Faculty Creative Works

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  Gorillas Go Bananas

  Patrick Wensink

  From the author-illustrator team behind Go Go Gorillas comes this lively, rhyming read-aloud starring a baby gorilla who refuses to eat his dinner. Perfect for picky eaters everywhere!

  It’s suppertime in the jungle, but Baby Gorilla refuses to eat anything Mama and Papa make for him—not banana chips with green guacamole or a piping-hot plate of plantain ravioli. He says no to a dish of bananas flambé and turns up his nose at banana soufflé!

  Step into the kitchen and laugh at dish after zany dish in this picture book adventure that is sure to make story times—and meal times—fun!

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  Go Go Gorillas: A Romping Bedtime Tale

  Patrick Wensink

  All safari guide Jungle Jed wants is for the gorillas to go to sleep, but after they brush their teeth and comb their fur, it's an all-out jungle boogie, complete with baby gorilla doing the robot.

  Brought to life with colorful and dynamic illustrations by Nate Wragg and bouncy text by Patrick Wensink, Go Go Gorillas is the perfect read-aloud. Fans of Giraffes Can’t Dance will giggle along at the silly antics of these not-so-sleepy gorillas in this lively, rhyming bedtime tale.

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  Fake Fruit Factory

  Patrick Wensink

  Fake Fruit Factory is a stick-slapping, gut-punching comedic novel about the eccentric small town of Dyson, Ohio. When NASA determines an errant satellite will crash there, the town's young mayor uses the ensuing media circus to attract tourism and save his bankrupt rust belt community. Unless, of course, the satellite completely wipes it from the map.

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  Broken Piano for President

  Patrick Wensink

  Ever drank too much and forgot what happened? Don't be embarrassed. Deshler Dean faces this problem every day of his life. Dean is far more brilliant and productive when he's blackout drunk. In the last few months alone, he has invented a hamburger more addictive than crystal meth, scored a six-figure record contract for his terrible art rock band, and started dating a woman he doesn't even recognize. Worse yet, he has become entangled in the biggest war since the Allies took on Germany. When rival fast food chains duke it out for control over Dean's burger-inventing genius, Dean and his band mates plunge into the absurd world of corporate paranoia and greed. As the violence of the burger wars spills out onto the streets, it's up to them to win over the hearts (and stomachs) of the American people and save the country from the equivalent of a deep-fried nuclear warhead.

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  Everything Was Great Until It Sucked: One Man's Journey from Fake IDs and BBQ Sauce Sales to Stay-at-Home-Dad and Bestselling Author

  Patrick Wensink

  "I've never known an American economy that didn't smell like Red Lobster's dumpster," begins Patrick Wensink's (bestselling author of Broken Piano for President) long-awaited essay collection.

  Zipping together heartbreak and hilarity in one neat package, this book is one man's journey along the front lines of America's economic nightmare. These nonfiction pieces feature Wensink selling his own BBQ sauce, tying the knot in a doughnut shop, getting fired from more jobs than most hold in a lifetime and struggling to make ends meet as a stay-at-home-dad.

  In the end, Wensink perseveres in typical self deprecating fashion, chronicling his unexpected rise to bestseller status when Broken Piano for President goes viral thanks to the World's Nicest Cease and Desist from Jack Daniel's. These essays originally appeared in Huffington Post, Thought Catalog, and more.

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  Black Hole Blues

  Patrick Wensink

  J. Claude Caruthers is country music's biggest star and Kenny Rogers' worst nightmare. Now, J. Claude hasn't slept for weeks. His insomnia comes courtesy of his quest to complete Nashville's most ambitious project: Caruthers is writing a love song for every woman's name on Earth. But since getting stuck on the last name in the book, Zygmut, Caruthers' life has been miserable. Life gets much worse when his estranged brother, Lloyd, inadvertently creates a black hole in a top-secret physics lab. Lovesick and lonely, Lloyd sets out to reconnect with his brother and find love before the world ends. As the black hole swallows the planet, the brothers discover that only one person who can stop the apocalypse and help J. Claude finish his songwriting odyssey is their missing sister, Zygmut. Told through a kaleidoscope of perspectives that include the Caruthers brothers, J. Claude's guitar, a club sandwich, and even the angry, foul-mouthed particle that birthed the black hole, Patrick Wensink's Black Hole Blues is a hilarious double helix of country music and physics.