Frozen Rodeo

Summer is supposed to be fun.
Right?

Peggy Fleming Farrell's summer has taken a turn for the worse: She works at the Gas'n Git to pay back her parents for wrecking two cars, takes summer school French from a succession of increasingly lame substitute teachers, loves an IHOP waiter, and attends Lamaze class with her mother while her father prepares for his professional ice-skating comeback (read: midlife crisis).

Just when the only exciting event looming before her is the town's annual Rodeo Roundup Days -- "exciting" being a relative term -- things take an unexpected turn for the better. Between hijinks with a hijacked golf cart, plans for streaking at the Rodeo parade, and a showdown over pancakes, Peggy's summer becomes more about mayhem than money management, and definitely something close to fun. Even if she never learns to speak French.

Catherine Clark is the author of Frozen Rodeo and Truth or Dairy. A native of western Massachusetts, she now lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota.