author Rodman Philbrick's Freak the Mighty. This is the dramatic, heart-wrenching tale of Max and Worm, two outsiders who turn to each other for survival.

Meet Max Kane, the brooding giant-of-a-boy who escaped from his basement hiding place and faced the real world in Freak the Mighty. Still grieving over the loss of his best friend, Kevin, Max finds himself defending a young, solitary girl cruelly nicknamed "Worm" because she loves to read. And when Max gets blamed for a horrific crime, he and Worm flee across America--hunted by the police and pursued by the mysterious man known as the Undertaker. The only way the teens can survive is to confront Worm's darkest and most revealing secret. And that means facing something more frightening than death itself.