This heartfelt story about school, friendship, and family is perfect for readers who can’t get enough of such middle grade favorites as Jerry Spinelli and Gary D. Schmidt. From acclaimed author Peter Johnson, The Life and Times of Benny Alvarez is a novel that will make you laugh, cry, and appreciate your family all the Read More ...
“Miracles & Mortifications is a poet’s atlas, and it happens to be exactly the right tour guide, for these poems are comic, sexual, and endlessly inventive. They are poems of appreciation and discovery; poems that prove there is such a thing as the American prose poem.” — Russell Edson Order Now From Amazon (Click Logo Read More ...
An unnamed sixteen-year-old is the narrator of this impressionistic and fragmented story of two brothers who learn that the disappearance of their father is only the tip of his mystery and only a sliver of what really happened. HONORS and AWARDS: Best New Books for the Classroom — Book Links Books for the Teen Age Read More ...
For fans of Jerry Spinelli’s Maniac Magee, Gary D. Schmidt’s The Wednesday Wars, and Jack Gantos’s Joey Pigza Books comes a hilarious and poignant slice-of-life novel from critically acclaimed author and poet Peter Johnson. When an author comes to speak to his class in a rundown area of Providence, Houdini decides to make money by Read More ...
“Johnson’s supremely quirky mind enables him to combine the strange and familiar, the most urgent bursts of lyricism with disarmingly unemotional statements. He leaves the reader with a new appreciation of a genre that, perhaps more than any other genre, makes the ordinary extraordinary.” — Michel Delville, The American Prose Poem “Peter Johnson writes with Read More ...
The fruits of my labor, the results of a lifetime spent writing across different forms and for different audiences.
The following novels are intended for young adult or adult readers. Click on them for reviews and possible teacher guides.
The following novels are intended for middle grade and above readers. Click on them for reviews and possible teacher guides.
The following books of prose poetry or short fiction are intended for young adult or adult readers.
Went to a great luncheon today where Out of Eden received an award. I have fond memories of all the students and writers I’ve met through ASTAL over the years, and Jean Brown should be given a huge raise for all of the work she’s done, founding the organization and keeping it going. Also, I Read More …
About seventy middle graders read The Life and Times of Benny Alvarez at DeLasalle Middle School. At my visit I was asked the most incredible questions, so many of them I could have stayed there all day. Thanks to everyone who organized it, and I hope to be back again next year.
Over 300 kids ends up reading The Life and Times of Benny Alvarez. One of the best school visits I’ve ever had. The questions were not only great but the students wrote their own object poems, inspired by Benny, and I got to be one of the judges. Thanks to everyone who made the event Read More …
Looking forward to visiting North Dartmouth Middle School again on March 17. All the 7th graders will be reading The Life and Times of Benny Alvarez and working on learning about metaphor and writing their own object poems.
Had a great visit yesterday to Rye-Neck Middle School where all the students read Benny. Even the 6th graders were in to the book, and I had lunch with a number of students, who shared their favorite books and talked about some of their own writing projects. Special thanks to librarian, Linda Costelloe, Linda Mazzeo, Chris Read More …