his friend Gloria may have to say goodbye to their beloved motel forever.
 
They need to think BIG. They need to think BOLD. They need an OUTRAGEOUS plan. Luckily for them, Gloria is a business GENIUS, and OUTRAGEOUS is practically P.T.’s middle name. With Gloria’s smarts and P.T.’s world-famous stories and schemes, there’s got to be a way to save the Wonderland!
 
BONUS: Includes fun extras like P. T. Wilkie’s outrageous (and sometimes useful) things you learn living in a motel. Installment 1: How to say “Help! The toilet is clogged!” in over twenty languages!

Here's What People are saying about Welcome to Wonderland!

* A New York Times Bestseller * Sunshine State Young Readers Award List * Winner of the Sid Fleischman Humor Award *  

“Outrageous hijinks and nonstop hilarity—five-stars! Kids who check into this madcap motel will want to stay forever!” —Lincoln Peirce, author of the Big Nate series

"So funny I fell off my bed!"--Izzy B., age 10

"Classic Grabenstein. The mystery should satisfy Grabenstein’s “Mr. Lemoncello” followers, and the humor and visuals will appeal to fans of his collaborations with James Patterson. This new series should be a hit."—School Library Journal

“A  delight. P.T. is a hoot and a half. A funny, madcap dash. Grabenstein . . .  threads in a mystery that blooms in the last act and that puts this particular read over the top."—Kirkus Reviews 

“Charm galore. Easy and breezy, this well-paced novel . . . belongs in the hands of any readers wanting their bad guys bad, their good guys great, and a little of Wonderland’s promised fun in the sun.”The Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books  
1
 
Gator Tales
 
 Like I told my friends at school, living in a motel is always exciting—especially during an alligator attack.
 
 “To this day, nobody knows how that giant alligator made it up to the second-floor balcony of my family’s motel on St. Pete Beach,” I told my audience.
 


The cafeteria was so quiet you could’ve heard a taco shell snap.
 
 “Maybe it took the steps. Maybe it just stood up, locked its teeth on a porch railing, and flipped itself up and over in a mighty somersault swoop. The thing was strong, people. Very, very strong.
 
 “I heard Clara, my favorite housekeeper, scream,
‘¡Monstruo, Señor Wilkie! ¡Monstruo!’
 


“‘Run!’ I shouted, because Clara’s always been like a second mom to me and I wanted her to be alive enough to see her daughter graduate from med school.
 
 “Well, she didn’t need me to shout it twice. Clara abandoned her laundry cart while that alligator raced toward the room at the far end of the balcony. And I knew why: the chicken.


 
“See, the family in room 233—a mom, a dad, two kids, and a baby—had just gone upstairs with a whole bucket of the stuff. Heck, I could smell it twenty doors down. The giant alligator? He smelled that secret blend of eleven herbs and spices all the way back at his little lake on the Bayside Golf Course, where, legend has it, he’s chomped off a few ball divers’ arms.


 
“Thinking fast and running faster, I made it to Clara’s deserted laundry cart. I grabbed a few rolls of toilet paper and lobbed them like hand grenades. The T.P. conked the gator on his head just as he was about to chomp through the terrified family’s door.
  
“That’s when the giant lizard whipped around. He looked at me with those big bowling-ball eyes. Forget the chicken. He wanted me! He roared like smelly thunder and sprinted down the balcony.
  
“I just grinned. Because the gator was doing exactly what I wanted him to do. While he barreled ahead on stubby legs, I braced my feet on the bumper of the laundry cart. I lashed several towels
together to create a long terry-cloth lasso. I twirled it over my head. I waited for my moment.
 
 “When the gator was five, maybe six, feet away, I flung out my towel rope, aiming for his wide-open mouth. He clamped down. I tugged back. My lasso locked on a jagged tooth. ‘Hee-yah!’ I shouted. ‘Giddyup!’ The monster took off.
  
“What happened next, you wonder? Well, I rode that laundry cart all the way back to the crazy alligator’s golf course, where I sent the gator scurrying down into its water hazard. ‘And stay away from our motel,’ I hollered, and I guess that gator listened, because he’s never dared return.”
 
