After her first day in junior high, Alice McKinley says, "I can think of at least seven things about seventh grade that stink". But after a week, Alice has decided that maybe junior high isn't so bad. In fact, maybe she can go a whole year being friends with everyone, teachers and students alike. This is before she has her first run-in with Denise "Mack-Truck" Whitlock. Alice, who has survived sixth grade and The Summer of the First Boyfriend, soon discovers that it isn't so easy to be Alice the Likeable. Even her best friends get in the way sometimes. And just when she is sure no one has more problems than she does, she is drawn into the ones her twenty-year-old brother and her widowed father are facing, which seem worse. Thinking a favorite teacher may hold the answer to at least one difficulty, Alice ends up with a bigger mess than ever. She realizes, however, that it is possible to overcome disaster and to find a way out of troubles. Most of all, she discovers, it's good to have a father and a brother who love you and look out for you. In fact, sometimes, having family is almost enough.

Thirteen-year-old Alice sets long- and short-term priorities for her life as she experiences the complexities of young love.

Alice McKinley is going to college! And everything, from her room to her classes to her friends, is about to change. Stoically, nervously, Alice puts her best foot forward…and steps into the rest of her life. Just how crazy will her college life get? Will Alice’s dream of becoming a psychologist come true? Are she and her BFFs destined to remain BFFs? And with so many miles between them, will Alice and Patrick stay together…or is there a hot, mysterious stranger in her future? As Alice well knows, life isn’t always so predictable, and there are more than a few curveballs waiting to be thrown her way. This is it. The grand finale. You’ve loved her, you’ve learned with her, you’ve watched her grow up through twenty-eight books. And now everything you’ve ever wanted to know about Alice McKinley will be revealed!

"The final volume in what is certain to become a classic trilogy, "Saving Shiloh" completes the story of Marty Preston; his beagle, Shiloh; and his neighbor, Judd Travers, begun in (Newbery Medal-winning) "Shiloh" and continued in "Shiloh Season". Marty and his family try to help Judd change his mean ways, treating him with respect and trusting him, even while rumors persist in the community that he has murdered a man. . . .

The first day of the summer vacation between eighth and ninth grades, Alice, Pamela, and Elizabeth decide they have to get in shape. "However you look when you start ninth grade, that's how people will think of you for the next four years," says Pamela. And they all begin jogging three miles every morning."It's going to be the most exciting summer of our lives," Pamela says. And Alice hopes it will be. But things keep happening that no one counted on. Alice knows that she is going to be a volunteer -- with her friend Gwen -- at the hospital; but she doesn't know that along with the satisfaction of doing something useful she can also find an unexpected sorrow. And she certainly doesn't know that trying to decide alone how to handle a Pamela-emergency can be a big mistake. Pamela doesn't know that she will be spending the summer dealing with the results of her parents' separation. And Elizabeth does not know that trying to be thin -- and trying to be what everyone wants her to be -- can almost lead to disaster. Mixed with the problems and the complications the summer brings are moments of fun, moments of learning that variety is the way of nature -- beauty comes in more than one form -- and moments when all three girls see the future in whole new ways. There are also moments of stress and change for Lester, Alice's brother, and for her father. Though nothing works out quite as planned, the end of summer does find everyone in better shape -- mentally if not physically.

Play ball! That’s what the sixth-grade Buckman Badgers baseball team plans on doing. Eddie Malloy and Jake Hatford hope to lead their team to the championship game the last Saturday in May. But due to a mix-up, Mrs. Hatford has to run a yard sale for the Women’s Auxiliary of the Buckman Fire Department the very same day in their very own yard! Not wanting to miss out on the game, the family elects the only nonbaseball fan in the family, Wally, to stay home and help watch over the sale tables until they return. Wally’s ticked off. On top of that, Caroline Malloy has written and will perform a play for a school project and has roped Wally into costarring with her. Let Caroline think she’s so smart. Wally has his own reason for being in the play. It looks like the Hatfords could be totally humiliated after the girls stumble upon an embarrassing item from the boys’ past. Leave it to Wally’s secret plan to turn the tables on the girls’ scheme and prove who’s really in control! Boys rule! From the Hardcover edition.

It's the summer holidays--time for camping, fishing or just lazing, until girls move in next door. That means war, but the girls know how to fight back. Phyllis Reynolds Naylor is the winner of the Newbery Medal.

The Hatford boys' New Year's resolution is "the girls can stay . . . but only if they play by our rules." Their mother insists that they "treat those girls as though they were your sisters." Okay, but somehow the boys' interpretation owes more to sibling rivalry than to brotherly love. The one weak link is young Peter, who doesn't understand the rivalry, openly likes the girls, and sees nothing wrong with sitting in their kitchen eating homemade cookies and answering questions about his brothers' plans. Readers will find themselves laughing out loud at the pranks, the conversations, and one unforgettably embarrassing moment. The high-flying humor is juxtaposed with the budding affection between Josh and Beth and the way all the children pull together during a blizzard. The fifth entry in Naylor's refreshing series chronicling the feud between the Hatfords and the Malloys.From the Hardcover edition.