A Middle Grade Literature series of books by Nancy Krulik about a girl named Jenny McAfee and her everyday life as she navigates the ups and downs of middle school after her initial best friend, Addie Wilson, ditches her on the first day of sixth grade to join the resident Alpha Bitch clique called "The Pops". Though Jenny finds and sticks with a new group of friends, she's never entirely able to escape the Pops, and much of her problems (and solutions) come about because of them.
Each book is usually its own standalone story, with only a quick Info Dump about the beginning needed at the start. They all contain self-scored quizzes and interactive activities for their demographic of preteen girls.
Individual books are:
- Can You Get an F in Lunch? (2007)
- Madame President (2007)
- I Heard a Rumor (2007)
- The New Girl (2008)
- Cheat Sheet (2008)
- P.S. I Really Like You (2008)
- Who's Got Spirit? (2008)
- It's All Downhill from Here (2008)
- Caught in the Web (2009)
- Into the Woods (2009)
- Wish Upon a Star (2009)
- How the Pops Stole Christmas (2009)
- I Thought We Were Friends! (2010)
This series provides examples of:
- Adults Are Useless: The adults at the school are rarely of help when the Pops are acting out, and only step in when their actions are truly crossing lines (such as Addie and the Pops putting up defaced pictures of Jenny during the school election in Madame President or Addie and Dana sneaking a blow-dryer and hair straightener into their cabin despite the camp rule against electronics in Into the Woods).
- Aesop Amnesia: No matter how many times Addie gets bailed out by Jenny or suffers consequences for her actions, she's always back to her bullying ways by the next book as if it never happened.
- Alpha Bitch: Addie Wilson and Dana Harrison share this role, both being the resident catty, bullying "Pops" who make life harder for Jenny and her friends. Though Dana is the actual leader of the group, Addie is Jenny's former friend and thus more prominent in the role.
- Always Identical Twins: Marilyn and Carolyn are this, to the point that even Jenny has trouble telling them apart.
- Amazingly Embarrassing Parents: Jenny's mom tends to embarrass her in front of her peers, which is best shown in the first book when she calls Addie's sudden appearance at Jenny's house a "playdate" and offers to take them to the teddy bear factory store at the mall to make their own bears like they did as kids. She's also capable of inflicting embarrassment when she's not even around; in the beginning of The New Girl, Dana steals a note from her that Jenny dropped and reads it out loud to her friends, giving them the chance to mock her for the fact that her mom calls her "Jen-Jen" and signs her notes to her as "Mommy".
- Beta Bitch: Addie is this to Dana in their overall group, as they seem to be the closest of the Pops and often hang out together even without the others.
- Bittersweet Ending: A very light, kid-friendly version in Can You Get an F in Lunch?. Despite Jenny's efforts to hold on to their friendship, Addie ditches her for the Pops anyway and their Food Fight in the cafeteria torpedoes their friendship for good. But Jenny becomes closer to Rachel and Felicia and gains new best friends in Chloe and her group, all of whom become her True Companions from then on, and the other kids (including the eighth graders who pranked her at the beginning) hail her as a hero for standing up to the Pops.
- Book Ends: At the beginning of the first book, Jenny shouts that "Middle school stinks!" while alone in the girls' restroom after being humiliated by her failed effort to fit in with Addie and her new friends. At the school luau in the end of the third, her closing line while celebrating with her friends is, "Middle school rocks!"
- Camera Fiend: Marc often carries around a video camera to film his own documentary about life in Joyce Kilmer Middle School, which Jenny describes as his version of MTV's The Real World, and dreams of being a director.
- Celeb Crush:
- When the anonymous Madame X starts spreading the Pops' secrets in the school paper and turning them against each other in I Heard a Rumor, Dana exposes Addie's secret of kissing her poster of superstar actor Lenny Charles every night (which naturally incenses Addie).
- Every girl in Jenny's grade, especially Chloe, has a crush on Teen Idol Cody Tucker in Wish Upon a Star. Addie exploits this to increase ticket sales by lying that he's performing at the winter dance, creating a problem that Jenny has to resolve. At the end, when he sings at the dance after Jenny convinces him to, almost every girl present wears a blue dress because blue is his favorite color. The only exception is Jenny, who wears a red one.
