Troublemakers
Middle school is bad. These kids are worse.
Cover design by Tina Hays. You can find more of her work at emeraldripple.com.
An outrageous trip through sixth grade with three kids desperate to get rich quick and avoid doing homework by any means necessary.
Available now on Kindle and in paperback!
“We hate school, but trust me, it doesn’t like us either.”
There's the athletes, the straight-A students, the jazz band, the computer club... and then there's these kids. Meet Carlos, Tina, and Byron, three sixth graders who have two objectives in life: to avoid homework at all costs and to make lots of money so they can buy a sweet car and learn to drive it. Their knack for get-rich-quick schemes and clever methods of cheating are only surpassed by their failure to notice how badly most of their plans blow up in their faces.
Gregg Maxwell Parker’s first title for middle grade and young adult readers will take you on a side-splitting, rude, and somehow encouraging ride through the perils of middle school with three kids who absolutely refuse to be told what to do. Whether dreaming up ways to con classmates out of their allowances, going to incredible lengths to jump on a trampoline, or navigating the ins and outs of snack-based time travel, they've always got something up their sleeves, even if it usually ends up getting them detention.
This book is for anyone who knows what the inside of the principal's office looks like, who looks at the happy families on TV like a dog looks at a smartphone, and who can't fathom why any sane person would ever want to become a teacher.
Get ready: this one will be a blast for troublemakers of all ages.
“I think it’s important to say exactly what I think at all times; it’s everyone else’s fault for having feelings that get hurt so easily.”
The Stories
The Good Track: When the school institutes block scheduling, Carlos and the gang scheme to cheat on the placement test so they can get into the smart-kid classes and have P.E. instead of Art & Music. It does not go well.
Armando’s Trampoline: After one of their classmates (and Tina’s sworn enemy) gets a trampoline, the kids go to great lengths to trick him into inviting them to his awesome birthday party. It does not go well.
The Old Chips: Upon realizing that they have the ability to manipulate the passage of time, Byron and the posse devise clever ways to get super rich utilizing their knowledge of the future. It goes okay.
“My motto is any hole you can put ice cream in, you go ahead and do it. Parfait Diem.”
Parents on the fence about buying this book: read this!
Dear parents,
Aren't you tired of entertainment that isn't wholesome? Thankfully, this book is educational and teaches your kids valuable lessons. It definitely doesn't contain advice on how to cheat at school and get rich from running clever scams, and certainly doesn't have bad words like poop and butt. Nothing like that in here. So go ahead and buy this for your kids, and don't bother looking at the inside because it's totally boring so you wouldn't like it anyway.
Sincerely,
Carlos, Tina, and Byron
Nice kids who never do anything wrong.
“Kids are getting big allowances now. They’ve got money, and they need someone to help them spend it, which is what I’m good at. My friends and I provide what kids don’t realize they need at low, low prices, until the administration finds out.”
Who Is This Book For?
Kids. But not stupid ones. Only super geniuses who are like awesome and good at sports and can get to level 1,000 in Panda Pop. Advanced readers age 10 and up should be able to handle it.
Families. If your children are younger or struggling to read, this is a great book to read together.
Teachers. Though it may not seem like it, students can actually learn a lot from a book with so many references to farting. Really, I mean it.
Anyone! If you can dig Adventures of Huckleberry Finn or Calvin and Hobbes, you can appreciate this book. This one is not just for children.
Folks with Kindle Unlimited! If you subscribe, you can read Troublemakers for free! Give it a try!
“You know, money can’t buy happiness,” said my dad.
“Yeah,” I said, “but poverty can’t buy anything.”
Tell The World!
I want as many people as possible to read Troublemakers, and to do that, I need your help! Please tell a friend, or an enemy, or a bunch of strangers on social media about this book! Or write a review and post it online! You can ensure other people hear about this book, which will give me the ability to write another one!
However, please note: other than author-centric sites like Goodreads and BookBub, which I begrudgingly take part in because my job forces me to, I do not use any social media platforms, and I never interact with readers online, for any reason. If you or your child come across a social media profile or get a message from someone claiming to be me, that person is not me, so do not talk to them. Always protect yourself online and make sure your kids know better than to tell personal details to a stranger, even if that person wrote the single greatest book in the history of mankind. Thank you.
“There was essentially nothing that could go wrong. I say ‘essentially’ because of all the stuff that then went wrong.”
A Somewhat Sincere Message from the Author
In 1996, 53.9% of nine-year-olds said they read for fun “almost every day.” When asked the same question, only 32.1% of 13-year-olds and 22.8% of 17-year-olds said the same. According to some recent reports, middle school reading scores are down or stagnant since then. I am not an expert and don’t fully understand the context of these statistics, but they don’t surprise me, because I remember being in middle school in 1996, and the problem today is the same as it was then: kids are losing their love of reading.
There's a lot of things we as a society could do to get kids reading, but I believe one way I can contribute is to write books middle school kids will actually want to read, that are fun and don't talk down to them, and offer the same types of experiences they get from other entertainment - movies and TV shows for that age group are not terribly different from those offered to adults, so why not books? Aren't pre-teens capable of handling stories that don't reprimand them, and paint a picture of the world that isn't simplistic?
Another article I skimmed said recent evidence suggests elementary-school students actually learn more when given texts considered too difficult for them, and I’d suspect that’s because the books they’re usually given totally suck, and when given something good, they jump at the chance. That's what I'm hoping Troublemakers will be, something that will get kids to learn because they want to, not because someone is forcing them. If you've got kids, give this book a try. If you don't, you might be pleasantly surprised at how funny and rewarding a middle grade book can be. If I can make just one kid laugh, and that kid turns out to be some sort of billionaire who will buy me an NFL franchise and destroy all my enemies, then it will have been worth it.
Sincerely,
Gregg Maxwell Parker, King of Earth
Fans of “Seinfeld” and "Citizen Kane" and "The Great Gatsby" and tacos and football and space travel and life on Earth will loooooove this book!
And if you don't, no refunds!