Otherwise Known as Sheila the Great

The book centers on Sheila Tubman, a ten-year-old girl who masks her insecurities with a much more self-assured, confident persona. In truth, she suffers from fears ranging from arachnophobia (fear of spiders and other arachnids), cynophobia (fear of dogs), and aquaphobia (fear of water).

Her family decides to spend the summertime in Tarrytown, New York, where she is enrolled at a day camp and meets Merle "Mouse" Ellis, an easygoing, courageous, and slightly tomboyish girl skilled with her unlimited knowledge of yo-yo tricks. To Sheila's dismay, the family that owns the house in which they are staying owns a dog named Jennifer that she deeply fears and avoids, and her troubles increase when they learn of Jennifer's pregnancy and the desires of Sheila's sister Libby to adopt one of the puppies. Aside from these factors, Sheila is enlisted in swimming lessons (to her chagrin, but finally manages to take the final exam and earned a beginner's certificate) and single-handedly starts a camp newspaper (which proves a lot of work, but hands over editorship to two bigger boys who completed a crossword puzzle of hers; having promised a prize but forgotten to name it), even painting the backdrop of the camp's production of Peter Pan (Sheila accomplishes this without incident; and even laughs to herself that Libby is cast as Captain Hook, to Libby's consternation).

Sheila believes that her fearless masquerade is effective, but her beliefs are proven false after the guests at her sleepover party write otherwise in a slam book activity. Despite the brawl that ensues between the agitated girls, devastated by the insults written in each other's books, their friendship, nevertheless, continues, and Sheila slowly overcomes her fears (albeit not entirely) little by little. As the summer draws to a close with a barbecue party, she is unshaken at the thought of her family's adoption of a puppy, and realizes that she enjoyed her vacation after all.

Sheila is also a character in the Fudge series. Other than brief anecdotes, Peter and his dog, Turtle, are the only members of the Hatcher family to appear in the book. They appear in the first chapter, and are mentioned by Sheila several times in the story. She also briefly mentions Peter's brother, Fudge, though not by name.

Sheila Tubman-the main protagonist who's excited about being in Tarrytown for the summer, but has many fears, and has a hard time admitting those fears to people

Libby Tubman- Sheila's thirteen year old sister, who's a ballerina and is boy crazy

Merle (a.k.a Mouse) Ellis- Sheila's friend in Tarrytown, who is the junior champion of yo-yoing. She's a champion swimmer, and a dog lover. One chapter deals with her sneaking into her own house through a dumbwaiter so the girls can play hide and seek when bad weather precluded them from doing it outdoors.

Sondra and Jane Van Arden- The Van Arden twins, who are good friends with Sheila and Mouse. They both are very excellent swimmers and both get easily offended. They all argue at a sleepover, but later make amends. They also participate in the indoor game of hide & seek at the Ellis residence, known to all four girls as "Mouse House".

Marty- Sheila's swimming teacher, who struggles to work with Sheila because of her hydrophobia. When Sheila admits her problem to Marty, he works out a plan for her to prepare for the beginner's test. He is last seen at her house, having been invited by Mr. Tubman to attend his end of summer barbecue. Sheila at first failed to recognize Marty, then thinking it odd to see him on dry land and fully dressed.

Betsy Ellis - Mouse's younger sister, who is only four but an excellent diver. She carries around a box on a string, which s a pretend dog she calls Ootch, due to her allergy to real dogs.

Denise - A counselor at the camp who teaches pottery. Also chaperones a haunted hayride, where she convinces Sheila to stop hiding from her fears on that.

Maryanne - An attractive teenage girl at the summer camp who wins the part of Wendy in the camp play of Peter Pan due to being a better singer than Libby. Despite Libby's annoyance at not getting the role, she and Maryanne become friends.

Allen & Paul - Two teenagers from the camp who are the only ones to complete Sheila's crossword challenge of naming all the camp counselors. When they ask for their prize, she gives them the camp newspaper. However, the two boys seem to be more appreciative and competent at running the paper than did Sheila, also changing the paper's name from Newsdate with Sheila the Great to Allen and Paul: Tell All.

Mrs. Reese - A neighbor of the Tubmans from Manhattan. She has a small dog named Baby, who is the only dog Sheila can stand prior to overcoming her fear of dogs.

Bobby - The boy whose room Sheila stays in while his family is vacationing in England. Sheila is dismayed at sleeping in a room like a boy's, having convinced herself the house in Tarrytown would be girlie. The Tubmans later see a letter from him expressing his disdain at having a girl in his bedroom and announcing he acquired a bunch of model airplanes which he will take back to the States.

Peter Hatcher - Shiela's classmate and star of the preceding book, only seen when he shares an elevator ride with Sheila and his dog Turtle, whom Sheila fears. Also mentioned in the middle of the night when Sheila sees a real spider and must overcome her fear of it, remembering how back in school Peter tried to scare her with a fake spider but she didn't fall for it (but it scared their teacher and Peter got three days of detention)!

Judy Blume dedicated the book to her father and her mother.

The post-2002 reprints of this book have some lines edited and a bit of new content added to update the technology use in it (for instance, record players are replaced with CD players, and the camp's copier keeps malfunctioning, which is why Sheila must use a mimeograph machine, whereas the original had them already still using their mimeograph machine and not having a copier yet).

Judy Blume's website