Susan Beth Pfeffer

Author Information
Susan Beth Pfeffer's Latest Book

Newest Release

  • Bibliography:
    79 Books (4 Series)
  • First Book:
    January 1975
  • Latest Book:
    March 2015
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Full Series List in Order

Life As We Knew It

1 - Life As We Knew It (Oct-2006)
2 - The Dead and the Gone (Jun-2008)
3 - This World We Live In (Apr-2010)
4 - The Shade of the Moon (Aug-2013)

Make Me a Star

1 - Prime Time (May-1985)
2 - Take Two and . . . Rolling! (1985)
3 - Wanting It All (1985)
4 - On the Move (1985)
5 - Love Scenes (1986)
6 - Hard Times High (1986)

Portraits of Little Women

Amy's Story (Oct-1997)
Jo's Story (Oct-1997)
Meg's Story (Oct-1997)
Beth's Story (Nov-1997)
Beth Makes a Friend (Mar-1998)
Meg Makes a Friend (Mar-1998)
Amy Makes a Friend (Jun-1998)
Jo Makes a Friend (Jun-1998)
Christmas Dreams: Four Stories (Oct-1998)
A Gift For Beth (Apr-1999)
A Gift For Jo (Apr-1999)
A Gift For Amy (Jun-1999)
A Gift For Meg (Jun-1999)
Birthday Wishes: Four Stories (Oct-1999)
Ghostly Tales: Four Stories (Sep-2000)

The Sebastian Sisters

1 - Evvie At Sixteen (Mar-2012)
2 - Thea At Sixteen (Feb-2013)
3 - Claire At Sixteen (Feb-2013)
4 - Sybil at Sixteen (Dec-2014)
5 - Meg at Sixteen (Dec-2014)

Multi-Author Series List

Jamestown's American Portraits

Revenge of the Aztecs: A Story of 1920's Hollywood (Feb-2001)

Book List in Order: 79 titles

  • Marly the Kid

    • / General Fiction
    • Buy Buy

    Sometimes you just have to pack a suitcase and walk out the door Marly knows her older sister, Kit, is tall, beautiful, and outspoken -- everything Marly isn’t. But does everyone have to remind her of it all the time? Since her parents’ divorce, ...

  • Kid Power

    • / General Fiction
    • Buy Buy

    Janie Golden has been counting on a great summer riding a new ten-speed bike with her best friend, Lisa. But when her mom loses her job, her dad says, "No new bike." Janie couldn't be more disappointed, until she gets a brilliant idea. "I'll earn the...

  • Just between us

    • / General Fiction
    • Buy Buy

    An incurable gossip tries to learn how to keep secrets to herself Sometimes Cass just can’t help herself. Tell her something personal, even something embarrassing, and before you know it, the whole school will have heard. It’s not that Cass doesn...

  • What Do You Do When Your Mouth Wont Open

  • Starting With Melodie

    • / General Fiction
    • Buy Buy

    BEST FRIENDS To Elaine, everything about her best friend is glamorous, especially her name: Melodie St. Clare Ashford. Melodie lives in a mansion with her celebrity parents and three live-in servants, while Elaine lives in a regular house with a mom...

  • About David

  • Mouth Won't Open

  • Truth Or Dare

    • / General Fiction
    • Buy Buy

    Going to a new school meant starting all over. Cathy Wakefield knows sixth grade will be the worst year of her life. She has to go to the new junior high and her two best friends -- Mary Kay and Francie -- won't be going with her. Cathy's whol...

  • Paperdolls



  • On the Move

    • / General Fiction
    • Buy Buy
    Make Me a Star - 4

    On their first hiatus from TV’s cool new prime-time series, Bill, Miranda, TJ, Alison, Rafe, and Molly are looking forward to getting back to the real world -- but will they ever be normal teenagers again? The first season of Hard Time High is ove...

  • Wanting It All

    • / General Fiction
    • Buy Buy
    Make Me a Star - 3

    Alison, Molly, TJ, Miranda, Rafe, and Bill have been on Hard Time High for five months -- but real life is a lot more complicated than any TV script could make it seem Things are changing on the set of prime time’s new hit series. For starters, the...

