Wendelin Van Draanen Books In Order

Sammy Keyes and the Hotel Thief

With this debut book of a new mystery series, Wendelin Van Draanen establishes Samantha Keyes as a crime fighter to watch. Though, actually, the book opens with Sammy watching…
a crime in progress. And when the man with the wad of cash in one hand and the open purse in the other catches Sammy watching him, the chase is on but is Sammy on the trail of the thief, or is he on hers? If the police don’t believe Sammy’s story about a thief with black gloves, black glas*ses, and a black beard, she isn’t too surprised. Vice principal Caan didn’t exactly believe her either when she explained that she couldn’t possibly have broken Heather’s nose. Well, Sammy’s not putting up with this. Does she look like a liar? She knows what she saw and how hard she can hit. And somehow she’s going to prove it.

Sammy Keyes and the Skeleton Man

What does Frankenstein have that a skeleton wants?Sounds like a bad Halloween joke. But Sammy Keyes isn’t laughing. She’s the one who collided with the skeleton while he was making his getaway. And she’s the one who discovered Frankenstein tied to a chair with his head twisted around. Someone’s taken ‘trick or treat’ way too far. When Sammy tries to puzzle out what really happened Halloween night, she’s amazed at how many people have something to hide and how far they’ll go to keep their disguises intact. Of course, Sammy’s got a few secrets herself. And more than a few tricks up her sleeve. She’ll need them all to unravel this tale of greed and grudges and getting even…

Sammy Keyes and the Sisters of Mercy

While serving a detention in the soup kitchen at St. Mary’s Church for an infraction committed during her last case, Sammy Keyes becomes the prime suspect in the disappearance of Father Mayhew’s prized ivory cross. Ace detective that she is, Sammy manages to prove her innocence but soon discovers that, under its calm exterior, St. Mary’s is abuzz with gossip, jealousy, and intrigue just like junior high! Meanwhile, back at school, Sammy’s beloved catcher’s mitt her only connection to her father disappears just when her team makes the semifinals. Add to this mix: a dog who eats everything in sight, a lesson in safe cracking from a homeless girl who bears a striking resemblance to Sammy, and an exuberant trio of gospel singing nuns called the Sisters of Mercy, and you’ve got one wild ride of a mystery or just another week in the life of Samantha Keyes.

Sammy Keyes and the Runaway Elf

And this new adventure is Wendelin Van Draanen’s most complex and compelling yet! It’s Christmastime in Sammy’s hometown of Santa Martina, but some people are being very, very naughty. Pranksters dressed as wise men sabotage the Christmas Parade. In the ensuing chaos, some thugs dognap a prize Pomeranian. Then the Pom’s owner blackmails Sammy into finding the dog so she won’t have to pay the ransom. Sammy doesn’t have to check her list twice to know that these people belong in the naughty column!

But in the course of her search for the doggone dog, Sammy also comes across some characters who are harder to figure: a runaway elf, an embittered old biddy, a puffed up policeman, and a sneaky Secret Santa. Still, someone’s got that dog and whoever it is had better watch out ’cause Sammy Keyes is nosing around…
and she’s willing to be pretty naughty herself to make sure the bad guys pay.

From the Hardcover edition.

Sammy Keyes and the Curse of Moustache Mary

The normally unflappable Sammy Keyes is reeling not from her encounters with a corpse, an arsonist, or an irate policeman, these she can handle. No, what completely unbalances her is the teen scene at a New Year’s Eve party. Caught up in this adolescent ambush, Sammy begins to doubt herself. And if she can’t trust her own instincts, how can she possibly figure out who burned down a pioneer era cabin, how a 200 pound pig has disappeared , or why Casey might want to hold her hand?In this fifth Sammy Keyes mystery, Wendelin Van Draanen gives us her most ambitious work to date. While her prose is as comic as ever, there’s a very serious undercurrent here Sammy is tossed and torn, both literally and figuratively, as she shoots the rapids of this plot. But in puzzling out whodunit and how and why, she manages not only to turn the culprits over to the police, but also to reclaim a belief in her own strength.