 When I finished, everyone applauded, even Ms. Nagler, the teacher on cafeteria duty. She raised her hand to ask a question.
 
 “Yes, ma’am?”
 
 “How’d you and the alligator get down from the second floor?”
  
I winked. “One step at a time, Ms. Nagler. One step at a time.”
  
She, and everybody else, laughed.
 
 Yep, everybody at Ponce de León Middle School loves a good P. T. Wilkie story.
  
Except, of course, Mr. Frumpkes.
 
 He came into the cafeteria just in time to hear my big finish.
 
 And like always, he wasn’t smiling.
 
  
2
 Truth and Consequences
 
  
“Mr. Wilkie?” Mr. Frumpkes had his hands on his hips and his eyes on me. “Lunch is over.”
  
Right on cue, the bell signaling the end of lunch period started clanging.
 
 Between you and me, I sometimes think Mr. Frumpkes has telepathic powers. He can make the class-change bell ring just by thinking about it.
  
“Ah,” he said, clearly enjoying the earsplitting rattle and clanks. “Now we don’t have to listen to any more of Mr. Wilkie’s outrageously ridiculous tales!”
 
 My first class right after lunch?
  
History with Mr. Frumpkes, of course.
  
He paced back and forth at the front of the room with his hands clasped behind his back.
 
 “Facts are important, boys and girls,” he said. “They lead us to the truth. Here at the Ponce de León Middle School, we have a motto: ‘Vincit omnia veritas!’
  
I couldn’t resist making a wisecrack. “I thought our school motto was ‘Go, Conquistadors!’”
  
Mr. Frumpkes stopped pacing so he could glare at me some more.
  
‘Vincit omnia veritas’ is Latin, Mr. Wilkie. It means ‘The truth conquers all.’”
  
“So it is like ‘Go, Conquistadors!’ because conquistadors conquered stuff and—”
  
“I’m beginning to understand why your father never shows up at parent-teacher conferences, Mr. Wilkie.”
  
Okay. That hurt. My ears were burning.
  
“But since Mr. Wilkie seems fixated on conquistadors,” said Mr. Frumpkes, “here is everybody’s brand-new homework assignment.”
  
“Awww,” groaned the whole classroom.
  
“Don’t groan at me. Groan at your immature classmate! Thanks to Mr. Wilkie, you are all required to write a one-thousand-word essay filled with cold, hard facts about the man whom this middle school is named after: the famous Spanish conquistador Ponce de León. Your papers are due on Monday.”
 
 “Whoa,” said my friend Pinky Nelligan. “Monday is the start of Spring Break.”
  
“Fine,” said Mr. Frumpkes. “Your papers are due tomorrow. Friday.”
 
 More groans.
  
“Let this be a lesson to you all: facts are more important than fiction.”
 
 I was about to disagree and tell Mr. Frumpkes that I think some stories have more power than all the facts you can find on Google.
  
But I didn’t.
 
 Because everybody in the classroom was making stink faces at me.
  
 
3
 I Scream, You Scream
  
 
I refused to let Mr. Frumpkes win.
  
“Oh, before I forget—quick announcement: you guys are all invited to the Wonderland Motel after school today. My grandpa wants to try out his new outdoor ice-cream dispenser. The ice cream is free, limit one per guest.”
 
 The groans and moans of my classmates turned into whoops of joy. Mr. Frumpkes tried to restore order by banging on his desk with a tape dispenser.
  
“We’re here to discuss history, Mr. Wilkie! Not free ice cream!”
 
 But everybody loves free ice cream.
 
 That’s just a cold, hard fact.
  
Unless it’s soft-serve.
 
 Then it’s kind of custardy.
 
  
4
 Welcome to Wonderland
 
  
The Wonderland, the motel my family owns and operates on St. Pete Beach, used to be called Walt Wilkie’s Wonder World.
 
 It was a resort and small-time amusement park my grandfather opened back in October 1970—exactly one year before that other Walt opened Disney World over in Orlando.
 
 “We had a very good year, P.T.,” Grandpa always tells me. “A very good year.”
 
 Now the Wonderland is just a motel with a lot of wacky decorations and tons of incredible stories but not too many paying customers.
  
