Fruitvale is getting ready for its first ever April Fool's Day Festival, but there's a lot more than pranks going on this April Fool's Day though. Townsfolk discover frogs in the strangest places: shoes, hats, even the Calendar Club Help Box! And a gowk goes missing, too! But what is a gowk?

Pumpkins everywhere are disappearing. Carved ones, fat ones, even the ones from the grocery store have gone missing until it seems the only one left with any pumpkins to sell is the Pumpkin Man. Can three friends find out what happened to the pumpkins before Halloween?

"In this harrowing and hilarious novel, Josip Novakovich's wry Croatian Candide is our sympathetic guide through the recent history of the Balkans, and through the pleasures and sorrows of an ordinary and extraordinary life."--Francine Prose.

The Calendar Club is getting Fruitvale Elementary School ready for the back-to-school carnival when they find some of the prizes are missing. Can they uncover the back-to-school burglar and prevent a carnival disaster?

In this delightfully witty, provocative book, literature professor and psychoanalyst Pierre Bayard argues that not having read a book need not be an impediment to having an interesting conversation about it. (In fact, he says, in certain situations reading the book is the worst thing you could do.) Using examples from such writers as Graham Greene, Oscar Wilde, Montaigne, and Umberto Eco, he describes the varieties of "non-reading"-from books that you've never heard of to books that you've read and forgotten-and offers advice on how to turn a sticky social situation into an occasion for creative brilliance. Practical, funny, and thought-provoking, How to Talk About Books You Haven't Read-which became a favorite of readers everywhere in the hardcover edition-is in the end a love letter to books, offering a whole new perspective on how we read and absorb them.

Become a more attentive observer and deepen your appreciation for the natural world. The unique five-year calendar format of The Naturalist’s Notebook helps you create a long-term record and point of comparison for memorable events, such as the first songbird you hear in spring, your first monarch butterfly sighting of summer, or the appearance of the northern lights. Biologist Nathaniel T. Wheelwright and best-selling author Bernd Heinrich teach nature lovers of all ages what to look for outdoors no matter where you live, using Heinrich’s classic illustrations as inspiration. As you jot down one observation a day, year after year, your collected field notes will serve as a valuable record of your piece of the planet. This deluxe book, with a three-piece case, gilt edges, a burgundy ribbon bookmark, and a belly band with gold foil stamping, is a perfect gift for all nature lovers.

"Anytime boring Beamer visits Bash (his crazy farm cousin), weirdness rules. This time, Bash schemes a way for the cows to give chocolate milk on April Fool's Day. Amid a flurry of pranks, there's also a robber on the loose, and Beamer is stuck on the case with his wacky cousin, pesky Mary Jane, and a goat of many colors. Somehow Beamer manages to unravel important clues about baptism and the Great Commission."--Publisher

Examines the key issues in the collapse of Drexel Burnham.

A little frog is upset when his simple life is changed by such things as other animals moving in nearby, but during an unexpected adventure away from the pond he learns that change can be good, after all.

It's the night before preschool, and a little boy named Billy is so nervous he can't fall asleep. The friends he makes the next day at school give him a reason not to sleep the next night, either: he's too excited about going back! The book's simple rhyming text and sweet illustrations will soothe any child's fears about the first day of school.