Most Popular Books by Tim Wynne-Jones

When Burl Crow runs away from home to escape his brutal father, he heads for the place he knows best -- the wilderness. Craving solitude, he is stunned by the sight of a grand piano dangling from a helicopter, and even more startled to find himself drawn to the sounds that eventually come from it. Tracing the source of the music, Burl finds Nathaniel Orlando Gow, the Maestro, standing on the deck of a strange, pyramid-like cabin. The reclusive, eccentric Maestro (based on the brilliant Canadian pianist Glenn Gould) has chosen to escape, too, and only reluctantly offers the wet, starving Burl shelter. Slowly but surely, the two form a bond, and Burl''s eyes are opened to a world he never dreamed of.Will his rapport with the Maestro give Burl the inner courage needed to face the difficult choices that suddenly confront him when his father reappears?"The Maestro" is a poignant coming-of-age drama that testifies to the redemptive powers of friendship.

Stephen is fifteen when the nightmares begin. The dream is always the same: a crying baby, a wooden ladder, a house built in the branches, fire everywhere. Night after night, the fantastic images haunt him. More chilling than the dream itself, though, is the fact that this is the very same nightmare that haunted Stephen''s brother, Marcus?the dream that drove Marcus to run away. Now Stephen is the age his brother was when he left, and he wonders what it all means. Determined not to run from the truth, Stephen steels himself for a journey of remarkable discovery that he hopes will eventually lead him to the truth about the past and, ultimately, about himself.

An adventurous cat goes on a journey to the sea, an expedition to the North Pole, and a trip to Egypt.

Meet someone new... Harriet, who sees Mars and tastes pomengranates -- all in one day; Cluny, a girl who wants to publish a magazine for people with weird names; Ky, who lives in a geodesic dome deep in the country; Fletcher, the survivor of an almost fatal illness, who decides to paste the names of exotic places he would like to visit on his chest and stomach; Edward George, who made a discovery and became famous -- famous and forgotten -- on a hot day in 1867. You''ll get to know them all in Some of the Kinder Plants -- nine stories full of humor, surprise, fear and wonder, peopled by characters who are just like you, and yet very, very different.

Powerful, riveting, and real. Sixteen celebrated authors bring us raw, insightful stories that explore guns and teens in a fiction collection that is thought provoking and emotionally gripping. For fans of Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock and Give a Boy a Gun, and with an array of YA talent like the late great Walter Dean Myers, the poetic Joyce Carol Oates, the prophetic Elizabeth Wein, and the gritty Chris Crutcher, these are evocative voices that each has a different perspective to give. Capturing the hurt and the healing, victims and perpetrators, these stories get to the heart of the matter. From a boy whose low self-esteem is impacted when a gun comes into his possession to a student recalling a senseless tragedy that befell a favorite teacher, from a realistic look at hunting to a provocative look at a family that defies stereotypes, each emotional story stirs the debate to new levels. The juxtaposition of guns and their consequences offers moving tales, each a reminder of how crucial the question of guns in our society is, and the impact they have on all of us. Other acclaimed contributors are Marc Aronson, Edward Averett, Francesca Lia Block, Alex Flinn, Gregory Galloway, Jenny Hubbard, Peter Johnson, Ron Koertge, Chris Lynch, Eric Shanower, Will Weaver, and Tim Wynne-Jones.

Who IS the uninvited? This twisty page-turner from a master of suspense plumbs the unsettling goings-on at a picture-perfect woodland cottage. Mimi Shapiro had a disturbing freshman year at NYU, thanks to a foolish affair with a professor who still haunts her caller ID. So when her artist father, Marc, offers the use of his remote Canadian cottage, she’s glad to hop in her Mini Cooper and drive up north. The house is fairy-tale quaint, and the key is hidden right where her dad said it would be, so she’s shocked to fi nd someone already living there -- Jay, a young musician, who is equally startled to meet Mimi and immediately accuses her of leaving strange and threatening tokens inside: a dead bird, a snakeskin, a cricket sound track embedded in his latest composition. But Mimi has just arrived, so who is responsible? And more alarmingly, what does the intruder want? Part gripping thriller, part family drama, this fast-paced novel plays out in alternating viewpoints, in a pastoral setting that is evocative and eerie -- a mysterious character in its own right.