Sammy Keyes and the Hollywood Mummy

Sammy heads for Hollywood and a head on collision with her mother! The elusive Lady Lana a.k.a. Sammy’s mom ran off to Hollywood nearly a year ago to get ‘discovered.’ But when Sammy discovers that her mom has changed her name, dyed her hair, and told everyone she’s only 25, she decides Lana needs a little reality check. I mean, it’s one thing to have her mom ditch her. But it’s another to find out she’s created a life for herself where Sammy can’t possibly exist. But Hollywood is a shock. Everyone is pretending in this starlet eat starlet world. So when a woman is killed in the room next door, Sammy’s hard pressed to find someone who doesn’t have a motive…
including her mom.

Sammy Keyes and the Search for Snake Eyes

Sammy’s softball team is in contention for the Junior Slugger s Cup, and all she wants to do is hunker down behind home plate and catch strikes. But Heather Acosta brings new meaning to the term foul ball as she schemes to get Sammy kicked off the team. And Sammy is thrown a wild pitch by a frantic girl in the mall. She begs Sammy to watch something for her and then dashes off before Sammy realizes that the bag she s left holding contains a baby! Now there are some pitches that you shouldn t even try to catch, but Sammy s a take it in the chest protector kind of player. So when the girl doesn t return for her baby, Sammy decides to go find her. And her search leads her into situations that are just not covered in a softball playbook.

Sammy Keyes and the Art of Deception

Sammy Keyes has a lot of nerve. Wearing high tops to a fancy reception at an art gallery. Asking why a framed orange splot is worth $10,000. Eyebrows rise. Noses turn up.
But then Sammy tackles a thief who tries to break up the soiree with a stickup. Now
the patrons of the arts are glad she has a lot of nerve. Or are they? Sammy may have stopped a criminal, but the real crime has yet to be discovered. The real crime is more subtle, more artful, than anything Sammy’s ever seen. She had no idea art could be so dangerous…
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This edition also includes a free cd including an interview with Wendelin, a reading from Sammy Keyes and the Search for Snake Eyes, and ‘The Sammy Keyes Song’.

From the Hardcover edition.

Sammy Keyes and the Psycho Kitty Queen

IT’S SAMMY’S BIRTHDAY, which should be a good thing, except that Heather, Sammy’s arch enemy, turns out to be her star sister. And El Gato, the creepy new student at Slammin Dave s Pro Wrestling School, keeps hissing at Sammy to stay away. And Dorito, Sammy s cat, is missing, and while Sammy s searching for him, she finds three dead cats in dumpsters around town. And as if that weren t gross enough, Miss Kitty, a psycho cat lady, blames Sammy when it turns out one of the dead cats belonged to her. And then last, but certainly not least, Lady Lana, Sammy s mom, confesses that she lied about Sammy s age so she could start her in school a year early. So surprise! Sammy isn t turning 14 at all, she s going to have to be unlucky 13 for another whole year! Better luck next year, Sammy…
. From the Hardcover edition.

Sammy Keyes and the Dead Giveaway

The bad news: Sammy’s made a deadly mistake. The good news: No one knows she did it. The delicious dilemma: Everyone thinks her archenemy Heather is to blame. Now Heather s in a major jam, and in some ways it s only fair Heather s pinned more than a few crimes on Sammy. Besides, there are distractions galore to keep Sammy from confessing. Like the end of the school year. And the Farewell Dance. Especially the dance, because she s going with Heather s brother, Casey. But Sammy knows that the truth has an uncanny way of resurfacing, and when it does, the stench can be more vile than the junior high cafeteria…
. From the Hardcover edition.

Sammy Keyes and the Wild Things

Sammy Keyes trades in her hightops for hiking boots and winds up with blisters. This is not the summer camping trip of Sammy’s dreams. She imagined shady glades, meandering streams, a deer or two. What she gets are scrubby shrubs, blazing sun, rattlesnakes, ticks, and scorpions. Her fellow campers are desperate to catch a rare glimpse of an endangered condor. To Sammy, the trip is nothing more than the painful in pursuit of the unspeakably ugly. But when she and two other girls find an injured condor, Sammy’s intrigued at last. As they track down a clue, they stumble onto two classmates and wind up lost. Which leaves three girls and two boys in a canyon with one tent and six billion biting flies. Oh and an armed and dangerous highstakes poacher.S’mores anyone?From the Hardcover edition.

