Synopsis
The excitement of international espionage combined with the awkwardness of elementary makes for non-stop laughs in NERDS, the hilarious series from New York Times bestselling author Michael Buckley Meet the NERDS, a team of eleven-year-old super spies: Duncan "Gluestick" Dewey: He's a paste-eater who can stick to walls. Ruby "Pufferfish" Peet: Her allergies help her detect danger and dishonesty. Heathcliff "Choppers" Hodges: He controls minds with his buckteeth. Julio "Flinch" Escala: His hyperactivity gives him super speed and strength. Matilda "Wheezer" Choi: Her inhalers enable her to fly and blast enemies. Jackson "Braceface" Jones, the new recruit. This metal mouth is the team's go-to gadget guy . . . if only he can get over becoming a NERD. Can this team of misfits save the world from their secret headquarters in the basement of their school? Can you read NERDS without laughing? Go ahead and try, The excitement of international espionage combined with the awkwardness of the tween years makes for nonstop laughs in National Espionage, Rescue, and Defense Society -- NERDS--the first book in the hilarious series from New York Times bestselling author Michael Buckley If you're looking for a funny illustrated series to enjoy alongside favorites such as Dog Man, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, and The Last Kids on Earth books, NERDS delivers! Meet the NERDS, a team of 11-year-old super spies: * Duncan "Gluestick" Dewey: He's a paste-eater who can stick to walls. * Ruby "Pufferfish" Peet: Her allergies help her detect danger and dishonesty. * Heathcliff "Choppers" Hodges: He controls minds with his buckteeth. * Julio "Flinch" Escala: His hyperactivity gives him super speed and strength. * Matilda "Wheezer" Choi: Her inhalers enable her to fly and blast enemies. * Jackson "Braceface" Jones, the new recruit. This metal mouth is the team's go-to gadget guy . . . if only he can get over becoming a NERD. Can this team of misfits save the world from their secret headquarters in the basement of their school? Can you read NERDS without laughing? Go ahead and try! NERDS series: National Espionage, Rescue, and Defense Society (#1) M is for Mama's Boy (#2) The Cheerleaders of Doom (#3) The Villain Virus (#4) Attack of the BULLIES (#5), In Medieval Autographies , A. C. Spearing develops a new engagement of narrative theory with medieval English first-person writing, focusing on the roles and functions of the "I" as a shifting textual phenomenon, not to be defined either as autobiographical or as the label of a fictional speaker or narrator. Spearing identifies and explores a previously unrecognized category of medieval English poetry, calling it "autography." He describes this form as emerging in the mid-fourteenth century and consisting of extended nonlyrical writings in the first person, embracing prologues, authorial interventions in and commentaries on third-person narratives, and descendants of the dit, a genre of French medieval poetry. He argues that autography arose as a means of liberation from the requirement to tell stories with preordained conclusions and as a way of achieving a closer relation to lived experience, with all its unpredictability and inconsistencies. Autographies, he claims, are marked by a cluster of characteristics including a correspondence to the texture of life as it is experienced, a montage-like unpredictability of structure, and a concern with writing and textuality. Beginning with what may be the earliest extended first-person narrative in Middle English, Winner and Waster , the book examines instances of the dit as discussed by French scholars, analyzes Chaucer's Wife of Bath's Prologue as a textual performance, and devotes separate chapters to detailed readings of Hoccleve's Regement of Princes prologue, his Complaint and Dialogue , and the witty first-person elements in Osbern Bokenham's legends of saints. An afterword suggests possible further applications of the concept of autography, including discussion of the intermittent autographic commentaries on the narrative in Troilus and Criseyde and Capgrave's Life of Saint Katherine . "A deeply challenging and engaging book, Medieval Autographies: The 'I' of the Text should be required reading in every graduate course in medieval English literature. In wonderfully nuanced close readings of various late medieval texts, A. C. Spearing extends and further theorizes his earlier groundbreaking work in Textual Subjectivity . His proposal of 'autography' as a new way of conceptualizing medieval first-person writing should have profound bearing on how future scholars conceptualize, designate, and discuss 'character,' 'intent,' and 'voice.' " -- Peter W. Travis, Henry Winkley Professor of Anglo-Saxon and English Language and Literature, Dartmouth College, NERDS combines all the excitement of international espionage with all the awkwardness of elementary school, and the results are hilarious. A group of unpopular fifth graders run a spy network from inside their school. With the help of cutting-edge science, they transform their nerdy qualities into incredible abilities! Their enemies? An array of James Bond - style villains, each with an evil plan more diabolical and more ridiculous than the last. Publishers Weekly raved: "Buckley has a flair for exaggerated humor." School Library Journal said: "Funny, clever, and thoroughly entertaining."
