Ronald Koertge

For sixteen-year-old Ben Bancroft - a kid with cerebral palsy, no parents, and an overprotective grandmother - the closest thing to happiness is hunkering alone in the back of the Rialto Theatre watching Bride of Frankenstein for the umpteenth time. Of course he waits for the lights to dim before making an entrance, so that his own lurching down the aisle doesn't look like an ad for Monster Week. The last person he wants to run into is drugged-up...

A high school junior who is having trouble dealing with his father's death, his mother's new job as a stripper, and his own libido meets a new girl who, despite their ups and downs, makes life seem pretty wonderful after all.

Free-verse reveals true stories behind well-known fairy tales, some reset in modern times, as a strung-out match girl sells CDs to drug users, Little Red Riding Hood admits that she wanted to know what it is like to be swallowed whole, and Cinderella's stepsisters are duped.

Ron Koertge wants to do nothing but delight. Armed with his trademark wit, he introduces readers to Little Red Riding Hood all grown up with a fondness for salsa and chips, explores the thorny relationship of Jackie Robinson and Pee Wee Reese, spies a Trojan pony and the children it bamboozles, and offers an alternate reading to the Icarus story. He meets Walt Whitman on the set of an X-rated movie, attends his gardener's funeral, and goes to his...

Three troubled high school seniors, who plan to run away together from Illinois to California after graduation, try to figure out who they are who they want to be.

Recently orphaned, sixteen-year-old Ted O'Connor is sent to a foster home

High schooler Ben Bancroft, a budding filmmaker with Cerebral Palsy, struggles to understand his relationship with drug-addict Colleen while he explores a new friendship with A.J., who shares his obsession with movies and makes a good impression on Ben's grandmother.

"I Dreamed I Was Emily Dickinson's Boyfriend easily solidifies his reputation as a poet who is very funny and also very serious. In these surprising and delightful poems, a mannequin joins the Me Too movement, a summer job turns into a lesson in class distinctions, and Jane Austen makes a surprise appearance at a mall. Ron Koertge's uniquely playful imagination is on display in poem after poem"-- Provided by publisher.

Worried that his mother will send his beloved grandfather to a nursing home "for his own good," Jesse and some of his eighth-grade classmates accompany Pappy into the mountains near their small California town to look for the tiger tracks he claims to have seen.

Returning to California for the summer to help train and race thoroughbreds, thirteen-year-old Graham tries to cope with the changes in his relationships with his dad and best friend Leslie and become an individual in his own right.