Sammy Keyes and the Cold Hard Cash

The accidental junior high detective Sammy Keyes is back in her twelfth hysterical mystery adventure! Sammy has three wads of cold hard cash in her hot little hands. An old guy gave them to her. Well, actually, he told her to throw them away. Begged her. With his last dying breath. Which he was taking because Sammy had just scared the life right out of him. So…
she’s got to get this man some help. She’s got to do it without being seen. And she’s got to figure out how to stash that cash. Aw, c’mon! You’d keep the money too, right? No one ever needs to know…
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Sammy Keyes and the Wedding Crasher

For junior high detective Sammy Keyes, eighth grade begins with an accusation, an inquisition, and several assorted death threats!

The history teacher, Mr. Vince, is being threatened, which at first seems funny. He’s horrible! Every student wants Mr. Vince gone. But as the threats become more serious, the question becomes-who wants him dead and gone?

With her own name near the top of the suspect list, Sammy’s determined to get to the bottom of things. But she’s distracted by a mother bearing bad news, an almost-boyfriend ducking her calls, and a date with a poofy lavender bridesmaid dress.

This latest Sammy Keyes adventure blends mystery, comedy, and a dusting of fairy tale magic as Sammy takes off her high-tops, puts on some party shoes, and steps into a whole lot of trouble.

Attack of the Tagger

Alvin Bixby: Hulking, knuckles of steel, hideous breath, foul temper. Kids call him: Bubba. Nolan Byrd: Puny, power walker, math genius, can t keep shoes tied. Kids call him: Nerd. Bubba has been the bane of Nolan’s existence for five long years. So when Mr. Green asks the class to become reporters, Nolan decides he ll write an expos on Bubba. He doesn t want to sign his name to it that d be suicidal, so Nolan creates a secret identity for himself on the Internet. He launches Shredderman. com as a place where truth and justice prevail and bullies get what s coming to them. This hilariously triumphant story is for any kid who s ever dreamed of unleashing their own inner superhero!From the Hardcover Library Binding edition.

Secret Identity

Alvin Bixby: Hulking, knuckles of steel, hideous breath, foul temper. Kids call him: Bubba. Nolan Byrd: Puny, power walker, math genius, can t keep shoes tied. Kids call him: Nerd. Bubba has been the bane of Nolan’s existence for five long years. So when Mr. Green asks the class to become reporters, Nolan decides he ll write an expos on Bubba. He doesn t want to sign his name to it that d be suicidal, so Nolan creates a Secret Identity for himself on the Internet. He launches Shredderman. com as a place where truth and justice prevail and bullies get what s coming to them. This hilariously triumphant story is for any kid who s ever dreamed of unleashing their own inner superhero!From the Hardcover edition.

Meet the Gecko

Nolan Byrd single handedly saved his school from the bullydom of Alvin Bubba Bixby. He posted proof of Bubba’s exploits on the Web at Shredderman. com. Now Shredderman is the school hero! But since Shredderman s identity is a secret, everyone still treats Nolan like…
a nerd. But inside this nerd beats a superhero s heart one dedicated to truth and justice. So when a vandal spray paints graffiti around town and even on his teacher s van! Nolan decides that tracking down the tagger is a job for Shredderman. But while he s trying to trap the tagger, the tagger is trying to pin the blame on Shredderman! Can Nolan turn the tables back around before his secret identity is revealed?From the Hardcover edition.

