This image is the cover for the book Mr. Was

Mr. Was


Jack Lund figures a good day is when his dad's too drunk to beat up his mom.

For Jack, Bogg's End is the end. The end of the turbulent, see-saw years of watching his father go on the wagon and fall right back off gain. Once it took two years, but the inevitable inevitably happened. Now it's just Jack and his mom starting over in the strange old house his grandfather left them.

But the ride's not over yet. Jack's father returns, full of apologies and promises, and for a little while, things are looking up. Then in one terrifying, sickening moment, everything comes crashing back down again.

So Jack runs. He runs through a strange hidden door that takes him back in time to before his parents were born. Before he was born. Maybe with a second chance he can stop the inevitable. At least he's got to try. What Jack doesn't understand, though, is that he can't change his future until he faces his past.

Pete Hautman

Pete Hautman (b. 1952) is an American novelist. Born in Berkeley, California, Hautman moved to Minnesota when he was six. He attended college at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design and the University of Minnesota, and went on to work in marketing and graphic design. Dissatisfied with his work, Hautman turned to fiction, writing his first novel, Drawing Dead, in 1993. A rollicking story of an ex-cop whose gambling gets him into trouble, it was the first of five novels starring Joe Crow, Sam O'Gara, and Axel Speeter. Besides writing mysteries, Hautman has had success writing young adult and middle school fiction. In 2004, he won the National Book Award for Godless, a young adult novel about a pair of teens who start a religion based on worshipping a local water tower. Hautman’s recent novels include Blank Confession (2010), The Big Crunch (2011), and What Boys Really Want (2012).  

S&S Books for Young Readers