- Chekhov's Skill: Josh's love of math and science, which includes a knack for stargazing, comes in handy near the end of Into the Woods when Jenny's hiking group gets lost on the woodland trail and he pinpoints the North Star. This lets them figure out the direction to go to return to camp, and they travel south to get back.
- Childhood Friends: Jenny and Addie were best friends all throughout elementary school, which is why Jenny is so blindsided when she returns from summer camp and is immediately ditched by Addie on the first day of middle school. She was also friends with Rachel and Felicia at the time, though they weren't as close until middle school.
- Child Prodigy: Josh Eisen is a sixth grader who's smart enough to take and excel at seventh grade math, being the best at it out of Jenny's friends.
- Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: In Can You Get an F in Lunch?, two of Addie's friends in the popular crowd are male seventh graders named Jeffrey and Aaron. They show up sporadically throughout the book alongside Addie, Dana, and Claire, but almost completely vanish in the rest of the series. Aaron gets a namedrop in P.S. I Really Like You, but Jeffrey disappears and is never mentioned again.
- The Conscience: Liza tends to be the one who voices the most reasonable solutions in Jenny's friend group, such as pointing out that Marilyn and Carolyn could spare themselves the problems with a Twin Switch by actually studying for their respective tests instead in Cheat Sheet. She's also the one who ultimately resolves the fighting between Rachel and Felicia that divided their friends in P.S. I Really Like You by calling them out on their immaturity at the end, leading to them reconciling. Jenny even compares her to Jiminy Cricket in the former book.
- Covered in Gunge: Dana gets subjected to this at the end of Who's Got Spirit? when she disturbs Josh and Felicia's volcano project at the science fair while mocking it, causing the volcano to rain gooey "lava" all over her and ruin her new dress.
- The Dividual: Marilyn and Carolyn are identical twins who are usually never seen apart, and are so alike that Jenny often can't tell which one of them is talking. They only have a few superficial differences, such as Marilyn being good at math where Carolyn is terrible at it and Carolyn being better at Spanish, and only once take differing stances (Marilyn sides with Rachel and Carolyn sides with Felicia during their fight in P.S. I Really Like You).
- Early-Installment Weirdness: The first book includes male students as members of the Pops, and one of them, Jeffrey, is introduced at the very beginning as Addie's friend. The rest of the series drops this and treats the Pops as Addie's all-female clique, and Jeffrey is never seen or mentioned again.
- Eating Lunch Alone: In Can You Get an F in Lunch?, after being subjected to a prank by some eighth graders over the cafeteria location (which makes her late to lunch and gives Addie an excuse to shut her out from her table, which is crowded with her new friends), Jenny ends up having to eat lunch on her own in the phone booth. She has lunch by herself in other locations throughout her first week (the stairwell, the library, the hall near the janitor's closet, and the phone booth again) until she befriends Chloe, who introduces her to her own friends. She does have two other established friends, Rachel and Felicia, but they don't have the same lunch period as her.
- Eek, a Mouse!!: Chloe hates mice because she finds their eyes and tails creepy, which doesn't help the fact that she and Jenny work together on a project involving Jenny's pet mice for the science fair in Who's Got Spirit?. Dana also has a phobia of mice, which Chloe exploits in Into the Woods to get back at her by lying that she saw a mouse under her feet. Her reaction is to jump on the nearby bench and start screaming and begging Jenny to kill it.
- Enemy Mine:
- Due to being class president and vice president respectively after the election in Madame President, Jenny and Addie often have to work together for school events like dances and fundraisers.
- In Who's Got Spirit?, Marc turns out to have been working with Maya, one of the Pops, for their science project that involved taking turns dressing up as the mysterious lion mascot that showed up periodically to promote school spirit during Spirit Week. He tells Jenny that it was their teacher's idea for a social experiment about how kids reacted to the lion when the Pops approved of it (because they thought Maya was in the costume) versus how they reacted when they didn't (because Maya denied being in the costume and "proved" it by being around while Marc was inside it). He also comments that Maya was a pain to work with because she wouldn't stop complaining about how hot it was inside the costume and how it made her makeup run.
