Thirteen. It's an age of wonder ... or dread. The best year of your life ... or maybe the worst ever. You've just become an official teenager, even though you're not quite sure you feel like one, but you're no longer a kid, either. Here, from fourteen different points of view, are stories about that wonderful, terrible time. The big bar mitzvah that goes suddenly, wildly, hilariously out of control. A first kiss -- and a realization about one's sexual orientation. A crush on a girl that ends up putting the boy who likes her in the hospital. A pair of sneakers that a kid has to have, no matter what. Written by some of today's finest writers for young adults, these stories -- by turns funny and sad, wrenching and moving -- truly capture the agony and ecstasy of being thirteen.

Includes a brief note from the author for each story, along with a bio and picture of the author at thirteen.

Edited by James Howe

Contents:

• Introduction by James Howe
• What's the Worst That Could Happen? by Bruce Coville
• Kate the Great by Meg Cabot
• If You Kiss a Boy by Alex Sanchez
• Thirteen and a Half by Rachel Vail
• Jeremy Goldblatt Is So Not Moses by James Howe
• Black Holes and Basketball Sneakers by Lori Aurelia Williams
• Picky Eater by Stephen Roos
• Such Foolishness by Maureen Ryan Griffin
• Noodle Soup for Nincompoops by Ellen Wittlinger
• Squid Girl by Todd Strasser
• Angel & Aly by Ron Koertge
• Nobody Stole Jason Grayson by Carolyn Mackler
• Tina the Teen Fairy by Ann M. Martin and Laura Godwin