professor Kompressor visits walter's family, offering a remedy for the dog's digestive disorder: special food that must be mixed in his Kompressatron. unfortunately, the professor's cure doesn't work, so Father has to take matters into his own hands. Father's combination of ingredients has a strange effect on the pooch? walter blows up like a balloon and floats out the window Just when it looks as though walter's paws may never touch earth again, he encounters a flock of butterflies in distress. only he has the hot air that can save them from an icy death. once he lets it rip, walter's flying days are over. (or are they?) plenty of laughs and cheers will arise from this story that takes walter to new heights.

William Kotzwinkle, the esteemed author of The Fan Man and E.T.: The Extraterrestrial, is in top comic form in this outrageous and uproarious parable featring Hal Jam—a big black bear who finds a manuscript under a tree in the Maine woods, dons a suit and a tie, and heads off to the big city to seek his fame and fortune. What follows is a riotous magical romp with the buoyant Hal Jam as he leaves the quiet, nurturing world of the forest for the glittering and corrupt world of humans. New York and Hollywood and all that lies between serve as an expansive palette for Kotzwinkle’s wickedly funny satiric brush. The Bear Went Over the Mountain skewers our age’s obsession with money and fame in a delicious bedtime story for grown-ups.

Mr. and Mrs. Crabbe are enjoying their seaside vacation . . . until a certain dog blows away their umbrella with an enormous fart. Before long, Walter is banned from the beach. While Walter is stuck in the beach house, Betty and Billy hunt for treasure out on a sandbar. As soon as they find a nickel, Mr. and Mrs. Crabbe elbow their way in. Soon all four get marooned during high tide. Will Walter hear their cries for help?

Walter's family is holding a yard sale, but there are few customers. Walter, fartingcontentedly near Father, wonders why. When a man offers ten dollars for Walter, Father readily agrees. Walter wonders why. Walter is sad to leave his family behind, but relieved to discover that his new owner is a clown. Walter figures he will help the clown bring joy to children on their birthdays. But the clown has a dastardly plot: he will use Walter's gas to inflate balloons and then pop them to stun guards during bank robberies. Will Walter turn to the dark side? Of course not He comes out a hero and is reunited with his family by doing what he does best.

Walter the Farting Dog is now a hero of the high seas

Everybody is having a great time on a cruise . . . until a terrible odor permeates the ship. All signs point to Walter, and so he is first banished down below, with the stinky cheeses, and then into a lifeboat to float behind the ocean liner. Then catastrophe strikes How long will the great cruise ship and its frightened passengers be marooned on the high seas? About as long as it takes Walter to digest that cheese

Walter the dog creates problems with his farts but becomes a hero when burglars enter the house.

From the award-winning legend of speculative fiction, “a witty sendup of the detective story� with “a richness of invention that doffs a hat to Dickens� (Chicago Tribune). At a fashionable salon, Parisians line up to have their fortunes told by Ric Lazare’s amazing machine. The predictions arrive with unerring accuracy, as if the invention were imbued with some sort of wondrous sorcery. The police, however, have a different opinion. They suspect that Lazare is a con man. Accordingly, they’ve sent one of their own to investigate. Unfortunately, the man they send is Paul Picard.   His methods are unconventional. His appetites—for lemon tarts, and for prostitutes—are legendary. And he is no stranger to the dark side of Paris. But Inspector Picard is entirely unprepared for the string of murders that pulls him across the continent. As the killer’s seductive knot tightens around him, he learns once and for all that there’s more to the glimmering world of high society than first appears.   Winner of the World Fantasy Award for his novel Doctor Rat, William Kotzwinkle reaffirms his reputation as one of the most captivating and original American authors of the last half-century with this “elegant entertainment� of magic and mystery in Paris (The Washington Post).   “Gaudy, decadent, smoothly polished, this beguiling novel is . . . a feat of stage magic, well rehearsed and well performed by a fine craftsman.� —The New Yorker   “Alternately dark and glittering . . . a first-rate vaudeville turn.� —Chicago Tribune   “Pure magic.� —Playboy  

In this “psychological mind bender,� a Kafkaesque crisis of identity transports a famous actor from 1980s Hollywood to Nazi Germany (The Washington Post). At forty-five, Hollywood film star David Caspian should be basking in his success. Instead, his career is souring as he stresses over the next generation of actors eager to replace him. Losing himself in waking fantasies, David slips through a crack in time, awakening in the back alleys of Hitler’s Berlin. He is no longer David Caspian. He has become Felix, a ruthless black marketeer.   With the Gestapo closing in on him, David races against time—and space—as he fights to take control of Felix before Felix takes control of him. Witty, macabre, and utterly thrilling, The Exile is a mesmerizing novel that will leave readers wondering where reality ends and fiction begins.   People wrote that when William Kotzwinkle “is the author, readers can be sure only that the book in question will be different from everything else.� But even among the award-winning author’s work, this bracing satire stands out for the sweep of its vision, full of “comedy, despair, horror and technical storytelling delight� (The New York Times Book Review).   “The book becomes glued to the reader’s hands as the devastating climactic scenes pile one on another. . . . Powerful writing.� —The Washington Post Book World  

This World Fantasy Award winner in the vein of Animal Farm delves into a lab worthy of a mad Nazi scientist-but run by a brilliantly sadistic rodent. In the annals of American literature, there has never been a character quite like Doctor Rat, PhD. From one of the most indispensable storytellers in speculative fiction, this biting satire introduces a narrator of learned charm and humor, and a twisted logic that is absolutely chilling. Doctor Rat is a credit to his species. A survivor of the most refined scientific experiments, now removed from the maze, he has become a valued and productive member of the academic community. When he must administer a lethal dose, he comforts his fellow rats with his compassionate slogan: "Death is freedom." But everything changes when animals worldwide begin to rebel, refusing to accept their proper places in the natural order of things: as test subjects, pets, or food. And only Doctor Rat has the courage to defend mankind from the ungrateful animal kingdom. Hailed by the Los Angeles Times as "dazzlingly original" and "occasionally quite beautiful," Doctor Rat is a sly and stylish indictment of fanaticism in mice and men. "A truly imaginative impresario . . . [Doctor Rat] teases your conscience with educated wit and versatile improvisation, not to mention the casual flick of the tail about to be cut off." -Kirkus Reviews