There’s even a sausage-and-cheese-loving mouse out back named Morty D. Mouse. Grandpa was going to call him Mikey Mouse, but, well, like I said, Disney World opened.
  
My mom is the motel manager. I think that’s why she frowns a lot and nibbles so many pencils. The Wonderland can “barely make ends meet,” she tells me. Constantly. That means we’ll never be rich hotel tycoons like the Hiltons, I guess.
 
 Mom and I live in room 101/102, right behind the front desk. The lobby is our living room (complete with two soda machines, a snack pantry, and tons of brochures).
  
Grandpa lives in a one-bedroom apartment over the maintenance shed near the swimming pool.
 
 He likes to tinker with his “attractions” back there. Right now, he is trying to fix up a smiling goober he bought from a “Hot Boiled Peanuts” stand in Georgia. He thinks with enough green, orange, and yellow paint, he can turn Mr. Peanut into some sort of smiling tropical fruit—like that’s all the Wonderland needs to make it Florida Fun in the Sun magazine’s “Hottest Family Attraction in the Sunshine State” (a title Grandpa really wants to snatch away from Disney World someday).
 
 One thing’s for sure: the Wonderland Motel is the best place a kid could ever live.
  
There’s daily maid service. My toilet is sanitized for my protection.
 
 We have more ice than Antarctica, plus free cable and HBO. Also, if you know how to bump the glass just right, you can score two bags of chips every time you buy one from the vending machine.
  
And now Grandpa’s set up a soft-serve ice-cream dispenser poolside?
 
Yep. The Wonderland is kid heaven. There’s always something wild ’n’ wacky going on—which is just the way I like it.
  • NOMINEE | 2018
    Florida Sunshine State Young Reader's Award
© 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

From the bestselling author of Escape from Mr. Lemoncello’s Library and co-author with James Patterson of I Funny, House of Robots, and Treasure Hunters, comes a hilarious illustrated series about all the wacky things that happen when you live in a motel!

 
Eleven-year-old P. T. Wilkie may be the greatest storyteller alive. But he knows one thing for a fact: the Wonderland Motel is the best place a kid could ever live! All-you-can-eat poolside ice cream! A snack machine in the living room! A frog slide! A giant rampaging alligator! (Okay, that last one may or may not be made up.) There’s only one thing the Wonderland doesn’t have, though—customers. And if the Wonderland doesn’t get them soon, P.T. and his friend Gloria may have to say goodbye to their beloved motel forever.
 
They need to think BIG. They need to think BOLD. They need an OUTRAGEOUS plan. Luckily for them, Gloria is a business GENIUS, and OUTRAGEOUS is practically P.T.’s middle name. With Gloria’s smarts and P.T.’s world-famous stories and schemes, there’s got to be a way to save the Wonderland!
 
BONUS: Includes fun extras like P. T. Wilkie’s outrageous (and sometimes useful) things you learn living in a motel. Installment 1: How to say “Help! The toilet is clogged!” in over twenty languages!

Here's What People are saying about Welcome to Wonderland!

* A New York Times Bestseller * Sunshine State Young Readers Award List * Winner of the Sid Fleischman Humor Award *  

“Outrageous hijinks and nonstop hilarity—five-stars! Kids who check into this madcap motel will want to stay forever!” —Lincoln Peirce, author of the Big Nate series

"So funny I fell off my bed!"--Izzy B., age 10

"Classic Grabenstein. The mystery should satisfy Grabenstein’s “Mr. Lemoncello” followers, and the humor and visuals will appeal to fans of his collaborations with James Patterson. This new series should be a hit."—School Library Journal

“A  delight. P.T. is a hoot and a half. A funny, madcap dash. Grabenstein . . .  threads in a mystery that blooms in the last act and that puts this particular read over the top."—Kirkus Reviews 

“Charm galore. Easy and breezy, this well-paced novel . . . belongs in the hands of any readers wanting their bad guys bad, their good guys great, and a little of Wonderland’s promised fun in the sun.”The Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books  

Excerpt

1
 
Gator Tales
 
 Like I told my friends at school, living in a motel is always exciting—especially during an alligator attack.
 
