After unscrupulous collector S. Wendell Palamino cons him out of a valuable baseball card, sixth-grader Griffin Bing puts together a band of misfits to break into Palomino's heavily guarded store and steal the card back, planning to use the money to finance his father's failing invention, the SmartPick fruit picker.

"This is the tale of an exciting journey along the Silk Road with a young Monk and his newfound guardian, Samir, a larger than life character and the so-called 'Seller of Dreams.' The man is a scammer; his biggest skill being the ability to talk his way into getting what he wants. While that talking did save Monkey's life, it has left a lot of people furious with Samir--furious enough to hire assassins. Monkey decides to try and save Samir from the...

While her mother undergoes radical cancer treatment, eleven-year-old Ella stays with her father's mother in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where she learns about grammar and family history, and helps investigate the theft of an extremely rare book from her grandmother's library.