Now Everybody Really Hates Me

Good-bye Cruel World!

Patty Jane Pepper is being unjustly punished. Her parents claim that she punched her brother Theodore. In fact, she only touched him--hard. And she didn't call him a dumbbell, either. She just called him a dumb head. Nonetheless, she's been sent to her room.

So Patty Jane decides to punish her parents back. She'll stay in her room--forever. She'll stay up really, really, really late (so that when she goes to bed it will be the next day), speak in a code that only she understands, and never, ever eat again. Unless, of course, there's something good for dinner...

Jane Read Martin's first book for children was Now Everybody Really Hates Me, an IRA/CBC Children's Choice of 1994, co-authored with Patricia Marx and illustrated by Roz Chast. Ms. Martin is a producer who lives in New York City.

Roz Chast is a well-known cartoon artist whose work appears regularly in The New Yorker and other magazines. Her most recent book for children is Gabby The Shrew, by Alfa-Betty Olsen and Marshall Efron. She lives in Connecticut.