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The Absolute Value of Mike

Author Kathryn Erskine

Paperback

$9.99 US

Penguin Young Readers | Puffin Books

5"W x 7.81"H x 0.69"D (12.7 x 19.8 x 1.8 cm) | 7 oz (198 g) | 56 per carton

On sale May 31, 2012 | 272 Pages | 9780142421017

Age 10 and up | Grade 5 & Up

Reading Level: Lexile 610L

Sales rights: World

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Children's Books > Children's Middle Grade Books

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From the author of Mockingbird, a National Book Award winner!

Mike tries so hard to please his father, but the only language his dad seems to speak is calculus. And for a boy with a math learning disability, nothing could be more difficult. When his dad sends him to live with distant relatives in rural Pennsylvania for the summer to work on an engineering project, Mike figures this is his big chance to prove himself. But when he gets there, nothing is what he thought it would be. Instead of an engineering assignment, he finds himself part of a town-wide project to adopt a boy from Romania while working alongside his wacky eighty-something-year-old aunt, a homeless man, and a punk-rock girl. Mike might not learn anything about engineering, but what he does learn is far more valuable.

Kathryn Erskine spent many years as a lawyer before realizing that she’d rather write things that people might actually enjoy reading. She grew up mostly overseas and attended eight different schools, her favorite being the Hogwarts-type castle in Scotland. The faculty, of course, did not consist of wizards, although . . . how did the headmistress know that it was “the wee redhead” who led the campaign to free the mice from the biology lab? Erskine draws on her childhood—and her second childhood through her children—for her stories. She still loves to travel but nowadays most trips tend to be local, such as basketball and tennis courts, occasional emergency room visits, and the natural food store for very healthy organic chocolate with “life saving” flavonoids. View titles by Kathryn Erskine

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