Middle School: The Worst Years of My Life is book 1 in the Middle School sequence. A long-running comic series about Rafe Khatchadorian and his family. Follow the publisher’s numbered order; one numbered volume is an interactive activity book, so it is excluded from this novel sequence. It opens the series and is the recommended starting point. Readers new to the series should begin with Middle School: The Worst Years of My Life and follow the numbered publication order, which preserves the characters’ continuing development and the story’s intended progression.