Best Selling Books by Susan Beth Pfeffer

Exuberant Jo March never sits still. Whether she''s racing against boys or scribbling and acting in her latest play, Jo is always active and creative. So when Aunt March asks her to befriend Pauline Wheeler, Jo can''t believe that the girl spends every day cooped up in her bedroom. True, Pauline is blind and utterly dependent on her governess, but her fear of life exhausts Jo''s patience. The two girls simply have nothing in common--until they''re caught in a snow squall that changes their lives.

Laurie must choose between her average suburban life and one of fashion and glamour.

Each of the March sisters tries to spend her tenth birthday in her own special way, and learns that growing up sometimes means putting others first.

Because she desperately wants to have her picture taken, ten-year-old Amy finds a way to accumulate the necessary five dollars but then decides to spend it in another way.

Sometimes you just have to pack a suitcase and walk out the door Marly knows her older sister, Kit, is tall, beautiful, and outspoken—everything Marly isn''t. But does everyone have to remind her of it all the time? Since her parents'' divorce, her mom hasn''t had a single nice thing to say—and even if she did, she''s always working. So Marly packs her bags and catches the bus to stay with her dad. She knows he''ll want her, and hopefully his new wife will too. Ed and Sally are surprised to find Marly on their doorstep but excited to take her in and become a family. They cook together and laugh together, and no one ever shouts at anyone else, a big difference from Marly''s life with her mom. Marly has kept quiet up until now, which has given her a reputation for being well behaved. But once she starts getting used to being treated like an actual person, she begins talking about what''s important to her. She may not be able to stop—and she may not want to.

Miranda, Molly, Alison, TJ, Bill, and Rafe are becoming stars on TV’s biggest show, but with fame come responsibilities . . . Can they really have it all? Miranda is celebrating her seventeenth birthday. She can’t believe it’s been a whole year since she was cast in Hard Time High. Now she just got her own car and may finally get out from under the thumb of her family. But does she really want to move in with her costar Molly and her mother—especially since she and Molly aren’t on great terms at the moment? Miranda’s personal life starts looking up when she agrees to go on a blind date with Adam, who has a crush on the character Miranda plays on the show. The Los Angeles University senior is tall, dark, and totally un-California. And with Alison offered the chance to move beyond her beauty-queen looks as cohost of a teen talk show, Rafe wrapping a movie, and TJ’s fan base growing, it looks like they’re all getting ready for the next big thing. Will the upcoming season bring them the fame and happiness they’ve been searching for?

The remaining members of the Chapman family try to cope with the disappearance of fourteen-year-old Michael.

In a heavily illustrated, scrapbook format, readers will learn about the real-life people behind the beloved book characters they''ve come to know. From Christopher Robin and Peter Rabbit to Peter Pan''s Lost Boys and Alice in Wonderland, award-winning author Susan Beth Pfeffer explores the real lives of the real people who inspired the creation of literature''s greatest characters. There are even a few surprises about Mother Goose!

Leigh trades in her acting career to play a starring role in her own life Most people don''t get to retire at age sixteen, but that''s what Leigh is planning to do when she moves to Long Island to live with her mom and her new stepfather. Leigh has been acting all her life, most recently on a successful TV show, and she can''t wait to be the kind of normal high school student she''s only ever played on screen. For advice on playing the role of a normal teenager, Leigh turns to her new stepbrother, Peter. Peter has hemophilia, a medical condition that has kept him out of school for a while—but missing out on high school life has given him a good eye for what normal looks like. Together, they figure two outsiders can create one socially successful high school student. They might even be right. Peter is smart, wryly funny, and a good friend when he''s not being a bad invalid. And Leigh knows she can do it—after all, acting is what she''s good at. But the thing about acting is that at the end of the day you get to go back to being yourself, a luxury Leigh starts to think she might not have appreciated enough when she had it.

Since her older brother always wins at ping pong, checkers, and everything else, Amy decides to learn riddles in hope of finding some way she can beat him.

Willa seems to have a perfect life as a member of a loving blended family until the estranged father she barely remembers murders his wife and children, then heads toward Willa and her mother.