 “To this day, nobody knows how that giant alligator made it up to the second-floor balcony of my family’s motel on St. Pete Beach,” I told my audience.
 


The cafeteria was so quiet you could’ve heard a taco shell snap.
 
 “Maybe it took the steps. Maybe it just stood up, locked its teeth on a porch railing, and flipped itself up and over in a mighty somersault swoop. The thing was strong, people. Very, very strong.
 
 “I heard Clara, my favorite housekeeper, scream,
‘¡Monstruo, Señor Wilkie! ¡Monstruo!’
 


“‘Run!’ I shouted, because Clara’s always been like a second mom to me and I wanted her to be alive enough to see her daughter graduate from med school.
 
 “Well, she didn’t need me to shout it twice. Clara abandoned her laundry cart while that alligator raced toward the room at the far end of the balcony. And I knew why: the chicken.


 
“See, the family in room 233—a mom, a dad, two kids, and a baby—had just gone upstairs with a whole bucket of the stuff. Heck, I could smell it twenty doors down. The giant alligator? He smelled that secret blend of eleven herbs and spices all the way back at his little lake on the Bayside Golf Course, where, legend has it, he’s chomped off a few ball divers’ arms.


 
“Thinking fast and running faster, I made it to Clara’s deserted laundry cart. I grabbed a few rolls of toilet paper and lobbed them like hand grenades. The T.P. conked the gator on his head just as he was about to chomp through the terrified family’s door.
  
“That’s when the giant lizard whipped around. He looked at me with those big bowling-ball eyes. Forget the chicken. He wanted me! He roared like smelly thunder and sprinted down the balcony.
  
“I just grinned. Because the gator was doing exactly what I wanted him to do. While he barreled ahead on stubby legs, I braced my feet on the bumper of the laundry cart. I lashed several towels
together to create a long terry-cloth lasso. I twirled it over my head. I waited for my moment.
 
 “When the gator was five, maybe six, feet away, I flung out my towel rope, aiming for his wide-open mouth. He clamped down. I tugged back. My lasso locked on a jagged tooth. ‘Hee-yah!’ I shouted. ‘Giddyup!’ The monster took off.
  
“What happened next, you wonder? Well, I rode that laundry cart all the way back to the crazy alligator’s golf course, where I sent the gator scurrying down into its water hazard. ‘And stay away from our motel,’ I hollered, and I guess that gator listened, because he’s never dared return.”
 
 When I finished, everyone applauded, even Ms. Nagler, the teacher on cafeteria duty. She raised her hand to ask a question.
 
 “Yes, ma’am?”
 
 “How’d you and the alligator get down from the second floor?”
  
I winked. “One step at a time, Ms. Nagler. One step at a time.”
  
She, and everybody else, laughed.
 
 Yep, everybody at Ponce de León Middle School loves a good P. T. Wilkie story.
  
Except, of course, Mr. Frumpkes.
 
 He came into the cafeteria just in time to hear my big finish.
 
 And like always, he wasn’t smiling.
 
  
2
 Truth and Consequences
 
  
“Mr. Wilkie?” Mr. Frumpkes had his hands on his hips and his eyes on me. “Lunch is over.”
  
Right on cue, the bell signaling the end of lunch period started clanging.
 
 Between you and me, I sometimes think Mr. Frumpkes has telepathic powers. He can make the class-change bell ring just by thinking about it.
  
“Ah,” he said, clearly enjoying the earsplitting rattle and clanks. “Now we don’t have to listen to any more of Mr. Wilkie’s outrageously ridiculous tales!”
 
 My first class right after lunch?
  
History with Mr. Frumpkes, of course.
  
He paced back and forth at the front of the room with his hands clasped behind his back.
 
 “Facts are important, boys and girls,” he said. “They lead us to the truth. Here at the Ponce de León Middle School, we have a motto: ‘Vincit omnia veritas!’
  
I couldn’t resist making a wisecrack. “I thought our school motto was ‘Go, Conquistadors!’”
  
Mr. Frumpkes stopped pacing so he could glare at me some more.
  
‘Vincit omnia veritas’ is Latin, Mr. Wilkie. It means ‘The truth conquers all.’”
  
