The Boys Start the War
Written by: Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
Recommended for ages 8-12.
$6.99 Random House

The age-old battle between young boys and girls is the theme of this novel. When the Hatford boys’ best friends move away, they assume that a new family of boys will replace them and life will go on as usual. Ahh, but life is never that simple. Meet the Malloy girls and their feisty ways. They are sure to be a match for Wally and his three brothers. When Caroline and Wally end up in the same fourth grade class, they are forced to spend more hours together than they would like.

The pranks that the two groups pull on each other will have readers laughing out loud. Is Wally, the brains of the family, up for the challenge of concocting practical jokes that will have the Malloys move back to their home in Ohio?

Reynolds Naylor, the author of the Shiloh series, plans to write one novel for every month that the Malloys stay in Buckman, West Virginia. Other books in this series include The Girls Get Even, Boys Against the Girls, The Girls’ Revenge and A Traitor Among the Boys.