Enemy Spy

Shredderman. com just made the national news! Everyone is talking about the new cyber superhero. Oh yeah!But now people are dying to know who is behind Shredderman. com. Reporters are snooping all over Cedar Valley! Oh no!Nolan’s parents and even his sidekick, Mr. Green, think he should lay low for a while. But being Shredderman is the best thing that’s ever happened to Nolan. It’s so much better than being Byrd the Nerd. Plus, Nolan’s just stumbled across what might be a real spy ring! How can Shredderman not try to fight it?But some problems are too big for even a superhero to handle. Sometimes the mask gets in the way. Will Nolan’s quest for truth and justice mean he has to give up his secret identity? Can he become a superhero in real life?From the Trade Paperback edition.

The Greatest Power

Could you choose between a superpower and a friend?

The evil treasure hunter Damien Black needs some quick cash so he robs the local bank. But Damien Black didn t figure Dave Sanchez into his plan. Dave’s been itching to try out the Invisibility Ingot in his magical wrist band, and here s the perfect opportunity to make like a superhero! So Dave and Sticky set off after the robber, determined to retrieve the bank s money. The Black mansion is a house of hysterical horrors, but somehow he and Sticky manage to navigate the maze and escape with the cash. Asombroso! Dave thinks he s home free, but Damien Black isn t one to give up easily more than the cash, he wants Dave s wrist band, and he s got a dastardly devious plan that even an invisible boy won t be able to slip out of.

From the Hardcover edition.

Villain’s Lair

Dave Sanchez is an average boy with an after school job and a pet gecko named Sticky. All very normal until the day Sticky talks. Sticky tells Dave a wild tale of a former life of crime, searching for Aztec gold with a treasure hunter named Damien Black, and of a magical Aztec wristband with shiny gold power ingots that will give the wearer super powers. Dave doesn t believe a word until Sticky shows him the wristband. But while Sticky managed to escape with the wristband, Damien Black has the power ingots. So the lizard and treasure hunter each have something the other wants…
very badly.

Filled with outrageous adventures, over the top characters, snappy funny dialogue, and a tongue planted firmly in cheek narration, this new series is sure to be a hit with young superheros everywhere.

Wendelin Van Draanen spent many years as a teacher before devoting herself to writing full time. She lives in Central California.

From the Hardcover edition.

Sinister Substitute

Dave’s most despised teacher, a gleeful frog dissector named Ms. Veronica Krockle, is absent. Her students are psyched! But Sticky is suspicious. Especially when the substitute teacher turns out to be strangely interested in geckos. Or rather, boys with pet geckos. That’s no substitute! That s Damien Black, dastardly treasure hunter and master of disguise!If Damien Black is in school, does that mean he s behind Ms. Krockle s absence? Could she have been kidnapped? And does that mean Dave has to rescue her? Ay chihuahua! The capped crusader is reluctantly on the case. From the Hardcover edition.

How I Survived Being a Girl

Carolyn is a girl with strong opinions. On being a girl: stupid. Wearing dresses: only when forced, and then with shorts underneath. Summer nights: make you feel invincible. Girls with MaryJjanes: no use at all. The boy next door: I do not have a crush on him! The top bunk: for really great dreams. She thought she knew how she felt about everything. But the summer before the sixth grade, though everthing seemed the same, it all felt different. In this wonderfully funny first novel, Wendelin Van Draanen perfectly captures the emotional earthquakes of growing up and growing into oneself.

Flipped

The first time she saw him, she Flipped. The first time he saw her, he ran. That was the second grade, but not much has changed by the seventh. She says: My Bryce. Still walking around with my first kiss. He says: It’s been six years of strategic avoidance and social discomfort. But in the eighth grade everything gets turned upside down. And just as he s thinking there s more to her than meets the eye, she s thinking that he s not quite all he seemed.

This is a classic romantic comedy of errors told in alternating chapters by two fresh, funny new voices. Wendelin Van Draanen is at her best here with a knockout cast of quirky characters and a hilarious series of misunderstandings and missed opportunities. But underlying the humor are two teens in transition. They are each learning to look beyond the surface of people, both figuring out who they are, who they want to be, and who they want to be with.

From the Hardcover edition.

