Grooves: A Kind of Mystery
A quirky middle-grade novel about an enterprising seventh-grader who discovers an astonishing plea for help in the grooves of his blue jeans.
Dwayne Ruggles is a regular kid living in a regular town until evil entrepreneur Howard Thigpen shows up. Thigpen seems to have the ability to make people do whatever he wants, and sparks of light swirl around him wherever he goes. But the mystery doesn't stop there. Dwayne discovers that the grooves in his Thigpen-brand blue jeans and the ripples in his Thigpen-brand potato chips contain a secret message, "Please. You must help us. He's stealing the light from our eyes." It's a race against time to solve the mystery, but first Dwayne better figure out what that strange message means.
Kevin Brockmeier
Kevin John Brockmeier (born 1972) is an American writer of fantasy and literary fiction. His short stories have been printed in numerous publications and he has published two collections of stories, two children's novels, and two fantasy novels. Brockmeier, who was born and raised in Little Rock, Arkansas, is a graduate of Parkview Arts and Science Magnet High School (1991) and Southwest Missouri State University (1995). He taught at the Iowa Writers' Workshop, where he received his MFA in 1997, and lives in Little Rock.
Brockmeier has won three O. Henry Prizes, the Chicago Tribune's Nelson Algren Award for Short Fiction, Italo Calvino Short Fiction Award and several and the Booker Worthen Literary Prize and the Porter Fund Literary Prize.