Melonhead Series

Fun in the sun! For best pals Melonhead and Sam, it’s a winter break with grandparents, which is more fun than you’d think! A comical and heartwarming story about friendship, community, and the special connection between kids and those young at heart!
 
My best pal Sam and I are in Paradise, the community in Florida where my grandparents Nana and Jeep live. We’re staying with them while my dad works and my mom is on a trip with her lady relatives. Everything in Paradise is swank and deluxe, and lots of stuff is “For the Convenience of Our Residents.” We’re sure that means free. We especially like the All-You-Can-Eat Buffet.

Since Florida is loaded with animals, we’re going to capture a pet for Sam. We considered a wild piglet or a parrot or an armadillo or an iguana, but we’ve decided to find an alligator egg because it’s easy to carry on an airplane and it can hatch once we’re home. All we have to do is come up with a way to get that egg. Luckily, Sam and I are idea men!
 
 
Praise for the Melonhead series
 
Melonhead: “Laugh-out-loud funny, rivaling Stink and Fudge in its troublemaker quotient.” —School Library Journal
 
Melonhead and the Big Stink: “The clever dialogue sparkles. A breezy and humorous middle-grade tale.” —Kirkus Reviews
 
Melonhead and the Undercover Operation: “Melonhead’s pure, kid-centric, fun-loving perspective is hard to resist.” —Kirkus Reviews
 
Melonhead and the Vegalicious Disaster: “Melonhead returns with rapid-fire narration and adventure.” —BooklistOnline.com
 
Melonhead and the We-Fix-It Company: “Melonhead and his friends inhabit a world . . . where inventiveness and camaraderie reign supreme.” —Kirkus Reviews

“Melonhead and his friends inhabit a world . . . where inventiveness and camaraderie reign supreme.” —Kirkus Reviews
 
For fans of Judy Blume’s Fudge titles as well as Carl Hiaasen’s Hoot.

Anybody who is eleven needs an allowance! My parents don’t agree. Neither do my friend Sam’s parents. You would think they would because due to a snafu, Sam and I have to raise some money. So we started the We-Fix-It Company and requests started pouring in. Pruning (the gardening kind, not the gross-food kind), birdhouse making, shoe fixing, food delivering—we were hired! Then we received the request that changed everything…

It’s not fair! Not only is Melonhead’s new fifth-grade teacher notoriously strict and mean, his mother is making him eat more and more vegetables. So Melonhead and his pals come up with a genius idea to get out of eating his mom’s vegalicious meals, all the while convincing her that they actually love them. But the genius idea leads to totally unexpected and stinky results!

Melonhead here—with more rules?! I already have the Remind-O-Rama list from my mom, which reminds me what I shouldn’t do. Now my dad has created the Melon Family Guidelines for Life to remind me what I should do. And even though all these rules are so simple even a worm could follow them, I already have too much to think about. As Junior Special Agents with the FBI, my pal Sam and I have taken a pledge—it’s our duty to help apprehend a fugitive from justice if we spot one. And believe it or not, we’ve spotted one not far from where we live! The Chameleon may think she’s crafty, but we can see right through her wigs, plastic noses, and putty chins. We’re undercover and on the case, doing surveillance and gathering evidence. But what you see isn’t always what you get!

Melonhead is back in action, filled with curiosity, stirring up a little trouble (even though he doesn’t mean to), and determined to have a summer of fun! In this second book in the Melonhead chapter book series, Melonhead is still pals with Lucy Rose, but he’s not going to Parks & Rec camp this summer. He ruined one of Mrs. Wilkins’s favorite garden plants, so his parents have “loaned” him to her to do chores. This is going to mess up his summer plans if he doesn’t figure something out. He and Sam need to find a way to get to New York City to see the titan arum “bunga bangkai” plant. It’s supposed to be twelve feet tall, weigh a hundred pounds, and smell like dead mammals, plus rot, plus spoiled food. It only blooms once every seven years, and even then only for two days and then it keels over dead. It’s the Big Stink of a Lifetime! But Melonhead has to get a few more good deeds out of the way first, and doing chores for Mrs. Wilkins is a good start, even if it wasn’t in the plan to begin with!

Melonhead, the first book in author Katy Kelly’s laugh-out-loud chapter book series, is now in paperback!
 
Adam Melon’s friend Lucy Rose gave him a nickname—Melonhead—and it caught on fast. Melonhead is a self-proclaimed inventor. All his life, which is ten years and counting, great ideas have been popping in and out of his melon head. And sometimes they work! This year Melonhead’s class is entering an inventing fair, so he and his friend Sam are dreaming up plans. And Capitol Hill has a ton of places to find invention parts. But they have to be sure they find what they need and get home on time with no excuses. That might be hard, because Melonhead and Sam have a way of forgetting. But their work will all pay off if they win first place—they’ll be headed to even bigger and better things!