Swear to Howdy

Joey Banks is a walking adventure. He’s funny, daring, mischievous and frequently in trouble. Or he would be if anyone found out about half the stuff he s done. But Rusty Cooper knows how to keep a secret. And Joey s the best friend he s ever had. But then comes a secret that is at once too terrible to tell and too terrible to keep. A secret so big it threatens to eat them alive. What would a true friend do now?

Wendelin Van Draanen has written her most compelling, richly layered book yet. It s a thought provoking look at the boundaries of friendship and what it really means to be true. /Content /EditorialReview EditorialReview Source Amazon. com Review /Source Content Russell Cooper is lucky. When he and his family move to Lost River, a toothy grinned boy named Joey Banks takes him under his wing. Joey makes everything into an adventure cavorting in his favorite swimming hole, target practice with his . 22, catching frogs, and playing tricks on his annoying older sister Amanda Jane. When their boyish pranks would go awry, as they often did, Joey would swear ‘Rusty boy’ to secrecy: ‘Seems like Joey and me were always making pacts. Lots of pacts, leading up to that last one. ‘Rusty,’ he’d say to me. ‘I Swear to Howdy, if you tell a soul…
” Van Draanen’s tales of boyhood antics told by a boy with a down home way of talking, brings back the spirit of Huck Finn, and, as in Huckleberry Finn, darker themes lurk beneath the surface.

Joey lives in fear of his father’s temper and the switch, and he creates elaborate schemes to conceal anything that might cause his dad to blow, from replacing a dead pet goldfish to burying the body of the family cat he accidentally kills when his dad orders him to shoot some pesky squirrels. When one of Joey and Rusty’s pranks turns tragic, the two boys are eaten alive by their horrible secret, kept so by a sacred blood oath of friendship. Author of the award winning Sammy Keyes mysteries series and Flipped, Van Draanen knows how to tell a story keeping the narrative light on its feet while dramatically portraying the idea that actions have consequences and keeping secrets can be deadly. Ages 12 and older Karin Snelson

Runaway

‘It’s a cold, hard, cruel fact that my mother loved hero*in more than she loved me.’

Holly is in her fifth foster home in two years and she’s had enough. She’s run away before and always been caught quickly. But she’s older and wiser now she’s twelve and this time she gets away clean.

Through tough and tender and angry and funny journal entries, Holly spills out her story. We travel with her across the country hopping trains, scamming food, sleeping in parks or homeless encampments. And we also travel with her across the gaping holes in her heart as she finally comes to terms with her mother’s addiction and death.

Runaway is a remarkably uplifting portrait of a girl still young and stubborn and naive enough to hold out hope for finding a better place in the world, and within herself, to be.

From the Hardcover edition.

Confessions of a Serial Kisser

EVANGELINE LOGAN WANTS a kiss. A spectacular, heart stopping, life changing kiss. Somehow The Crimson Kiss a romance novel she’s become obsessed with and Four Steps to Living Your Fantasy a self help book she s reading have fused in Evangeline s mind and sent her on a quest for a kiss. But the path to perfection is paved with many bad kisses the smash mouth, the ear licker, the misser. The phrase I don t kiss and tell means nothing to the boys in her school. And worse: someone starts writing her name and number on bathroom walls. And worst of all: the boy she’s just kissed turns out to be her best friend s new crush. Kissing turns out to be way more complicated than the romance novels would have you believe…
From the Hardcover edition.

The Running Dream

Jessica thinks her life is over when she loses a leg in a car accident. She’s not comforted by the news that she’ll be able to walk with the help of a prosthetic leg. Who cares about walking when you live to run?As she struggles to cope with crutches and a first cyborg like prosthetic, Jessica feels oddly both in the spotlight and invisible. People who don’t know what to say, act like she’s not there. Which she could handle better if she weren’t now keenly aware that she’d done the same thing herself to a girl with CP named Rosa. A girl who is going to tutor her through all the math she’s missed. A girl who sees right into the heart of her. With the support of family, friends, a coach, and her track teammates, Jessica may actually be able to run again. But that’s not enough for her now. She doesn’t just want to cross finish lines herself she wants to take Rosa with her.