Emily Climbs is the second book in the Emily triology. Strict Aunt Elizabeth will allow Emily to go to High School in Shrewsbury on one condition - she gives up her 'silly scribblings'. This Emily can't do, but Cousin Jimmy intervenes. Emily may go to High School as long as she wriotes nothing untrue. So Emily packs to go and stay at grim Aunt Ruth Dutton's house. Ruth is stern and unjust, and Emily has a horrible room, and terrible times with Aunt Ruth. But her literary career is beginning. Her poem, The Owl's Laughter, was published in a circular. From here on, going through hard times with Aunt Ruth, Ilse, and Evelyn Blake, Emily tries to earn a little money with her poems, and writing newspaper articles. Even the atrocious affair with Perry Miller can't dampen her ambitions!