"Outrageous hijinks and nonstop hilarity--five stars!" --Lincoln Peirce, author of the Big Nate series

Take a vacation in a book with this hilarious illustrated middle-grade series by Chris Grabenstein, New York Times bestselling author of Escape from Mr. Lemoncello's Library and coauthor with James Patterson of the I Funny and House of Robots series!

Welcome to the Wonderland Motel--the funnest place on earth! Contestants, start your engines! The race to be the best on the beach is on, and this year the Wonderland is FINALLY going to win! The competition is fierce! But who needs ROLLER COASTERS and JET PACKS and PIRATES when you have not one but two SECRET WEAPONS? That's right--P.T. and Gloria, of course! Now they just need to SLEUTH OUT who the secret contest judges are and come up with enough brand-new attractions to WOW them and OUT-FUN the competition! Can they do it? Or will the Wonderland crash and burn? Anything's possible when you live in the FUNNEST PLACE ON EARTH! Extras include P.T. and Gloria's famous fact-or-fiction quiz and P.T.'s (Not Exactly) Patented Storytelling Tips!

"So funny I fell off my bed!" --Izzy B., age 10

“This weekend,” I told my audience, “I had a duel with a dolphin.”
“Whaaaa?” said everybody else.
Fact: when you live in a motel, you always have the best stories on Monday mornings.
“The Wonderland’s right on the beach,” I told my history class. “So I grew up speaking Dolphin.” I gave a quick demo. “Eeeek squeeeee, klik-klik.” “What’s   that   mean?” asked   my   bud Bruce
Brandow.
“ ‘I have to go to the bathroom.’ ” “Dolphins say that?”
“Yep. Then they do it. Right there in the Gulf.
That’s why the water’s so warm.” “Gross,” said Bruce.
We   were between bells, just waiting for our teacher, Mr. Frumpkes, to march in and put us all   to sleep with a barrage of boring facts. It was up to me to spin a story so scintillating it could fight off the Frumpkes Funk.
“On Saturday, I was riding the waves, just surfing along—”
“Surfing?” scoffed Adam Shapera, a big guy who always sits in the back of the room so it’s easier to flick people’s ears. “Who taught you how to do that?”
“Kevin the Monkey,” said my good friend Gloria Ortega. “Star of the smash hit Beach Party Surf Monkey.”
Unimpressed, Adam blew a lip fart.
I didn’t let Adam slow me down, because everybody else was hanging on my every word, scooching their seats closer.
“I was carving across a wave. Totally cranking. It was epic. All of a sudden, out of nowhere, this dolphin pops up!”
“The dolphin blew his airhole at me. It sounded like one of Adam Shapera’s lip farts. It spooked me so much I wiped out.”
“What’d the dolphin want?” asked Bruce.
“To challenge me to a friendly competition.”   I put on my best high-pitched dolphin voice. “ ‘I am Frederick, the Dolphin King. I challenge you   to   a duel!’ ”
“Whoa,” said Bruce. “Just like that Alexander Hamilton dude with that other dude.”
“Aaron Burr,” said Gloria.
“Exactly,” I said. “But we wouldn’t be dueling with pistols. It’d be unfair. Dolphins don’t have trigger fingers.”
“That’s so true,” said Adam, finally getting into the story with everybody else.
“We decided on a race,” I said. “From the Gulf waters behind the Wonderland all the way up St. Pete Beach to the Don CeSar Hotel. It’d be me and my board against King Frederick and his mighty flippers. Human against dolphin. Mano a mammalo. I, of course, agreed to King Frederick’s terms. But only because I knew I’d win.”
“How’d you know that?” Adam asked eagerly. “Simple,” I told him. “I was carrying a secret
weapon!”

Here's what people are saying about Welcome to Wonderland!

