Opinionated siblings Rafe and Georgia Khatchadorian debate a variety of topics relating to the ups and downs of middle school life and encourage readers to add their own contributions through write-in games and activities.

Rafe Khatchadorian is horrified that because of a missed science assignment he has to go to summer school; but instead of three weeks in a school room, he finds himself as a volunteer at BushyTail animal refuge, which is really hard, smelly work--and somehow he needs to use the experience (and the help of a girl he meets there) to produce a first-class science report.