  • Take Two and . . . Rolling!

    • / General Fiction
    • Buy Buy
    Make Me a Star - 2

    Six teenagers have been cast in prime time’s hottest new TV series -- can they take their shot at the spotlight without sacrificing the things that matter most? A starring role on the prime-time show Hard Time High could give Molly O’Malley the f...

  • Prime Time

    Make Me a Star - 1

    The first book in Susan Beth Pfeffer’s Make Me a Star series introduces six Teenagers, each waiting for that first big break Open call! Now casting for brand-new prime time series. No experience necessary.   Tenth grader Miranda Newgate is vi...

  • Hard Times High

    • / General Fiction
    • Buy Buy
    Make Me a Star - 6

    A cast member of TV’s number-one show is about to be fired -- how will Alison, Bill, TJ, Rafe, Molly, Miranda, and Susie handle the possibility of being unemployed? A bombshell has just been dropped on the cast of TV’s Hard Time High: A major ne...

  • Love Scenes

    • / General Fiction
    • Buy Buy
    Make Me a Star - 5

    Miranda, Molly, Alison, TJ, Bill, and Rafe are becoming stars on TV’s biggest show, but with fame come responsibilities . . . Can they really have it all? Miranda is celebrating her seventeenth birthday. She can’t believe it’s b...

  • The Friendship Pact

    Tracy Newfield is madly, desperately in love with Ross Perlman -- along with every other teenage girl in America. Better known as the Rabbit, Ross is the star of Joyride, Tracy's favorite TV show. Tracy and her best friend, Andrea, are his biggest fa...

  • Fantasy Summer

    Robin doesn’t want to be perfect, but it would be nice to be more than perfectly average Robin can’t believe it: Out of the thousands of girls who applied for the Image magazine summer internships, she’s one of only four winners who will be spe...

  • Rewind to Yesterday

    A magical VCR provides much fun for eleven-year-old Kelly, her twin brother Scott, and her best friend Miri, but traveling back in time becomes more serious when Miri's grandfather is shot in a robbery...

  • Turning Thirteen

    Becky and Dina have been friends forever! But lately Dina has been spending a lot of time with Amy Ford. The problem with Amy is that she's perfect- she's super polite, super conscientious, and super smart.....everything that Becky isn't!...



  • Future Forward

    Having kept the secret that their family VCR can send people back in time, eleven-year-old twins Scott and Kelly continue to search for the best way to use that power and make an amazing new discovery. Sequel to "Rewind to Yesterday."...

  • Head of the Class

    The talented kids at Fillmore High School's Individualized Honors Program find they have a lot to learn about getting along when their regular teacher takes a leave of absence and the kids must adjust to his replacement...

  • April Upstairs

  • Twin Surprises

  • Twin Troubles

    When Christa Linz is reprimanded in class, forgets to do her homework, and has to have a cavity filled, but her twin sister Betsy has no such bad luck, Christa begins to wonder if they really are twins....

  • Darcy Downstairs

    Ever since her cousin, April, moved in upstairs, Darcy has hardly spent any time at all with her best friends, Sara and Jessica, so she is certain that throwing a party will be the answer to her troubles. Reprint....

  • Most Precious Blood

    You can buy a lot of things with enough money, but you can’t buy the truth After Val skips one Sunday dinner with her cousin Michelle’s family, everything changes. Val and Michelle’s fathers aren’t getting along, and she just wanted to avoid ...

  • Twice Taken

    Recognizing herself in a missing child photo, sixteen-year-old Amy Donovan/Brooke Eastman learns she has been living illegally with her father and must choose between the parent she loves and the parent from whom she was stolen. From the author of

  • Sara Kate, Super Kid

    When Sara Kate can suddenly start throwing a basketball for long distances with incredible accuracy and her grandmother says she has inherited temporary superpowers that run in the family, Kate hopes her powers last long enough to win the basketball-...

  • Nobody's Daughter

    Depicting an orphan's life at the beginning of the twentieth century, the story of eleven-year-old Emily Hasbrouck tells of life at the Austen Home for Orphaned Girls where tragedy leads to the triumph of courage and honesty....



