The Flinkwater Factor, 1

By Pete Hautman

Book Overview

Ginger must save her high-tech hometown from robots gone rogue in this hilariously quirky science fiction novel from National Book Award-winning author Pete Hautman. Welcome to Flinkwater, Iowa, home of the largest manufacturer of Articulated Computerized Peripheral Devices in the world. If you own a robot, it probably came from Flinkwater. Meet Ginger Crump, the plucky, precocious (and somewhat sarcastic) genius who finds herself in the middle of a national emergency when Flinkwater's computers start turning people into vegetables. Mental vegetables, that is. In Ginger's words, they've been "bonked." When Ginger's father is bonked, she recruits her self-declared future husband, boy genius Billy George, to help her find the source of the bonkings. Soon they're up against a talking dog, a sasquatch, and a zombie, while Flinkwater is invaded by an army of black SUVs led by the witless-but-dangerous Agent Ffelps from Homeland Security. Can Ginger get to the bottom of the bonkings, or will computer chaos reign forever?

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1481432516
• ISBN13: 9781481432511
• Release Date: September 2015
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
• Length: 256 Pages
• Weight: 0.80 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.6" x 8.3"
• Age Range: 9 to 13 years
• Grade Range: Grades 4 to 8