When master prankster Miles Murphy moves to sleepy Yawnee Valley, he challenges the local mystery prankster in an epic battle of tricks, but soon the two join forces to pull off the biggest prank ever seen.

"Friends and pranking partners Miles and Niles face a tough challenge when their favorite goat and nemesis, Principal Barkin, is replaced by his stern, no-nonsense father, Former Principal Barkin, who turns the school into boot camp"--

One day, Mac (smartest boy in his class in a small town in California) receives a telephone call from the Queen of England, recruiting him to find the crown jewels (well, actually just the Coronation Spoon) and so Mac embarks on his first adventure as a secret agent--with the assurance that the Queen will give him a note excusing him from school.

In 1989 someone is threatening to steal the crown jewels, so the Queen of England summons Mac B. to England to protect them--and when they are stolen from a locked dungeon cell, where Mac and Holcroft, one of the warders, are supposed to be guarding them, it's up to Mac to figure out how they were stolen, and whether the thief is the descendant of an Irish soldier-of-fortune who tried to steal them in 1671, or someone else entirely.

"The Queen of England calls on Mac B. once again! This time, Mac must crack a secret code that has been recovered from a double agent. A series of clues leads Mac to France, and then to Japan, where he comes face-to-face with his arch-nemesis, the KGB man... and the world headquarters of Nintendo! Is the KGB Man secretly behind all of this? And are Mac's video game skills good enough to facedown his enemy at the Video Game World Championships?"--Provided...

When a mouse is swallowed by a wolf, he learns that a duck devoured earlier has set up a table to enjoy the food the gluttonous predator eats.

To escape a burning building, Zapfino must confront the fears that forced him out of the circus.

Ernest is annoying. Ernest is awkward. Ernest is…Ernest. And Dean wants nothing to do with him, until Ernest wins the most spectacular trip in the history of America – and is allowed to bring one friend. A short story from the acclaimed collection Guys Read: Funny Business, edited by Jon Scieszka.

Twelve-year-old Steve is investigating a diamond heist but the case suddenly changes when the author of the Bailey Brothers detective novels writes him a letter to say that he fears for his life.

When a child is too full of questions about the world to go to sleep, her patient father offers up increasingly creative responses to his child's nighttime wonderings.