  • Sara Kate Saves the World

  • The Riddle Streak

  • The Trouble with Wishes

    Granted any three wishes of her choice, third-grader Katie Logan racks her brain trying to decide what to wish for and is warned by her big brother to be careful before she decides that she really wants to be the lead in the class play....

  • The Pizza Puzzle

    Accused of pulling a nasty prank on a teacher, Taryn tries to clear her name at school while trying to smooth things over at home, where her parents' constant fighting makes her afraid they will get divorced....

  • Justice for Emily

    Emily Hasbrouck saw her 11-year-old friend die, and she knows the people responsible. But nobody will believe her because she is an orphan living on the goodwill of the townspeople, while the girls she accuses are the daughters of the richest men in ...

  • To Have and to Hold Floor

  • Amy's Story

    Portraits of Little Women

    Beautiful Amy March, the youngest March sister, is a talented artist.  Everyone praises her lifelike portraits.  The one person she can't draw is herself.  So when a photographer's studio opens in town, Amy is thrilled.  Now her pretty blond ...

  • Jo's Story

    Portraits of Little Women

    Tomboy Jo March would rather die than spend time with wealthy, proper Aunt March.  She'd much rather race against the boys at school or star in all the swashbuckling plays she writes.  But when Aunt March offers to adopt one of the March sisters ...

  • Meg's Story

    Portraits of Little Women

    Meg March is the perfect young lady.  Her gracious manners and sweet personality make her very popular at school.  And when she is invited to Mary Howe's fancy picnic, she wants to go badly.  Nothing her tomboy sister, Jo, says against snobby M...

  • Beth's Story

    Portraits of Little Women

    Painfully shy Beth March is excited to be visiting New York City with her parents.  The theater, opera, symphony, museums--Beth loves every minute of her adventure.  She even meets Abraham Lincoln, and has the courage to tell him that women deser...



  • Beth Makes a Friend

    Portraits of Little Women

    Beth March would do just about anything to help someone in need. She's kind-hearted, loyal, and caring. So when she catches Sean O'Neill stealing apples from Aunt March's garden, Beth listens to the hungry boy's sad story. She's moved to hear that Se...

  • Meg Makes a Friend

    Portraits of Little Women

    Romantic Meg March is thrilled when she's asked to sing at Lily Prescott's wedding. She practices with extra care because she loves the bride and wants the celebration to be beautiful.



    But as soon as Meg meets the groom's much younger...

  • Amy Makes a Friend

    Portraits of Little Women

    Amy March wants to be a great artist. She's got the talent; now all she needs is a way to afford art lessons. Her solution: befriend her rich and snobby classmate, Jenny Snow, who'll then invite Amy to sit in on her private art instructions. But Jenn...

  • Jo Makes a Friend

    Portraits of Little Women

    Exuberant Jo March never sits still. Whether she's racing against boys or scribbling and acting in her latest play, Jo is always active and creative. So when Aunt March asks her to befriend Pauline Wheeler, Jo can't believe that the girl spends every...

  • Christmas Dreams: Four Stories

    Portraits of Little Women

    Each of the girls has a choice to make about the beautiful brooch.

    Meg's Christmas Dream: Meg would gladly exchange it for a gift for her father....

    Jo's Christmas Dream: Jo behaves like a total scrooge and must learn the true spirit of...

  • A Gift For Beth

    Portraits of Little Women

  • A Gift For Jo

    Portraits of Little Women

  • A Gift For Amy

    Portraits of Little Women

    Worried that her family's financial status may hinder her goal to marry into money, Amy pursues the interest of a wealthy young boy to enhance her social position, yet when he buys her an expensive gift, Amy must make her true feelings known....

  • A Gift For Meg

    Portraits of Little Women

    Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy . . . Louisa May Alcott's beloved March sisters, from her classic novel Little Women. Read all about these unforgettable heroines in Portraits of Little Women, new stories that capture each girl at age ten. Join the March siste...

  • Ashes

    in Places I Never Meant to Be

    "What effect does [the climate of censorship] have on a writer?....It's chilling. It's easy to become discouraged, to second-guess everything you write. There seemed to be no one to stand up to the censors....so I began to speak out about my experie...



