The New Kid

The New Kid is the first book in ''Surviving High School. ''It covers August to November of Leo Smith's sophomore year. In it, Leo starts off his new year in a new school badly, and desperately tries to become popular along with the help of his new (and only) friends, Kendall and Valentine. Meanwhile, Arthur helps Spencer look for his missing limited edition box set, and Rosalia leads an environmentalist group to save the swamp next to the school.

Plot
The book starts off with

Trivia

 * As the first book in the series, it marks the first appearances of Leo, Christina, Kendall, Valentine, Ace, Venice, Natalie, Marco, Santiago, Jeff, Charlene, Matthew, Arthur, Tammy, Spencer, Rin, Brian, Layla, Sergej, Nick, Zack, Faith, Mahl, Peyton, Tempera, Rosalia, Martin, Wyatt, Principal Stuhkup, Ms. Periwinkle, Ms. Alvarez, Mr. Darwin, Mr. Dijit, and Coach Camo.
 * The PLPZ is an obvious parody of the PSP.
 * The book's title refers to Leo.
 * The main plot lines, all of which come together in the end of the book, are:
 * Leo trying to join the football team so he can impress Natalie Bestick and become popular, while Kendall, who is helping him, develops a crush on him.
 * Arthur helping Spencer find his missing PLPZ player.
 * Santiago deciding to submit his own social research experiment so he can get into a summer program with Cambridge University in England.
 * Rosalia protesting the destruction of a swamp for a football field.