Anna Nickel loves:

• Her classroom salamander
• Her house
• Midnight H. Cat (her cat)
• Jericho (her really cool Sunday
• School teacher)
• Her mom and dad and little sister,
• Isabella (most of the time)
• Colorado, not Kansas
• And her life just the way it is.

Anna Nickel does not want to move to Oakwood. Especially when it is almost her birthday and she has a camping party planned. Especially when the school year isn't even over yet! No fair! What a disaster!

Luckily, Anna is a Gold Ribbon Safety Citizen, prepared for almost everything. Unluckily, Anna isn't ready for cousins, lost cats, water balloons and rotten eggs, peculiar relatives, blisters, emus, missing moms, church potlucks, and tornadoes. . . .

Jane Kurtz knows a lot about moving. She was born in Portland, Oregon, but when she was two years old her parents moved their family to Ethiopia to work for the Presbyterian Church there. Jane Kurtz is the author of novels, picture books, and chapter books. After living in North Dakota (where she survived a natural disaster), Colorado, Illinois, and Kansas, she moved back to Portland, Oregon, where she now lives with her husband, the Reverend Leonard L. Goering, H.R.