• more about #nothingsfairinfifthgrade more comments →
    TheFormerJuneBronson: Awww, I was away and missed this! These books are among my very favorites. I think I read How Do You Lose... first, and then all the others. Still rea... more »
    hippichx sez PEACE PLEASE: this post and all the comments make me realize what a dork i was growing up... any of you read on the origin of species in fifth grade? i was obsesse... more »
    Betty Bea Getty McClanahan: UGH! Reading this post makes me think of this one book that's driven me crazy for weeks...it's about a girl who starts her first day of high school, a... more »
    Maulleigh: I remember this book! I remember during the sleepover, the mom realizes Elsie's been holding her pants together with safety pins so she offers to take... more »
    bluebears: AHHHHH! I read this like a MILLION times and that was my exact copy and I loved loved loved that cover art. more »
    thisisunclear: OMG this cover, how could I forget?! And the indignity of naming her Elsie! I still remember the smelly egg-salad sandwiches as being her worst charac... more »
    lilad: ! Finally a book I actually had as a child (I think I'm a bit younger than the target audience...) Yay! more »
    kaiwhakamarie: Oh my gawd, I'd forgotten this book completely...until I saw the cover art peeking at me in the corner of my computer screen. I was like, 'I KNOW thos... more »
    f_t_e: GOD, it only gets better in How Do You Lose Those 9th Grade Blues and Seventeen and In Between when Elsie gets to take over as the narrator and is so ... more »
    tart.: Does anyone remember the books about the mean blonde girl with the one crooked bicuspid? I think her name was Tammy, but that seems wrong. There wer... more »
    VeryFancyBunny: That cover is iconic. Man. I remember really liking all the little details on it when I was a kid, and realizing how much you could infer about the ch... more »
    millefleur: I loved this book and still have it somewhere, along with the sequel "Sixth Grade Can Really Kill You." I must have read them both a hundred times. El... more »
    momentsofabsurdity: I loved this book, I read it over and over again. I think it's why I dislike the name Elsie even today -- because even though I know I was supposed to... more »
    Gnatalby: I feel like there's a sequel, from Elsie's point of view when she's in high school, and not fat, but is still sort of shy from being fat? And a boyfri... more »
    misspell: The second plotfinder really reminds me of Homecoming, that ya novel by Cynthia Voigt about four kids (I know that's too many) whose father is a deadb... more »
  • #finelines

    Nothing's Fair In Fifth Grade: Pleading The Fifth