Roll with It meets Absolutely Normal Chaos in this funny, big-hearted novel about a young girl “reminiscent of…Junie B. Jones” ( School Library Connection ) and her campaign for student council president, told through letters to her hero Susan B. Anthony. Susie B. has a lot to say. Like how it’s not fair that she has to be called Susie B. instead of plain Susie. Or about how polar bears are endangered. Or how the Usual Geniuses are always getting picked for cool stuff over the kids like her with butterflies in their brain. And it’s because Susie B. has a lot to say about these very important things that she’s running for student council president! If she’s president, she can advocate for the underdogs just like her hero and fellow Susie B., Susan B. Anthony. (And, okay, maybe the chance to give big speeches to the whole school with a microphone is another perk.) But when the most usual of Usual Geniuses also enters the student council race, Susie realizes this may be a harder won fight than she thought. Even worse, Susie discovers that Susan B. Anthony wasn’t as great as history makes it seem, and she did some pretty terrible things to try to help her own cause. Soon, Susie has her own tough decisions to make. But one thing is for sure—no matter what, Susie B. won’t back down. Margaret Finnegan is the author of the Junior Library Guild Selections Sunny Parker Is Here to Stay , New Kids and Underdogs , Susie B. Won’t Back Down , and We Could Be Heroes , which was a USA TODAY bestseller. Her other work has appeared in FamilyFun , the Los Angeles Times , Salon , and other publications. She lives in South Pasadena, California, where she enjoys spending time with her family, walking her dog, and baking really good chocolate cakes. Visit her online at MargaretFinnegan.com. Chapter 1 Dear Susan B. Anthony: I have very bad news for you. You’re dead. Really dead. Like, over one hundred years dead. Like, right now, you are dust and bones in the cemetery of your old hometown, Rochester, New York. Sorry. You are probably thinking, What the heck? If I am dead, why are you writing to me? Congratulations! Even though you are dead, you are not forgotten! You are still remembered for being a brave and determined defender of women’s rights, especially women’s suffrage. That is the fancy name for women voting, even though I think suffrage should be the name for not being able to vote, because it sounds like the suffering you would have to go through if everybody thought your voice didn’t matter one speck. Since I am also a brave and determined defender of all the rights of all the people, I thought you would like to know that I am thinking about you. Plus, Mr. Springer is making me. Mr. Springer is my fifth-grade teacher. Every year he assigns this thing called the Hero Project. All of his students have to choose a personal hero. They can choose anyone they want, as long as the person is dead. Mr. Springer used to let kids choose living heroes, but then the live heroes kept doing horrible things and ruining everyone’s projects. Luckily, dead heroes can’t surprise you like that. We are going to do a bunch of research and assignments on our heroes and basically use them to learn stuff about language arts, history, and even math and science. Mr. Springer is always trying to find sneaky ways to get us interested in what he’s teaching. One of the main things we have to do for the Hero Project is write our heroes letters, and—duh—that is what I am doing. Since this is our first letter, we are supposed to tell you a little bit about ourselves. So, hello! I am a Susan B. too. My B stands for Babuszkiewicz. Don’t freak out! It’s easier to pronounce than it looks. Ba-boo-ska-wits. Hear how it rolls off the tongue? It’s actually kind of pretty, don’t you think? It sounds like something a bird might sing or that a Tupperware might burp. Unfortunately, most people—especially teachers—don’t seem to agree on the beauty of my last name. They see a word like Babuszkiewicz on the first day of class, and their eyes get kind of squinty, and their voices get kind of stuck in their throats, and, after a pause, they say, “Susan?” Sometimes it ends there. When I started my tap-dancing class, for example, my teacher did the old squint, throat-stuck, pause, “Susan?” And I did the old “You can call me Susie.” And we both sort of pretended I was one of those Beyoncé-type celebrities who only have one name. But that is not what happens here at Mary Routt Elementary School in the beautiful town of Claremont, California. That is because there is another Susan in fifth grade, Susan Gupta. She goes by Susie too, but she is original and hip and spells her name Soozee, which I wish I had thought of doing first, but those are the breaks. This is the first year that Soozee and I haven’t been in the same class. And so—until this year—teachers would always look at me, Susie Babuszkiewicz, with my regular, borin