""Show a little maturity," he said, which I've doped out to mean: Pass all your courses, avoid detection in all crimes and misdemeanors, don't get pregnant."
Celine's father has left her with these instructions. She's not too worried about the last two, but she'll fail English unless she rewrites her "Catcher in the Rye" essay. And she keeps being interrupted, especially by Jake, the neighbor's boy, who's been dumped on her for the weekend.
An ALA Best Book for Young Adults
A "School Library Journal" Best Book of the Year
A "Booklist" Best Book of the '80s
A "Publishers Weekly "Best Children's Book of the Year

From battling toothaches while fighting the British, to having rotten teeth removed by his dentists, the Father of His Country suffered all his life with tooth problems. Yet, contrary to popular belief, he never had a set of wooden teeth. Starting at the age of twenty-four, George Washington lost on average a tooth a year, and by the time he was elected president, he had only two left! In this reverentially funny tale written in verse and based on Washington's letters, diaries, and other historical records, readers will find out what really happened as they follow the trail of lost teeth to complete "tooflessness."
Illustrated in watercolors with subtle humor by Brock Cole, the main story is followed by a four-page time line featuring reproduced period portraits of Washington.