Two street kids get tangled in a plot over their heads - and risk an unexpected connection - in this heart-pounding thriller by Tim Wynne-Jones. (Age 14 and up) Boy, did Blink get off on the wrong floor. All he wanted was to steal some breakfast for his empty belly, but instead he stumbled upon a fake kidnapping and a cell phone dropped by an "abducted" CEO, giving Blink a link to his perfect blonde daughter. Now Blink is on the run, but it’s OK as long as he’s smart enough to stay in the game and keep Captain Panic locked in his hold. Enter a girl named Caution. As in "Caution: Toxic." As in "Caution: Watch Your Step." She’s also on the run, from a skeezy drug-dealer boyfriend and from a nightmare in her past that won’t let her go. When she spies Blink at the train station, Caution can see he’s an easy mark. But there’s something about this naïve, skinny street punk, whom she only wanted to rob, that tugs at her heart, a heart she thought deserved not to feel. Charged with suspense and intrigue, this taut novel trails two deeply compelling characters as they forge a blackmail scheme that is foolhardy at best, disastrous at worst - along with a fated, tender partnership that will offer them each a rare chance for redemption.

Grade level: 1, 2, 3, k, p, e.

The ghosts of war reverberate across the generations in a riveting, time-shifting story within a story from acclaimed thriller writer Tim Wynne-Jones. When Evan’s father dies suddenly, Evan finds a hand-bound yellow book on his desk—a book his dad had been reading when he passed away. The book is the diary of a Japanese soldier stranded on a small Pacific island in WWII. Why was his father reading it? What is in this account that Evan’s grandfather, whom Evan has never met before, fears so much that he will do anything to prevent its being seen? And what could this possibly mean for Evan? In a pulse-quickening mystery evoking the elusiveness of truth and the endurance of wars passed from father to son, this engrossing novel is a suspenseful, at times terrifying read from award-winning author Tim Wynne-Jones.

This enhanced e-book, in celebration of Groundwood''s 35th anniversary, includes a read-aloud feature of the story narrated by Tim Wynne-Jones. This fanciful nautical adventure stars a winsome cat named Zoom, who stays indoors paddling in the sink or sailing in the bathtub all night when other self-respecting cats are out mousing and howling at the moon. One day Zoom finds in his Uncle Roy''s diary a map of the sea and how to get there, which leads him to the huge house of the beautiful Maria. When, with the turn of a large wheel, mysterious Maria launches him on a wonderful sea voyage, the first of Zoom''s adventures begins.

In the summer of 1962 with everyone nervous about a possible nuclear war, ten-nearly-eleven-year-old Rex, having just moved to Ottawa from Vancouver with his parents and five siblings, faces his own personal challenges as he discovers new friends and a new understanding of the world around him.

Trying to solve the mystery of his father''s disappearance from their rural Canadian community, fourteen-year-old Jim gets help from the disturbed Ruth Rose, who suspects her stepfather, a local pastor.

This well-received novel from a cast of acclaimed authors is now available in paperback! A video message from a dead person. A larcenous teenager. A man who can stick his left toe behind his head and in his ear. An epileptic girl seeking answers in a fairy tale. A boy who loses everything in World War II, and his brother who loses even more. And a family with a secret so big that it changes everything. The world''s best beloved authors each contribute a chapter in the life of the mysterious George "Gee" Keane, photographer, soldier, adventurer, and enigma. Under different pens, a startling portrait emerges of a man, his family, and his gloriously complicated tangle of a life.

A rainy night. An empty highway. And no memory. From award-winning author Tim Wynne-Jones comes a riveting murder mystery that will keep readers enthralled until the last page. On the night Donovan Turner is thrown out of a car on a highway in the middle of nowhere, he can barely remember his own name, let alone the past twenty-four hours. Where is he? Where is his girlfriend, Bee? In an attempt to flag down the next passing car, he startles the driver, causing a fatal accident. With sirens in the distance and the lingering feeling that he’s running from something — or someone — Donovan grabs the dead driver’s briefcase and flees. Meanwhile, Bee is fighting for Dono’s life every bit as much as he is. But when the police show up and hint that he is the prime suspect in a murder, Bee is determined to put together the pieces of what happened and clear his name. With echoes of Dante’s Divine Comedy, this harrowing journey through hell and back is a page-turning tale of guilt, retribution, love, and redemption.

A collection of quirky stories that are full of magic, real-life ghosts, and most of all, unlikely heroes.

Ned mouse is in jail for writing "the government is unfair to mice" in his spinach and he comes up with a daring escape plan.

Six years after sixteen-year-old Dec''s free-spirited mother, Lindy, disappeared, an intruder dies in the museum-like family home, causing Dec to be flooded with visions of his missing mother, but now with his best friend Ezra going away, he will have to sort out what''s real and what isn''t on his own. An ALA Best Book for Young Adults. Reprint.

"As is always the case with Tim Wynne-Jones'' picture books, the author''s sense of fun and whimsy both tickles the reader''s funny bone and gives the imagination a stretch."-CM Magazine