Come on in, the water’s fine.

After All, You're Callie Boone, by Winnie Mack, is about a girl with a secret dream. So secret, she's never told her best friend about it. This turns out to have been a wise decision, as Amy Higgins has decided to have a new best friend and makes fun of Callie at every opportunity. Who knows what she would say if she knew about Callie’s secret wish to compete as a diver on the United States Olympic Team someday?

Not only has Amy thrown Callie over, but Callie’s family keeps getting weirder and crazier. Her grandmother spends most of her time in her nightgown and watching game shows; her uncle has moved in and brought a bunch of ferrets with him as part of his latest get-rich plan; her dad is fighting his low-cholesterol diet every step of the way; her former-drill-instructor mother seems distant; and her big brother is constantly getting in trouble for shooting off his mouth.

After a very public belly flop off the high board in front of Amy and the rest of the world, Callie is banned from the local outdoor pool for rule-breaking. She is also convinced that, at the age of eleven, life as she knows it is over, and that she will never recover from the humiliation. Then Hoot shows up. The new boy in the neighborhood decides that Callie is the perfect person to show him around, and Callie can’t seem to disabuse him of the notion. He even begins to accompany her to the indoor aquatic center in town, where Callie’s dad trains her as a diver. As the summer progresses, Callie learns about true friendship and loyalty, and what it means to stand by your friends, even when it is the most difficult.