- Flat Character: Outside of Addie and Dana, the other Pops (Claire, Maya, and Sabrina) are all virtually interchangeable Jerkasses with few distinct traits and rarely act individually. Their names could be swapped around and nothing would be different.
- Foodfight!: The first book ends with this, as Jenny finally gets sick of Addie's bullying and throws yogurt at her for trash-talking her and telling Dana they were never actually friends in front of her, causing the two to get quickly into this. They're punished by being made to serve snacks at the school dance, but Jenny is hailed as a hero for it by the other kids for standing up to the Pops.
- Former Friend of Alpha Bitch: Jenny herself is this, given that she and Addie were once close before Addie joined the Pops.
- Genki Girl: Chloe is the loudest and most upbeat of all of Jenny's friends, and usually the one striving for attention because of her aspirations to be a star.
- Girl Posse: The Populars, known as the "Pops", entirely consist of girls who follow around Addie and Dana. The membership seems to vary, as they're usually presented as a small group (Addie, Dana, Claire, Maya, and Sabrina), but it's mentioned (in the first book, at least) that they also pal around with male upperclassmen.
- Hope Spot: Twice in Can You Get an F in Lunch?.
- At the end of the first day at school, Jenny reminisces with Addie over their fifth-grade teacher at Addie's locker after the latter blew her off earlier. Jenny thinks this means they're still friends, but Dana shows up and Addie leaves to go shopping with her.
- The next week, Jenny and Felicia see Addie on the school bus with her makeup still on, which Felicia has a laugh over because Addie only applies her makeup at school and normally takes it off before getting home so she won't get in trouble with her mom. Addie then asks Jenny if she can hang out with her to do their homework together, which Jenny thinks is promising until Addie washes off her makeup in the bathroom at her house (implicitly proving she only pretended to be friendly to her so she could get a chance to remove it). Despite this, Jenny remains hopeful that this means they're still friends, especially because Addie mentions she's going shopping with Dana and Claire that weekend and there's extra room in the minivan...until the next day, when Jenny brings this up in front of them, Dana and Claire laugh at her and Addie denies ever inviting her, humiliating her.
- I Am Very British: Sam is a British transfer student and throws around a lot of Englander slang associated with the trope, often using words like "blimey" and "posh".
- Jerkass: The Pops are defined by being bullies who look down on other kids for not being as trendy or "cool" as they are and pick on them for the fun of it.
- Karma Houdini: The Pops tend to get away with their antics more often than not, and most of the time their punishments are slaps on the wrist.
- The Lancer: Chloe Samson is this to Jenny, being much more outgoing, energetic, and willing to fight with the Pops than she is. She also fulfills the role of Best Friend, as Jenny confides in and hangs out with her individually far more often than with her other friends despite having known some of them longer.
- Laser-Guided Karma: Addie gets this from time to time. She loses the election and is forced to be vice president to Jenny in Madame President, is found out to be the slandering Madame X of I Heard a Rumor and made to write an apology letter, loses the fundraiser bet to Jenny and has to wear her pajamas to school as a result in The New Girl, gets soup spilled on her new shirt by the girl she performed a bad makeover on at the end of Caught in the Web, and is forced to help clean the mess hall with Dana after they're caught sneaking electronics into camp in Into the Woods.
- Love Letter Lunacy: P.S. I Really Like You revolves around this, as Jenny keeps receiving love letters in her locker from an anonymous admirer. It turns out that the Pops were behind most of them to mess with her, but she finds out that a few of them, including a gift of perfume, were genuine and came from Liza's little brother, Spencer.
- Luminescent Blush: Jenny tends to do this when she gets embarrassed or teased by the Pops, which she isn't proud of. She lampshades it by calling herself the "champion" when it comes to blushing.
- Makeup Is Evil: The Alpha Bitch Pops are mentioned to always wear the latest and most expensive brands of makeup as part of keeping up with the trends.
