Third grader Judy Moody is in a first day of school bad mood until she gets an assignment to create a collage all about herself and begins creating her masterpiece, the Me collage.

When Judy Moody gets serious about protecting the environment, her little brother Stink thinks she is overdoing it, but she manages to inspire her third grade class to undertake an award-winning, environment-saving project.

It's no secret that Judy wants to be like Elizabeth Blackwell, the first woman doctor, when she grows up. So when class 3T starts to study the Amazing Human Body, Judy can hardly wait to begin her better-than-best-ever third-grade projects: show and tell with something way rarer than a scab, a real-live, ooey-gooey operation, and a cloning experiment that may create double trouble for Judy and her friends.

Judy Moody's new friendship with Amy Namey causes problems with her old friends and the school project they are working on together.

When a puppy who is being trained as a police dog goes missing, third-grader Judy forms a detective agency to solve the mystery, imitating her literary heroine, Nancy Drew.

"The lucky penny in Judy Moody's pocket sure does seem to be working. She can't stop winning-at bowling, spelling, the unbeatable Prize Claw, everything! For sure and absolute positive, she'll ride that wave of good fortune all the way to Washington, D.C."--

Discovering Grandma Lou's mysterious "bucket list" of things that she wants to do in her lifetime, Judy Moody is inspired to create a list of her own goals, from learning to do a cartwheel to visiting Antarctica.

As Judy and the rest of the Virginia Dare Bookworms prepare for the Book Quiz Blowout competition against second- and third-grade readers, her team discovers the other group has a fourth-grader and worry about their chance of winning sets in.