about the book
When Justin finds out his beloved grandmother is coming for a visit, he is worried she will be upset with him. He lost his hat, you see—the one she made for him! He spends days looking all around the house for it, until his mother suggests he look in the school’s lost and found.
The school’s lost and found! He might as well go into a dark, scary forest or haunted house. No one goes to the school’s lost and found.
All his friends know this. Going to the lost and found means talking to the mean, old, grumpy janitor, Mr. Rumkowsky.
Well, Justin has little choice. The next day at school he walks down the dark hallway to Mr. Rumkowsky’s office, and asks him about his hat. Getting a ladder, the janitor has Justin climb up into a storage place filled with boxes of lost stuff.
Look at it all! There are weird oddities in here, things Justin never dreamed he would find, things the janitor lets him keep since they have been there so long. But no hat.
Today his grandma arrives, and Justin hasn’t found any trace of his hat. Where could it be?
about the author
Bill Harley is both a musician and a storyteller, and often the two go hand in hand. He was still in college in 1975 when he began singing songs and telling stories, and since then a generation of children and their parents have been raised on on his work and performances.
Bill strives to display joy, openness, and honesty in his songs; in his stories he focuses on the beautiful details of ordinary life—from his strange point of view, of course.
For his songs Bill has won two Grammy Awards, as well as Parents’ Choice, NAPPA, ALA, and the Oppenheim Toy Portfolio high honor awards. For his books he has won awards too, like the Bank Street School of Education award for The Amazing Flight of Darius Frobisher, for one of the best children’s books of the year.
Today Bill tours nationally in schools, libraries, theaters, conferences, and festivals. He speaks, sings, and tells stories to both children and adults alike.
If you want to start living like Bill, there is one very important “Bill’s Rules of the Universe” rule you will have to remember—Number Eight: “Sometimes, a plate of spaghetti is the best thing in the world.”
Sources:
Author website
Author interview : Kid Lit Reviews
Also by Bill Harley:
Dirty Joe, the Pirate : A True Story. Harper Collins. 2008.
Bear’s All-Night Party. August House. 2001.
about the illustrator
When he was little, Adam Gustavson was sure of one thing: he was going to be a cowboy. He had the chaps, he had the ten gallon hat, he even had a pair of six-shooter cap guns.
He also had a horse allergy.
His cowboy career cut down before it even started, Adam turned to drawing. He started off sketching lots of cowboys and horses, naturally. Other ideas about careers came and went—at one point he thought about being a crocodile farmer—but drawing was the thing that stuck with him. This developed into an appreciation of art at a very early age.
Adam went to the Rowan University in New Jersey, majoring in illustration. After four years there he moved out to Kansas for a while to attend the Illustration Academy. After that his career and life took off pretty quickly, as he went back east to New York’s School of Visual Arts to get his Master’s degree, began teaching illustration, got married, began selling paintings and drawings to publishers, and even began playing as a musician at nights.
Adam lives with his wife and two sons in New Jersey.
Sources:
Illustrator website
Illustrator interview : Idle Illustration
Also by Adam Gustavson:
Dirty Rats? by Darrin Lunde. Charlesbridge. 2015.
Rock & Roll Highway : The Robbie Robertson Story by Sebastian Robertson. Henry Holt. 2014.
Hannah’s Way by Linda Glaser. Kar-Ben Copies. 2012.
Better Than You by Trudy Ludwig. Tricycle Press. 2011.
Jingle Bells : How the Holiday Classic Came to Be by John Harris. Peachtree Publishers. 2011.
Calico Dorsey : Mail Dog of the Mining Camps by Susan Lendroth. Tricycle Press. 2010.
The Blue House Dog by Deborah Blumenthal. Peachtree Publishers. 2010.
Snow Day! by Lester L. Laminack. Peachtree Publishers. 2010.
Mind Your Manners, Alice Roosevelt! by Leslie Kimmelman. Peachtree Publishers. 2009.
The Lost-and-Found Tooth by Louise Borden. Margaret K. McElderry Books. 2008.
A Very Improbable Story : A Math Adventure by Edward Einhorn. Charlesbridge. 2008.
The Last Day of School by Louise Borden. Margaret K. McElderry Books. 2006.
The A+ Custodian by Louise Borden. Margaret K. McElderry Books. 2004.
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