Peter H. Reynolds

When a puppy who is being trained as a police dog goes missing, third-grader Judy forms a detective agency to solve the mystery, imitating her literary heroine, Nancy Drew.

When it is "Backward Day," Judy must turn her usual sour mood upside down and be happy and nice for a change.

"Every morning, Judy Moody measures Stink and it's always the same: three feet, eight inches tall. Stink feels like even the class newt is growing faster than he is. Then, one day, the ruler reads--can it be?-- three feet, seven and three quarters inches! Is Stink shrinking? He tries everything to look like he's growing, but wearing up-and-down stripes and spiking his hair aren't fooling anyone into thinking he's taller. If only he could ask James...

Judy is excited about becoming a doctor, especially when Class 3T starts a new unit on the human body, but she learns more about being a patient when she catches tonsillitis from her little brother, Stink.

When her substitute teacher realizes she is struggling in math, Judy is sent to a math tutor at the local college and soon is completely into the spirit of college life.

Third grader Judy Moody is in a first day of school bad mood until she gets an assignment to create a collage all about herself and begins creating her masterpiece, the Me collage.

A "dreamer maximus" describes the many ways one can dream, and the importance of being a happy dreamer.

As Judy and the rest of the Virginia Dare Bookworms prepare for the Book Quiz Blowout competition against second- and third-grade readers, her team discovers the other group has a fourth-grader and worry about their chance of winning sets in.

In a crowded park, a boy makes an airplane out of a piece of paper carried to him by a gentle breeze, sends it on its way, and watches a new friend bring it back to him.

A mother reflects on all of the milestones that her child will achieve during life, from learning to ride a bicycle to carrying her own child.