Eleven-year-old, motherless Alice decides she needs a gorgeous role model who does everything right; and when placed in homely Mrs. Plotkins's class she is greatly disappointed until she discovers it's what people are inside that counts.

Alice McKinley comes home on the first day of junior high with a list of seven things about seventh grade that stink. Just about the only good thing she can think of is that she's friends with everyone. Maybe that's how to survive seventh grade-make it through the entire year with everyone liking her. That turns out to be easier said than done, when Alice gets on the wrong side of the school bully, Denise 'Mack Truck' Whitlock. But Alice's problems...

While trying to survive seventh grade, Alice discovers that turning thirteen will make her the Woman of the House at home, so she starts a campaign to get more appreciated for taking care of her father and older brother.

A month before eighth grade begins, Alice realizes she is going to have to face something she's been afraid of forever. Everybody, she knows, is afraid of something: elevators, dogs, planes, spiders ... but her fear is worse. It's going to bring absolute disaster to the rest of her summer, maybe to the rest of her life. The truth is she's afraid of deep water! It's a hot August, and everyone in Alice's gang goes to Mark Stedmeister's swimming pool...

Alice is in the eighth grade, and while she wants her life to be exciting and outrageous, she also wants to feel protected and safe.

Eighth-grader Alice has lots of questions about sex, relationships, prejudice, and change.

Alice's first year in high school gets off to a difficult start when her boyfriend Patrick becomes interested in someone else, but with the help of her father, older brother, and best friends, she gains a better sense of her own self-worth.

During the summer between her junior and senior years of high school, Maryland teenager Alice McKinley volunteers at a local soup kitchen, tries to do "something wild" without getting arrested, and wonders if her trip to Chicago to visit boyfriend Patrick will result in a sleepover.