The first thing Agnes and her best friend Prejean learn at science camp is that they won't be sharing the same cabin. Being apart gives Agnes a different perspective, and a few worries, about what others think of her longtime friend. Everyone seems to be going on and on about how beautiful Prejean is. A beauty queen? What if Prejean starts acting like one?

Soil studies, camp pranks, and a weird bunkmate all play a role in this funny, insightful story of the everyday casualties and payoffs of growing up.

Reaction to Kathleen O'Dell's debut, Agnes Parker . . . Girl in Progress:...

Eleven-year-old Agnes Parker has always been your everyday girl. But this year, Agnes is determined to become a whole new person. Maybe not a whole new person exactly, but just a better version of the girl she’s always been. Someone who’s not such an easy target for bullygirls like Peggy Neidermeyer. Someone who is as cool and confident as her best friend, Prejean. Will the new Agnes Parker make it through a school year filled with new glasses, broken arms, and a cute new boy in school?...

The first thing that Agnes Parker and her best friend Prejean learn at camp is that they won’t be in the same cabin. Ugh. Now Agnes is all alone in a cabin full of weird strangers who all know one another already. And to make matters worse, she’s stuck with a bunk buddy who’s anything but her buddy, and everyone keeps talking about how Prejean is so beautiful and exotic. All Agnes can think is: Good-old-shoots-milk-out-her-nose-when-shelaughs Prejean . . . a beauty queen? What if she starts acting like one? And then something happens that makes Agnes wonder: Has she already?...

At her school in California, fourth-grader Ophie Peeler has it all: starring roles in all the school plays, plenty of attention and, of course, the best best friend a girl could ask for. Like Dorothy, Ophie is on the yellow brick road to a glamorous, adventurefilled life. But all of that changes when Ophie and her family move to Oregon, trading in the California sunshine for a dreary, rain-soaked life. The popular girls at school shun Ophie, Brittany Borg (the class oddball) follows her around, and to top it all off, Ophie outgrows her treasured ruby slippers. Will Ophie find a way to fit in, or has her one chance at happiness just sailed away over the rainbow?...

She's left her good Catholic girl ways behind . . . mostly. It is 1967, the Summer of Love, and Mary Margaret Hallinan has that itchy, squirmy feeling that there must be something more out there for her. Her new best friend, the glamorous Jane, says that boys are the ticket to a spectacular future. Her ex-best friend Elizabeth is sure she's going to hell. "Say yes!" commands Jane, and Mary Margaret has tried to follow her c'mon-it'll-be-fabulous friend into the psychedelic swirl. But can she fit any of her old self to this new life she's trying on?

This is it, this is gonna be the summer. Mary Margaret Hallinan, former good Catholic girl, is clutching her ticket.

Friendship, faith, family, feminism, and1960s counterculture all contribute to the heartfelt, thoughtful pages of Bad Tickets.


From the Hardcover edition....