  • Birthday Wishes: Four Stories

    Portraits of Little Women

  • Ghostly Tales: Four Stories

    Portraits of Little Women

    Losing your way in the woods. . . . Prowling a castle in the dead of night. . . . Finding a treasure in a dusty attic. . . . Finding a frightening force in your own home. . . . The March sisters--Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy--never imagined they'd encounte...

  • Revenge of the Aztecs: A Story of 1920's Hollywood

    Jamestown's American Portraits

    Bring history to life with compelling stories,sweeping scope, and a welcoming sense of diversity

    • Historical fiction helps students connect to their middle schoolsocial studies classes
    • Reading skill instruction and cross-curricular conn...

  • Christmas Dreams

    Each of the girls has a choice to make about the beautiful brooch.

    Meg's Christmas Dream: Meg would gladly exchange it for a gift for her father....

    Jo's Christmas Dream: Jo behaves like a total scrooge and must learn the true spirit of...

  • Life As We Knew It

    Life As We Knew It - 1

    When Miranda first hears the warnings that a meteor is headed on a collision path with the moon, they just sound like an excuse for extra homework assignments. But her disbelief turns to fear in a split second as the entire world witnesses a lunar im...

  • The Dead and the Gone

    Life As We Knew It - 2

    Susan Beth Pfeffer's Life as We Knew It enthralled and devastated readers with its brutal but hopeful look at an apocalyptic event--an asteroid hitting the moon, setting off a tailspin of horrific climate changes. Now this harrowing companion novel e...

  • This World We Live In

    Life As We Knew It - 3

    It's been a year since a meteor collided with the moon, catastrophically altering the earth's climate. For Miranda Evans, life as she knew it no longer exists. Her friends and neighbors are dead, the landscape is frozen, and food is increasingly scar...

  • Blood Wounds

    Blood can both wound and heal . . . Willa is lucky: She has a loving blended family that gets along. Not all families are so fortunate. But when a bloody crime takes place hundreds of miles away, it has an explosive effect on Willa's peaceful life...

  • Evvie At Sixteen

    The Sebastian Sisters - 1

    The first of a five-part series which follows the fortunes of the Sebastian sisters as each of them reaches the age of 16. For Evvie, it means a choice between two boys, possibly against the wishes of her family, and the discovery of some disturbing ...

  • The Ring Of Truth

    Revealing to her friends that a political figure has made a pass at her, sixteen-year-old Sloan Fredericks, the daughter of a well-known family, finds herself desperately trying to escape a scandal and public scrutiny....

  • The Year Without Michael

    Bad things aren't supposed to happen to good people. But somewhere between home and the softball field, 16-year-old Jody Chapman's younger brother disappeared, and now the family is falling apart. Her parents hardly speak to each other, her younger...

  • Claire At Sixteen

    The Sebastian Sisters - 3

    To annoy her older sister Thea, satisfy her own ego, and raise much-needed funds for her sick younger sister, sixteen-year-old Claire, a past master at deceit and manipulation, uses a boy in love with Thea to delve into ugly secrets in the past. ...

  • Thea At Sixteen

    The Sebastian Sisters - 2

    As she seeks her niche in life, Thea becomes involved in volunteer work at the local hospital. ...

  • The Shade of the Moon

    Life As We Knew It - 4

    The eagerly awaited addition to the series begun with the New York Times best-seller Life As We Knew It, in which a meteor knocks the moon off its orbit and the world changes forever. It's been more than two years since Jon Evans and his family le...

  • Meg at Sixteen

    The Sebastian Sisters - 5

    Young Margaret Winslow had beauty and a family name, but inside she felt empty ... until Nick Sebastian gave her his heart and the strength to stand up for herself The Sebastian women grew up on the story of their parents' great love -- how their...

  • Sybil at Sixteen

    The Sebastian Sisters - 4

    Always the youngest but never the baby, Sibyl sometimes wonders, What good is inner strength if only you know it's there? Sybil loves Aunt Grace's dark, old house, even if the upkeep is a burden the Sebastians can't entirely afford. It feels like hom...