*Sunshine State Young Readers Award List * South Carolina Book Award Nominee * Grand Canyon Reader Award Nominee * Winner of Sid Fleischman Humor Award (for Book 1, Home, Sweet, Motel)

"Delivers humor, adventure . . . and plenty of fun in the Florida sun."—Booklist

"Classic Grabenstein. This new series should be a HIT."—School Library Journal

"A delight. P.T. is a HOOT AND A HALF. A funny, madcap dash."—Kirkus Reviews

"Charm galore. EASY and BREEZY. . . belongs in the hands of any readers wanting their bad guys bad, their good guys great, and a little of Wonderland's promised fun in the sun."—The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books

"The story makes you want to read MORE."—Kidsday, Newsday

When I talk to kids about my new book THE ISLAND OF DR. LIBRIS, I torture them with a tale of electronics deprivation.
     "My main character, Billy Gillfoyle," I say, "is spending the summer in a cabin on a lake. There is no cable, no TV, no DVR, no X-Box, no PlayStation 3. There isn't even an old-fashioned VCR."
     By this point, the kids' gasps become audible.
     "On his first day at the cabin," I continue, "Billy drops his iPhone and it shatters. The nearest Apple store is several hundred miles away."
     Jaws drop. The kids are practically weeping – just like my hero, Billy Gillfoyle. He mopes around the cabin after the demise of his iPhone and ends up in this scene with his mother:

"Billy, what do you think kids did back before video games or TV or even electricity?"
"I don't know. Cried a lot?" He plopped down dramatically on the couch.
"No, Billy. They read books. They made up stories and games. They took nothing and turned it into something."

     And that's what happens to Billy in this book: He learns to start using and trusting his own imagination.
     Characters from books that he reads in Dr. Libris' study start coming to life out on the island in the middle of the lake.   In no time, Hercules, the monster Antaeus, Robin Hood, Maid Marian, The Three Musketeers, D'Artagnan, Pollyanna, and Tom Sawyer are all bumping into each other's stories. It's up to Billy, with the help of his new friend Walter, and a bookcase filled with classic literature, to "imagine" a scenario that will bring all the conflicts to a tidy resolution.
     Yep. In THE ISLAND OF DR. LIBRIS, Billy Gillfoyle is learning how to become a writer. He puts his characters into situations and conflicts that will, ultimately, take him to the happy ending he, and everybody else, is looking for.
     When all seems lost, he is on the island with his new friends Robin Hood, Maid Marian, and Hercules, despairing that he's not heroic enough to rescue his asthmatic friend Walter from the clutches of the evil Space Lizard (yes, hideous creatures from video games and fairy tales eventually come to life on the island, too.)

"Ho, lads and lassie!" said Robin Hood. "All is not lost! Look you, Sir William – I remember a time when Sir Guy of Gisbourne held me captive in his tower. Did my band of merry followers let a moat or castle walls stand in their way?"
"Nay!" said Marian. "Little John and I didst lead the charge. Oh, how the arrows did fly that day!"
"I'm not Little John," Billy said quietly. "Or you, Maid Marian. I'm not a hero." He looked down at Walter's inhaler. "I'm just a kid who can't even save his own family."
"Nonsense," said Maid Marian. "Each of us can choose who or what we shall be. We write our own stories, Sir William. We write them each and every day."
"And," added Hercules, "if you write it boldly enough, others will write about you, too."

     In my book ESCAPE FROM MR. LEMONCELLO'S LIBRARY, I wanted to make young readers excited about reading and doing research. I tried to turn a trip to the library into an incredibly fun scavenger hunt, filled with puzzles and surprises. (In my perpetually twelve-years-old mind, that's what doing research actually is.)
     With THE ISLAND OF DR. LIBRIS, I am hoping to excite young readers about the power and awesomeness of their own imaginations. I want them to take nothing and turn it into something. To take two old ideas, toss them together, and create something new.
     And, when they write their own stories, maybe some of them will decide they want to become authors, writing stories for the rest of us, too!