Bruce Coville

An American author of the baby boomer generation known for his Young Adult and Children's Literature. He tends to write in the Speculative Fiction genre, occasionally dipping into horror, although generally of the kid-friendly variety.

His works include:

 * Armageddon Summer: Collaboration with Jane Yolen.
 * I Was a Sixth Grade Alien
 * The Magic Shop series
 * The Monster's Ring
 * Jeremy Thatcher, Dragon Hatcher
 * Jennifer Murdley's Toad
 * The Skull Of Truth
 * Juliet Dove Queen Of Love
 * Rod Albright Alien Adventures
 * Aliens Ate My Homework
 * I Left My Sneakers in Dimension X
 * The Search for Snout/Aliens Stole My Dad
 * Aliens Stole My Body
 * Space Brat
 * Space Brat
 * Space Brat 2: Blork's Evil Twin
 * Space Brat 3: The Wrath of Squat
 * Space Brat 4: Planet of the Dips
 * Space Brat 5: The Saber-Toothed Poodnoobie
 * My Teacher Is an Alien: A series that starts out about We Need to Get Proof, but halfway through, turns into a series about Humanity On Trial.
 * My Teacher Is an Alien
 * My Teacher Fried My Brains
 * My Teacher Glows In The Dark
 * My Teacher Flunked The Planet
 * The Unicorn Chronicles
 * Into the Land of the Unicorns
 * Song of the Wanderer
 * Dark Whispers
 * The Last Hunt
 * The Dragonslayers
 * And numerous short stories and short story anthologies.

Is associated with the following tropes:

 * Alien Lunch: Loves describing strange and unusual foods, which more often than not, actually turn out to be quite tasty.
 * Children Are Special
 * Coming of Age Story
 * Defanged Horrors: Some of them fall right into the category of actual horror, though.
 * End of an Age: The former magical age of the earth is implied in several continuities (The Unicorn Chronicles and Magic Shop).
 * The Little Shop That Wasn't There Yesterday: S. H. Elives' wandering magic shoppe appears in many of his stories.
 * Space Is Magic
 * Starfish Aliens
 * Translator Microbes: Make an appearance in many of his novels involving trans-species communication. Takes the form of a translator implant in the My Teacher Is an Alien series, and a gift of dragon's blood in The Unicorn Chronicles.
 * Urban Fantasy