“So it is like ‘Go, Conquistadors!’ because conquistadors conquered stuff and—”
  
“I’m beginning to understand why your father never shows up at parent-teacher conferences, Mr. Wilkie.”
  
Okay. That hurt. My ears were burning.
  
“But since Mr. Wilkie seems fixated on conquistadors,” said Mr. Frumpkes, “here is everybody’s brand-new homework assignment.”
  
“Awww,” groaned the whole classroom.
  
“Don’t groan at me. Groan at your immature classmate! Thanks to Mr. Wilkie, you are all required to write a one-thousand-word essay filled with cold, hard facts about the man whom this middle school is named after: the famous Spanish conquistador Ponce de León. Your papers are due on Monday.”
 
 “Whoa,” said my friend Pinky Nelligan. “Monday is the start of Spring Break.”
  
“Fine,” said Mr. Frumpkes. “Your papers are due tomorrow. Friday.”
 
 More groans.
  
“Let this be a lesson to you all: facts are more important than fiction.”
 
 I was about to disagree and tell Mr. Frumpkes that I think some stories have more power than all the facts you can find on Google.
  
But I didn’t.
 
 Because everybody in the classroom was making stink faces at me.
  
 
3
 I Scream, You Scream
  
 
I refused to let Mr. Frumpkes win.
  
“Oh, before I forget—quick announcement: you guys are all invited to the Wonderland Motel after school today. My grandpa wants to try out his new outdoor ice-cream dispenser. The ice cream is free, limit one per guest.”
 
 The groans and moans of my classmates turned into whoops of joy. Mr. Frumpkes tried to restore order by banging on his desk with a tape dispenser.
  
“We’re here to discuss history, Mr. Wilkie! Not free ice cream!”
 
 But everybody loves free ice cream.
 
 That’s just a cold, hard fact.
  
Unless it’s soft-serve.
 
 Then it’s kind of custardy.
 
  
4
 Welcome to Wonderland
 
  
The Wonderland, the motel my family owns and operates on St. Pete Beach, used to be called Walt Wilkie’s Wonder World.
 
 It was a resort and small-time amusement park my grandfather opened back in October 1970—exactly one year before that other Walt opened Disney World over in Orlando.
 
 “We had a very good year, P.T.,” Grandpa always tells me. “A very good year.”
 
 Now the Wonderland is just a motel with a lot of wacky decorations and tons of incredible stories but not too many paying customers.
  
There’s even a sausage-and-cheese-loving mouse out back named Morty D. Mouse. Grandpa was going to call him Mikey Mouse, but, well, like I said, Disney World opened.
  
My mom is the motel manager. I think that’s why she frowns a lot and nibbles so many pencils. The Wonderland can “barely make ends meet,” she tells me. Constantly. That means we’ll never be rich hotel tycoons like the Hiltons, I guess.
 
 Mom and I live in room 101/102, right behind the front desk. The lobby is our living room (complete with two soda machines, a snack pantry, and tons of brochures).
  
Grandpa lives in a one-bedroom apartment over the maintenance shed near the swimming pool.
 
 He likes to tinker with his “attractions” back there. Right now, he is trying to fix up a smiling goober he bought from a “Hot Boiled Peanuts” stand in Georgia. He thinks with enough green, orange, and yellow paint, he can turn Mr. Peanut into some sort of smiling tropical fruit—like that’s all the Wonderland needs to make it Florida Fun in the Sun magazine’s “Hottest Family Attraction in the Sunshine State” (a title Grandpa really wants to snatch away from Disney World someday).
 
 One thing’s for sure: the Wonderland Motel is the best place a kid could ever live.
  
There’s daily maid service. My toilet is sanitized for my protection.
 
 We have more ice than Antarctica, plus free cable and HBO. Also, if you know how to bump the glass just right, you can score two bags of chips every time you buy one from the vending machine.
  
And now Grandpa’s set up a soft-serve ice-cream dispenser poolside?
 
Yep. The Wonderland is kid heaven. There’s always something wild ’n’ wacky going on—which is just the way I like it.

Awards

  • NOMINEE | 2018
    Florida Sunshine State Young Reader's Award

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