Amy encourages the attentions of Robert, a well-to-do classmate, but when he surprises her with an expensive gift, she must face her true feelings.

There’s nothing wrong with lying—until the truth comes out For her sixteenth birthday, Evvie Sebastian got her own room—a room she doesn’t have to share with her three sisters. There’s only one problem: It’s a dump, just like the rest of the family’s new house. Evvie has hardly moved in when her dad, Nicky, asks her to spend the summer at the seaside with her great-aunt Grace, who’s had a bad fall and needs cheering up—and who is snobbish, ill tempered, and very, very rich. Evvie reluctantly agrees. When she arrives at Eastgate, she finds Aunt Grace just as fierce as she remembered, but she has to admit that the place has some redeeming qualities. Like the handsome and charming Schyler Hughes . . . and Sam Steinmetz, who works in the town bookstore and makes smart jokes about the local culture of conformity. But it’s not all romantic sailing trips and walks on the beach. Evvie soon finds that some people like to tell old stories and share old secrets a little too much—and some of those secrets may hit closer to home than Evvie expected.

When Claire fears her family might be falling apart, she knows she’ll have to fight her own battles—and she plans to win Always the beauty of the family and often the most ambitious, Claire Sebastian doesn’t feel sixteen, and she doesn’t dream of romance—she dreams of diamonds. Diamonds and emeralds and anything else that will pay for the best doctors to treat her sister Sybil, now an invalid after a terrible accident. Claire knows that her cheekbones and charm are her best assets, but she’ll also need a shrewd strategy if she’s going to save her family from their financial troubles. And she’s on her own: Her parents, Nicky and Megs, are completely wrapped up in Sybil’s recovery, and Claire’s sisters just aren’t as ruthless as she is. A visit with Aunt Grace and a chance look at an old photograph give Claire the ammunition she needs to pull off her plan. But as it starts to unfold, she realizes that people are going to get hurt . . . and one of them may be her.

When Meg receives a bolt of exquisite lace to be used on her wedding day, she struggles to safeguard it from her covetous sister Jo.

After her father moves away, Laurie sends her love by mail The scariest thing Laurie has ever seen is a half-empty house, which she discovered the day her dad moved away. The divorce was a long time coming, but that didn''t make it hurt any less. To stay in touch with her father, Laurie''s mom forces her to write him a letter each week, keeping him updated on everything from quizzes and tests to parties and boys. At first, the letters are a chore, a painful reminder that Dad isn''t around anymore, but with every stamp she licks, Laurie finds herself growing up just a little bit more. This remarkable novel, told entirely through Laurie''s letters to her father, is a powerful story of divorce and renewal that proves it''s not impossible to love someone from afar.

When she refuses to let her friend''s death be called an accident, eleven-year-old Emily, an orphan, encounters the ingrained prejudices of the "best" families in town

Although initially afraid that she''ll lose her best friend unless they prepare for their bat mitzvahs together, Becky undergoes a change in her thinking that puts much more than her friendship in jeopardy.

"The right thing never just happens; you have to make it happen." Morgan knows her parents left her in boarding school so they could travel the world, which is why hardly anything changes when they''re killed in an accident during her freshman year at Fairfield. But every orphan needs a guardian, and Morgan''s is her uncle Tom, a famous and somewhat eccentric author. Tom''s New York City apartment has plenty of space for Morgan, and her room is the nicest one she''s ever seen, but her uncle, uncomfortable suddenly raising a fourteen-year-old girl, seems distant and preoccupied. Alone in an unfamiliar world, Morgan imagines what her school roommate, the popular and sarcastic Trinck, would think of everything. Would she approve of Morgan''s newly discovered love of reading or the friends she makes in New York? Slowly, Morgan makes a place for herself that is all her own and reflects on the person she is becoming—whether Trinck would like it or not.

In 1923, Alicia Martinez is thrilled to be cast in an epic film being produced in Hollywood by her best friend¿s father, but then mysterious events occur that threaten the completion of the movie as well as her safety. Includes black and white photographs and an author profile.