Tired of being compared with her popular older sister, Casey decides she will make herself over.

It looks like a lonely summer ahead for Tracy Matson. She's the only girl her age in the small town of High Flats. And Leroy Wilson, the only boy, thinks she's a know-it-all, even after Tracy tries to make friends by giving him a chocolate-icing-on-rye sandwich. Things start looking up when her pen pal, Casey Valentine, pays a surprise visit. But now Tracy has another problem: She told Casey that she loves to read. What if Casey—who wants to be a writer—finds out that Tracy is really a rotten reader? Suppose Leroy spills the beans?

What is Walter Moles to do? A budding ecologist, he'd rather pick up bugs with his pooter than field baseballs. But the honor of the fourth grade is at stake because the fifth grade had challenged it to a baseball game. In the excitement, Goony, the hotheaded captain of the fourth-grade team, chooses Walter as his star shortstop. And Goony won't give Walter a chance to confess that he's a lousy ball player or to tell him that there hasn't been a left-handed shortstop since 1892. Walter has got to become a great shortstop in a hurry or else find a way to weasel out of the game. Can his good pal Casey Valentine scheme up a surefire strategy that will keep Walter from striking out?

Leroy Wilson has plans for a great winter. He and Tracy Matson, his pal and business partner, are all set to sell the worms they've collected to the ice fishermen, when his awful cousin Mitchell moves to town. The problem is that Leroy and Mitchell look exactly alike, except that Mitchell is an expert at everything, including how to start a brand-new business with Tracy! Left with eighty worms to feed and horrible piano lessons with Mitchell's mother, Leroy has had it with his "take-over" cousin. But can he outfox Mitchell?

Fifth-grader Cliffie feels that nothing has been right in his life since his parents got their divorce and his front teeth began growing out over his lower lip.

Casey Valentine can't wait for the new school year to begin. She's sure she will be elected president for the second year in a row. And the best news is that her good friend Tracy Matson is moving to Casey's town. They'll be in fifth grade together! But the election doesn't turn out as Casey had planned. What's worse is that Tracy is stealing Casey's friends and embarrassing her by telling everyone about the dumb things Casey did when she visited Tracy in High Flats during the summer. Casey begins to wish Tracy had never moved to town. Can this friendship be saved?

Poopsie Pomerantz is sure that ballet lessons will make her slim and graceful. But her friend Tracy Matson makes fun of Poopsie's efforts, saying there's no hope for chubby Poopsie. Tracy is surprised when Poopsie announces she's getting the starring role in her dance school's ballet. And Poopsie's surprised, too, because it's not true! She didn't mean to say that. Now she has to pray that Tracy doesn't come to the ballet, because guess which part Poopsie really has?