The Phantasmic Gumball Machine

If you could travel to “anywhere and anywhen,” where would you go?

There is at least one thing on which eighth grader Marcus Gross and his brother, sixth grader Oliver, have always agreed: “Nothing ever happens in Everton.” That is about to change, however, with the accidental discovery of a strange box – engraved with the words “Use at Your Own Risk” – buried in their backyard.

The Phantasmic Gumball Machine presents the idealistic Oliver and the skeptical Marcus with a design and construction puzzle and a series of ancient riddles, leading them on an epic search for answers. As Marcus and Oliver begin to wonder whether their discovery of the Phantasmic Gumball Machine was really an accident after all, they’ll have to dig deeper to unearth the roots of the mystery.

The Phantasmic Gumball Machine is a novel for middle schoolers written by Michael Keefe-Feldman and illustrated by George Courage.