- Middle School Is Miserable: The title itself should be a dead giveaway of this. The first book starts with Jenny being forced to deal with her best friend Addie abandoning her to join the Alpha Bitch clique called the Pops, and the rest of the series is about her various ups and downs in navigating the drama and everyday stresses of middle school (usually caused by Addie and the other said Pops) with her friends.
- New Kid Stigma: In the first book, Jenny assumes that she and her best friend Addie can continue their friendship from where they left off. But Addie has ditched her for the superficial popular crowd. Before Jenny can be comfortable with her new set of friends, the older kids play a prank on her and out of embarrassment, she eats lunch in the phone booth.
- Nice Girl: Jenny is a kind person at heart and always shows that compassion to others, even to those who don't deserve it (usually Addie). Her friends all qualify as well, although they can sometimes be abrasive and get into fights (usually Rachel and Felicia).
- Nice Mice: Jenny certainly thinks so of her two pet white mice, Sam and Cody, which she dotes on and keeps in her room.
- Nonconformist Dyed Hair: Sam has a streak of hot pink dye in her hair, indicating her fashionable and "edgy" nature as Jenny's only non-American friend.
- Not Allowed to Grow Up: The books seem to follow Comic-Book Time rigidly, as Jenny and her friends remain in sixth (or seventh, in Marc's, Liza's, and Marilyn and Carolyn's cases) grade all throughout.
- Obfuscating Disability: In Into the Woods, Claire "sprains" her ankle during a trust exercise with Carolyn and accuses her of deliberately getting her hurt. She plays up the injury enough to wear a bandage and go around on crutches, and guilts Carolyn into getting her food and serving her. Chloe eventually tricks her into exposing her own lie by lying that she saw a mouse nearby, causing Claire to jump up on both feet in front of everyone at camp, including the counselors.
- One-Steve Limit: Subverted. Jenny has two pet mice named Sam and Cody; she later befriends the titular character of The New Girl, a British transfer student named Sam, and Wish Upon a Star features a Teen Idol pop star named Cody Tucker as a plot point.
- Open Mouth, Insert Foot: Near the end of Wish Upon a Star, the first thing Addie says to Cody Tucker after being stunned by seeing him in person is, "Cody Tucker, do you know who you are?!", causing all the adults present to laugh at her. She's too embarrassed by this to talk to him like she and Jenny planned, and Jenny has to be the one to ask Cody to sing at their school's winter formal.
- Orphaned Series: Possibly. The last released book was in 2010 and has no resolution to the overarching story of Jenny and Addie's feud, having a standalone plot like every other book.
- Passionate Sports Girl: Rachel and Felicia are the only sixth graders on the girls' basketball team for the school, and both take the sport extremely seriously. They get a bit too passionate about it in P.S. I Really Like You, where they fight over whose fault it was that their team lost the championship game, and the fight divides Jenny's friends for a while until she and Liza work together to get them to make up.
- Pet the Dog: In Who's Got Spirit?, Addie saves Jenny's pet mouse Cody and returns him to her after Chloe accidentally lets him loose in the crowded cafeteria during the science fair. She doesn't mock her afterwards for being afraid for his safety, showing that her help was genuine.
- Poor Communication Kills: A lot of grief in How The Pops Stole Christmas would've been avoided if Jenny had simply asked Marc why he hadn't invited her to his New Year's party to begin with, rather than avoiding bringing up the issue out of aversion to possibly causing an argument (which she realizes when she finds out the real reason she didn't get an invitation was because she did get one, but Dana took it off of her locker to mess with her).
- Precocious Crush:
- All of the girls in Jenny's grade, including Chloe, are madly infatuated with the Teen Idol singer Cody Tucker. Miraculously, Jenny is able to convince him to sing at the winter dance to save face for Addie, who initially lied about him being hired to perform to sell tickets.
- Downplayed in P.S. I Really Like You, as the age difference is a lot more minimal than other examples. Jenny's real secret admirer turns out to be Liza's little brother Spencer, a third grader who's only nine at most. Because of this, Jenny lets him down gently by telling him they can just be good friends.
