Larry Bograd

Translated into Japanese and published in the UK by Bodley Head, recipient of a Boston Globe rave review. Fifteen-year-old Nicky lives in a run-down Brooklyn apartment with his parents and “crazy” Uncle Eli. His life is going nowhere when his friend Prune enrolls him in a get-rich-quick robbery (that goes horribly wrong).

Translated into Swedish. In his comic novel, Ten-year-old Bernie wants to be a famous astronaut someday or star in his favorite TV show. All he can do for now is get through grade school and be ready for the city-wide dance festival. Unlike Bernie, his best friend, James, is good-looking, popular, and athletic. Plus, Bernie managed to make an enemy of Bronto Blahberg, the toughest kid in school. Will he be “Bernard the Nerd” forever?

Based on the true story of one of the greatest feuds in science histories. Two paleontologists battle each other across the American West to find and name the most and largest dinosaurs.

Egon, a cross between a rat and a cat, is bored by his family, who help him pack before he leaves on adventures that end with his drawing posters for a traveling circus. Illustrated by Dirk Zimmer  

Felix is inexplicably locked in his family’s attic, where he fashions a life for himself, building furniture, capturing rainwater, growing vegetables, reading books, etc., until he decides whether to rejoin his family—winner of the Irma Simonton Black Award as Best Book for Children.

Harmony Girls, complete unpublished YA novel set during the Great Depression and centers on the first "all-girl" jazz band west of the Mississippi, specifically, for sixteen-year-old trumpeter Billie, who joins her mother’s band for summer gigs, taking them from the Rocky Mountains to the ultimate Battle of the Bands in New York City.

Based on the YA novel, "Harmony Girls", is  set during the Great Depression and centers on the first "all-girl" jazz band west of the Mississippi, specifically, for sixteen-year-old trumpeter Billie, who joins her mother’s band for summer gigs, taking them from the Rocky Mountains to the ultimate Battle of the Bands in New York City.

The history of the Spirituals—also known as Plantation Songs or Slave Songs—influenced gospel, the blues, folk music and rock and roll. Yet this story had never been the subject of a feature documentary film. Filmmakers Coleen Hubbard and Larry Bograd follow an integrated Denver Choir dedicated to performing and promoting this seminal American music.

Translated into Swedish. Selected as a “UNESCO Book for Peace.” Sixteen-year-old Maggie, reeling from the death of her mother, has no choice but to move from Boston to Los Alamos, New Mexico, when her physicist father is recruited to help build the first atomic books during World War II. Alone most of the time, she comes to love the American West and the American Indian girl who befriends her.

Young Bruno is anxious and alone after being separated from his mother in a large department store. That is, until Molly (also separated from her family) finds him and shows how much fun running around a department store can be.  

Can ten-year-old Gertie, living on the edge of poverty, make all the world’s problems disappear? No, but she can create an imaginary world where everything is perfect—and name after herself! She draws pictures of Gertsworld and pretends she’s safe there. But the landlord tells Gertie’s mother to pay up or get out. Can Gertie save the day by using her quirky talents?

Released as a mass-market paperback by Dell. A love triangle set in a suburban American high school. Best friends Matt and Jesse pursue classmate Natalie as a girlfriend. Bograd’s British literary agent called it, "The single best book about teenage sexuality he’d ever read."

The Contents of Her Purse by filmmakers Coleen Hubbard and Larry create an insightful and hilarious documentary film feature about what girls and women carry in their purses—and the contents change over the female lifespan.

This club has two members, Billy and Juan. They dig for bones and fossils after school, dreaming of dinosaur glory. Then, Juan quicks after classmates make fun of his Latino heritage. Can Billy save the friendship—and the club?

YA novel. Translated into French and Swedish and released as a mass-market paperback by Dell. After the KGB takes away the teenage Lev’s father, Lev must decide whether to conform to Soviet rule or release confidential information to the West, joining his parents as pro-democracy activists.

"The Reincarnation of Sweet Lips", selected for Short Circuits: Thirteen Shocking Stories by Outstanding Writers for Young Adults, Dell/Laurel Leaf Books. Mr. Boyle, the strange, reclusive neighbor next door, feels his dog Sweet Lips more exotic meals than Drew’s mother ever fed him. But that wasn’t the only unusual thing about Mr. Boyle. One evening, Drew sees the strangest thing ever happen next door. Can Drew solve what happened and maybe use it to help his mother and himself?

The Troubled Wave, complete, unpublished novel. The year is 1900: the setting, Washington, D.C. The country is conducting the Spanish-American War, while thousands of soldiers die or return stateside with terrible wounds and injuries. At home, the gap between the super-rich and the poor has never been wider. Two young women, one white and one African American, invent an extraordinary device to draw voices and sounds from inanimate objects. How long can they keep it a secret? How long before someone steals and commercializes it or uses it to gain power? This literary novel for adults tells their story.

High school friends Jack and Wendell leave their small mining town in Colorado to drive west during summer break. Wendell wants to make trouble and have fun, while Jack’s mission is to find Air Fore buddies of his father, who was killed in action.

Two miners die in an explosion in a mine owned by a mega-rich industrialist. The mine inspector assigned to investigate finds his conclusions about the incident could sway a hotly contest U.S. Senatorial campaign in Colorado.

"Willie and the Christmas Spruce", selected for Sixteen Stories by Outstanding Writers for Young Adults, Dell/Laurel Leaf Books.  Life is tough for young Willie and his Vermont family when their maple harvest all but failed for another year. It’s nearly Christmas, and Willie convinces his older sister and their parents to chop down some evergreen Trees and truck them to Boston to sell at high prices. Of course, things do not go as planned. In the process of trying, Willie and his sister discover the true purpose of Christmas.