  • Better Than All Right

    The darker the truth, the deeper you hide it -- but  what happens when you can’t hide anymore?Innocence, I guess, is not my image.  Sixteen-year-old Iris knows that between her bohemian playwright father who lives off the grid in the New ...

  • Family of Strangers

    Sometimes Abby thinks the most important event in her life happened before she was even born Abby's not dying; in fact she's perfectly healthy. If she were dead, maybe her father would grieve for her the way he's still grieving for Johnny, who wo...

  • Just Morgan

    “The right thing never just happens; you have to make it happen.” Morgan knows her parents left her in boarding school so they could travel the world, which is why hardly anything changes when they’re killed in an accident during her freshman y...

  • A Matter of Principle

    When Becca and her friends publish an underground newspaper, their principles are put to the test Becca and her friends are fed up with having their school paper controlled by the faculty. They want to run stories that reflect the real challenges...

  • Rainbows & Fireworks

    What if the one person you can’t stand is the only one you can depend on? Nobody ever asked Betsy Reisman if she wanted to be a twin, but since she and Meg are stuck with each other, they’ve reached a truce. Mostly they keep busy -- Betsy with he...

  • Whatever Words You Want to Hear

    When Paula falls for the bad boy down the street, what she thought would be a silly summer romance becomes anything but It’s Paula’s last summer at home, and in need of an affectionate distraction, she decides now is the perfect time to get invol...

  • The Beauty Queen

    Playing the role of a happy pageant winner is not exactly the acting career Kit had in mind Kit Carson keeps trying to tell people that she didn’t do anything. All she did was put on a bathing suit in front of the judges, and suddenly she’s a bea...

  • Getting Even

    People think Annie can handle anything, and she can -- but only because the alternative is worse Annie’s summer in New York City was every teenager’s dream. Being chosen as a summer intern at Image magazine meant the chance to work on real articl...

  • Starring Peter and Leigh

    Leigh trades in her acting career to play a starring role in her own life Most people don’t get to retire at age sixteen, but that’s what Leigh is planning to do when she moves to Long Island to live with her mom and her new stepfather. Leigh has...

  • Courage, Dana

    After saving a young boy's life, a girl finds that fame can be a real headache On the last warm day of autumn, Dana and her best friend eat ice cream, gossip, and complain about school. It's just like any other afternoon until Dana walks home and...

  • Dear Dad, Love Laurie

    After her father moves away, Laurie sends her love by mail The scariest thing Laurie has ever seen is a half-empty house, which she discovered the day her dad moved away. The divorce was a long time coming, but that didn't make it hurt any less. ...

  • Devil's Den

    Tending to a veteran's grave leads a boy on a search for his father The battlefield at Gettysburg is a landscape of rolling hills, thickly wooded forests, and monuments to men who died here long ago. When Joey looks at this peaceful landscape, he...

  • Kid Power Strikes Back

    To save her business, a young entrepreneur dreams bigger than ever before When she wanted a new bike, Janie started doing odd jobs around the neighborhood for a dollar an hour. She promised her clients that no job was too big or too small -- and ...

  • Make Believe

    When her best friend's parents separate, a seventh grader struggles to keep their friendship alive When Carrie and Jill are alone together, they can be anyone in the whole world. Whether they're pretending to be movie stars, environmental activists, ...

Award-Winning Books by Susan Beth Pfeffer

Life As We Knew It
2008 Black-Eyed Susan Award -- High School
2008 Truman Readers Award -- Grades 6-8
2009 Evergreen Young Adult Book Award -- Young Adult
2009 Garden State Teen Book Award -- Fiction (Grades 6-8)
2009 Volunteer State Book Award -- Young Adult
2010 Nutmeg Book Award -- Teen
The Year Without Michael
1989 South Carolina Childrens, Junior and Young Adult Book Award -- Young Adult


Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Susan Beth Pfeffer has published 79 books.

Susan Beth Pfeffer does not have a new book coming out soon. The latest book, Kid Power Strikes Back, was published in March 2015.

The first book by Susan Beth Pfeffer, Marly the Kid, was published in January 1975.

Yes. Susan Beth Pfeffer has 4 series.
Author Series
Multi-Author Series
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