- Product Placement: Every book includes Jenny visiting her favorite website, middleschoolsurvival.com, for things like quizzes and recipes. The link originally redirected to Scholastic's site, where Jenny had a Character Blog.
- Pungeon Master: Rachel loves making puns and bad jokes, which her friends always vary between finding either funny or annoying.
- Puppy Love: Jenny's friends, Felicia and Josh, are dating and treat the relationship pretty seriously for a pair of preteens. The Pops tease them about it in Into the Woods by calling them "Mr. and Mrs. Science Geek".
- Secret Santa: How the Pops Stole Christmas has the "Secret Snowflake" event in Jenny's English class, where everyone has to choose a partner to exchange gifts with by drawing a name out of a hat. Jenny hopes not to get Addie, but instead gets Dana, who's not much better.
- Series Fauxnale: I Heard a Rumor seems like the finale of a trilogy with how it ends: Jenny is class president, persuades Addie to come clean about being Madame X and successfully puts on the school luau with her, and celebrates with her group of friends, even ending the book with a line that's a reversal of one at the beginning of the first book ("Middle school stinks/rocks!"). The series went on for ten more books after that, but they notably aren't as connected as the first three and are more standalone entries that, save for the Sixth Ranger development with Sam, can be read out of order without missing much.
- Sixth Ranger: More accurately the ninth ranger, but Jenny gains a new friend in British transfer student Sam in The New Girl.
- Status Quo Is God: Aside from a few exceptions, such as Jenny becoming class president and Sam joining the main group, plot developments rarely change or stick outside of individual books and Jenny and Addie never actually reconcile.
- Still Sucks Thumb: In I Heard a Rumor, anonymous school paper columnist Madame X claims in her gossip column that one of the Pops still sucks her thumb in her sleep. Jenny sees the Pops arguing over it, leading to Claire inadvertently exposing herself as the thumb sucker when she yells at them about it.
- Strictly Formula: Every book follows the same basic structure that can be summarized roughly as, "Jenny and her friends are doing something, Addie and the Pops interfere with it and make trouble for them, there's a problem, Jenny has to fix it and/or work with Addie, and Jenny learns some kind of lesson after the experience".
- Token Minority: Chloe is Jenny's only non-white friend, being black.
- Toxic Friend Influence: Heavily implied to be why Addie ditched Jenny for the popular crowd. Felicia tells Jenny about how Addie joined the community center swim team during the summer, where she befriended Dana and the seventh graders on the team, and consequently stopped hanging out with Felicia and Rachel and began dressing and wearing makeup like Dana.
- True Companions: Jenny and her friends have a close and mutual camaraderie, despite the occasional arguments and bickering. This is contrasted with the Pops, whose only real bond is over bullying other kids.
- Twin Switch: Marilyn and Carolyn often pull this off, due to being identical twins, and they try it so they can do each other's tests to pass the classes they're weak at. They fail only because of slip-ups, like writing their own names out of habit.
- Two Girls to a Team: Gender-inverted, Josh and Marc are the only male members of Jenny's friend group (in contrast to the Pops, who are all female).
- Ungrateful Bitch: Jenny's always the one to solve the problems Addie causes, but Addie never returns the favor or shows much thankfulness for it.
- We Used to Be Friends: The main drama of the books is around Jenny's broken friendship and subsequent rivalry with Addie after Addie ditched her to become an Alpha Bitch. They end up running against each other in the school's presidential election in Madame President, which Jenny wins, and have to work together as class president and vice president from then on.
- Wildlife Commentary Spoof: Marc sometimes commentates this way on his friends for the documentary about middle school that he's constantly filming, which he does for Chloe, Liza, and Jenny at the beginning of the second book."And here they come, three more wild animals, fighting for survival in the jungle that is club sign-ups!"
- With Friends Like These...: It's shown time and time again that the Pops' friendship is skin-deep at best, and it doesn't take much for them to turn against each other. Madame X's spreading of their secrets in I Heard a Rumor is enough for them to fall apart over fighting about which one of them is responsible for it, and none of them lift a finger to help Dana clean up when she accidentally sets off a volcano at the science fair in Who's Got Spirit?.
