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 is what people are inside that counts.

Alice experiences the joys and embarrassments of seventh grade while advising her father and older brother on their love lives.

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 appreciation for taking care of her father and older brother.

The summer before eighth grade, Alice tries to confront her fears, not the least of which is a fear of deep water.

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 she and her boyfriend Patrick break up, but with the help of her father, older brother, and best friends, she gains a better sense of her own self-worth.

The summer after ninth grade, Alice and her friends spend three weeks working as assistant counselors at a camp for disadvantaged children and cope with all kinds of changes.

Alice is adjusting to her new stepmother, her brother's new apartment, her ex-boyfriend, and getting a driver's license.

Maryland teenager Alice McKinley spends her last semester of high school performing in the school play, working on the student paper, worrying about being away from her boyfriend, who will be studying in Spain, and anticipating her future in college.

As Alice McKinley begins a new phase as a student at the University of Maryland, College Park, she experiences many changes, both expected and surprising, that lead her into a future her seventh-grade self could only have imagined.