Time Rider — Jack King

TJ's an ordinary fourteen year old kid with extraordinary problems at home and school. He has a broken family from his parents' bitter divorce. He faces evil bullies attacking him almost every afternoon, failing grades when he's really a smart kid, boring classes, snobby girls, mean teachers, being cut from basketball tryouts, and few friends. Yes, life is rough for TJ Cockrell. Then a mysterious green book inexplicably throws TJ into the past. And not just any past, but the untamed forbidding forests of 1802 eastern Tennessee, with savage Indians, wild beasts, bloodthirsty robbers, backwoods ruffians, strange characters galore, and rugged log cabin living. Yup, it's definitely not present day Knoxville Tennessee anymore. TJ thought his present life was bad news, but his adventures have just begun. Along the way, he fights off killer beasts, bandits and braves, meets the cocky teenaged David Crockett, gains a world of assurance in himself, finds his first real love, and is befriended by a fantastic frontier family who really has it together. TJ returns to the present a changed young man; emboldened, forthright, and shrewd. He'll need all of his new-found strengths to fend off killer burglars loose in his house, outwit the school bully, charm a pretty new transfer-student, and most intriguing of all, delve into the mysteries of the magical green book...