Bill Harley

Charlie Bumpers wants to play the bad guy in the class play, but his teacher Mrs. Burke has other ideas. Charlie Bumpers has his heart set on playing the role of the evil Sorcerer in the fourth-grade play. But his dreams of villainous stardom go up in smoke when he finds out that Mrs. Burke has cast him as the Nice Gnome Determined to rectify this terrible injustice, Charlie concocts one plan after another, but nothing seems to work. To make matters worse, his dad has assigned chores to all the kids in the family, and Charlie's job is walking Ginger--the diggiest, sniffiest, and poopiest dog in the universe. Can Charlie deal with these challenges without causing havoc all around him? Black and white illustrations throughout.

Charlie Bumpers wants to play the bad guy in the class play, but his teacher Mrs. Burke has other ideas. Charlie Bumpers has his heart set on playing the role of the evil Sorcerer in the fourth-grade play. But his dreams of villainous stardom go up in smoke when he finds out that Mrs. Burke has cast him as the Nice Gnome Determined to rectify this terrible injustice, Charlie concocts one plan after another, but nothing seems to work. To make matters worse, his dad has assigned chores to all the kids in the family, and Charlie's job is walking Ginger--the diggiest, sniffiest, and poopiest dog in the universe. Can Charlie deal with these challenges without causing havoc all around him? Black and white illustrations throughout.

Charlie Bumpers's worst fear is confirmed: he has Mrs. Burke for fourth grade. How will he survive the strictest teacher in school? Shortly before school starts, Charlie Bumpers learns that he will be in Mrs. Burke's class. It doesn't matter that she's been named Teacher of the Year. He's still afraid of her. Last year when he was horsing around in the hall, he accidentally hit her in the head with his sneaker (don't ask). The exasperated teacher declared that if anything like that ever happened again, Charlie would be banned from recess forever. How will he survive a year under a teacher who is just waiting for him to make another stupid mistake? Black and white illustrations throughout.

Charlie Bumpers's worst fear is confirmed: he has Mrs. Burke for fourth grade. How will he survive the strictest teacher in school? Shortly before school starts, Charlie Bumpers learns that he will be in Mrs. Burke's class. It doesn't matter that she's been named Teacher of the Year. He's still afraid of her. Last year when he was horsing around in the hall, he accidentally hit her in the head with his sneaker (don't ask). The exasperated teacher declared that if anything like that ever happened again, Charlie would be banned from recess forever. How will he survive a year under a teacher who is just waiting for him to make another stupid mistake? Black and white illustrations throughout.

Courage yields unexpected surprises when Justin visits his school's dreaded lost and found. A witty, award-winning story about childhood fears from Bill Harley and Adam Gustavson. When Justin loses the special hat his grandmother made for him, he looks everywhere for it. Everywhere, that is, except the lost and found. Mr. Rumkowsky, the old school custodian, is the keeper of all the lost and found items, and everyone is afraid of him--including Justin. When he finally musters the courage to enter Mr. Rumkowsky's domain, he discovers a whole world of treasures. But things keep getting weirder and weirder, until way down at the bottom of Rumkowsky's giant box, Justin unearths something completely unexpected...

An inspiring story of intergenerational friendship, activism, and how our actions can drastically impact our environment.When his father takes a new job in Massachusetts, Ben Moroney must leave behind his best friend Tony, a western banded gecko named Lenny, and worst of all, the Arizona desert home he has loved and explored. Ben's adjustment to his new environment is not going well until he unexpectedly finds a kindred spirit in his eccentric fifth-grade science teacher, Mrs. Tibbets. She introduces him to the rare and elusive Eastern spadefoot toads that make their home on her rural property. When Ben discovers that Mrs. Tibbets's land may be sold to developers, he knows he has to do something. As Ben's obsession with saving the spadefoot toads' habitat grows, his schoolwork and his relationships with his family and new friends suffer. But just when it seems things can't get any worse, Ben finds a way to meet his responsibilities to the people around him and demonstrates the importance of even the smallest efforts to save the earth's rapidly disappearing habitats.

A young orphan's hopes and an unusual bicycle bring about magical results in this imaginative middle grade adventure from award-winning author Bill Harley. Life is an adventure for ten-year-old Darius Frobisher. His eccentric father Rudy sells insurance four days a week. The other three days he goes on exotic journeys. But when his father flies off in a hot air balloon and doesn't come back, Darius's happy, carefree life suddenly comes to an end. He is sent to live with his notoriously nasty Aunt Ida, where he has to sleep alone in a cold, damp basement and dodge the horrible teenage boy next door. Darius sees a ray of hope when he finds a rusty old bicycle in the basement and begins to repair it in secret. Then one day he is startled to see an old man with long flowing hair riding a bicycle across the sky That gives Darius a strange and wonderful idea. Now he knows what he has to do to get away from his miserable life.

American Bookseller Pick of the Lists & Newsweek's "Best Kids' Books of the Year"A young boy's snacktime is interrupted by a visit from an elephant. As soon as he moves over to make room, they are joined by a tiger ... and a hippo ... and a big blue whale ... and soon a full menagerie, each insisting there's room for one more. With his trademark marriage of story and song, children's entertainer Bill Harley tests the boundaries of his young hero's patience--and hospitality. Young readers will delight in counting candles on the birthday cake that is among the many favorite foods to be found in Kitty Harvill's vibrant, kinetic cut-paper collages, which capture the energy and rhythm of Harley's cumulative tale. This vibrant animal story will teach readers the importance of sharing.

Employee participation is a dynamic and contested area of organisational behaviour, attracting continuing academic, practitioner and policy interest and debate. This book will bring together a fresh, critical and comparative perspective on the full range of participation practices, drawing on the work of leading scholars in the field. It is inteded to honour the work of Harvie Ramsay, who died tragically in 2001 and who was a pioneering writer on participation and democracy in this field.