It's the summer holidays--time for camping, fishing or just lazing, until girls move in next door. That means war, but the girls know how to fight back. Phyllis Reynolds Naylor is the winner of the Newbery Medal.

As Halloween approaches, the three Malloy sisters find themselves continually trying to get even with the four Hatford brothers, who have been playing tricks on them since the Malloys moved from Ohio to West Virginia.

The Hatford-Malloy feud continues in this fast-paced sequel to The Boys Start the War and The Girls Get Even (both Delacorte, 1993). Their egos still smarting from the humiliation they suffered on Halloween at the hands of their female neighbors, the Hatford boys try to frighten them with tales of the abaguchie, a creature of local legend. A funny series of plans for revenge and retaliation from both sides follows. Ultimately, the children call a truce when they are united by a common cause-sharing a joke at their parents' expense. Although this title sums up the background of the story clearly, it relies on the earlier books for characterization. The girls come across as stereotypes-an athlete, a bookworm, and an aspiring actress-and the boys are virtually indistinguishable from one another. Nevertheless, fans of the previous books will enjoy this installment.

Who will win as the curtain closes on the war between the girls and the boys? Summer vacation is almost over and after one year in Buckman it looks like the Malloy girls will be going home to Ohio. The Hatford boys are relieved to finally be rid of Eddie, Beth and Caroline, also known as the Womper, the Weirdo and the Crazy. As the clock ticks away at their final days, Jake and Eddie keep up the competing, tricking and scheming until Eddie puts Jake up to the biggest dare of the year. She wants to prove once and for all that the girls are in charge. Jake can't back away and let the girls declare victory. The wacky war that began the day the girls arrived isn't over yet!

An updated and revised edition of the controversial classic—now more relevant than ever—argues that boys are the ones languishing socially and academically, resulting in staggering social and economic costs. Girls and women were once second-class citizens in the nation’s schools. Americans responded with concerted efforts to give girls and women the attention and assistance that was long overdue. Now, after two major waves of feminism and decades of policy reform, women have made massive strides in education. Today they outperform men in nearly every measure of social, academic, and vocational well-being. Christina Hoff Sommers contends that it’s time to take a hard look at present-day realities and recognize that boys need help. Called “provocative and controversial...impassioned and articulate” (The Christian Science Monitor), this edition of The War Against Boys offers a new preface and six radically revised chapters, plus updates on the current status of boys throughout the book. Sommers argues that the problem of male underachievement is persistent and worsening. Among the new topics Sommers tackles: how the war against boys is harming our economic future, and how boy-averse trends such as the decline of recess and zero-tolerance disciplinary policies have turned our schools into hostile environments for boys. As our schools become more feelings-centered, risk-averse, competition-free, and sedentary, they move further and further from the characteristic needs of boys. She offers realistic, achievable solutions to these problems that include boy-friendly pedagogy, character and vocational education, and the choice of single-sex classrooms. The War Against Boys is an incisive, rigorous, and heartfelt argument in favor of recognizing and confronting a new reality: boys are languishing in education and the price of continued neglect is economically and socially prohibitive.

Wally Hatford dreams of long lazy days far away from school and Caroline Malloy. But Wally, the best speller among the Hatford brothers, gets roped into helping them with a summer newspaper project that will earn the twins school credit. What does that get Wally? When he hears scratching noises coming from Oldakers’ bookstore cellar, Mr. Oldaker trusts him to keep a secret that could turn into a scoop for their newspaper. Wally worries that the secret may be too scary to keep to himself. What’s worse, the Malloy girls have horned in on the newspaper. If there’s one person Wally won’t spill his secret to, it’s nutty Caroline Malloy. No matter what it is!

They rowed hard, away from the battleships and the bombs. Water sprayed over them. The rowboat pitched one way and then the other. Then, before his eyes, the Arizona lifted up out of the water. That enormous battleship bounced up in the air like a rubber ball and split apart. Fire burst out of the ship. A geyser of water shot into the air and came crashing down. Adam was almost thrown out of the rowboat. He clung to the seat as it swung around. He saw blue skies and the glittering city. The boat swung back again, and he saw black clouds, and the Arizona, his father's ship, sinking beneath the water. -- from A Boy at War "He kept looking up, afraid the planes would come back. The sky was obscured by black smoke....It was all unreal: the battleships half sunk, the bullet holes in the boat, Davi and Martin in the water." December 7, 1941: On a quiet Sunday morning, while Adam and his friends are fishing near Honolulu, a surprise attack by Japanese bombers destroys the fleet at Pearl Harbor. Even as Adam struggles to survive the sudden chaos all around him, and as his friends endure the brunt of the attack, a greater concern hangs over his head: Adam's father, a navy lieutenant, was stationed on the USS Arizona when the bombs fell. During the subsequent days Adam -- not yet a man, but no longer a boy -- is caught up in the war as he desperately tries to make sense of what happened to his friends and to find news of his father. Harry Mazer, whose autobiographical novel, The Last Mission, brought the European side of World War II to vivid life, now turns to the Pacific theater and how the impact of war can alter young lives forever.