Underground With Nickelan Wand, Book One: Kid City

Like many kids, Nickelan Wand hates to bathe. Unlike many kids, he has carried his avoidance of cleanliness to great extremes, writing the number of days he has avoided ablutions on the dirt covering his belly. When his fastidious parents, Mr. and Mrs. Wand, finally force him to bathe, his worst fears become reality: he is literally sucked down the drain. Nickelan emerges from a vast network of pipes landing in a fantastical underground world. There a mysterious stranger named Selwyn Harris befriends him.

Nickelan discovers a world divided between the enslaved children of the violent adult Thunder World and the grownup-free paradise of Kid City, a candyland of caramel-coated streets and roller coaster public transportation. Nickelan teams up with a ragtag army of kids to escape Thunder World and battles a giant ridable crocodile, fierce creatures called Makas, dinosaurs, dragons and teenage pirates-not to mention contending with the trickery of Selwyn Harris-on an action-packed and whimsical odyssey through the Lands Between to Kid City.

Along the way he hears the legend of the Redeemer-someone who will come from above to save the underground world. He also learns his parents have been kidnapped and are being held prisoner in Kid City. Whether he is the Redeemer or not, it's up to Nickelan Wand to save his parents and Kid City from the forces of destruction.