Jeff Pennant's Field Guide to Raising Happy Parents

Winner of the Angel Award for Best Middle Grade and finalist in the Readers Favorite Award, this laugh-out-loud story of learning what it takes to be in a family will make you see the world in a whole new way.

Jeff is always in trouble. He's just living his best life, like his parents tell him to do. But whatever he does - whether it's bottle rockets in the kitchen, or a fungus garden in his closet - he gets a new layer of being grounded. Now it's starting to come between him and his friends.

Jeff decides it's time to take the offensive. He begins a science experiment observing his parents to learn what makes them happy, so he can make them happy, so he can get what he wants, which is to go to Gamer Con that he's grounded from.

As he tries new continually failing tactics and documents his discoveries, Jeff begins to see things in a new way. Maybe having friends and being part of a family doesn't mean exactly what he thought it did.

Kelli McKinney earned her bachelor's degree in journalism from the University of Oklahoma and her graduate degree in radio/tv/film from the University of North Texas. She enjoyed an eclectic-yet-fulfilling fifteen-year career in corporate marketing before wandering off on her own to be a freelance copywriter and children's author. She lives near Dallas, Texas but a huge piece of her heart belongs to Oklahoma.