The protagonist of The Moon Without Stars (Philomel, Jan. 13), by the Newbery Honor–winning author Chanel Miller, is a girl after my own heart. Seventh grader Luna is known as her school’s “book doctor”; she has a talent for matching her classmates with stories that speak to their worries, from uneven breasts to parents who just don’t understand. Books made my middle school years bearable (Judy Blume, Paula Danziger, and Phyllis Reynolds Naylor, you have my undying gratitude), and I’d have loved a classmate like Luna.
Unable to find the perfect book for an acquaintance dealing with eczema, Luna writes a zine to lift her spirits; more zines follow, to her peers’ delight. But Luna’s gift is soon co-opted by a malevolent force: popular June, who convinces Luna to fill her work with mean-spirited remarks.
In January, I saw Miller speak at New York City’s Strand Bookstore; in conversation with journalist Jia Tolentino, she described why she sent her protagonist down such a rough path. “We’re always telling kids, do this and don’t do this,” Miller said. “We rarely go to the second step. OK, you’ve done the wrong thing. What do you do? I think it’s more helpful if we assume they will mess up. Even if you are a good person, you will hurt people.”
Indeed, Luna’s barbed commentary—“you could make it snow with your dandruff,” she writes in one zine—wounds her classmates. But her actions are rooted in all-too-relatable insecurities, and her journey will resonate with young people who’ve made mistakes of their own—in a word, all kids.
Miller doesn’t list the titles that Luna recommends, and I found myself wondering what she might choose. What would she give to a classmate self-conscious about their appearance, for instance? Perhaps Christina Wyman’s Breakout (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, March 10), in which eighth grader Ellis chronicles her many stressors, from her overbearing mother to her struggles with acne, in an unforgettably snarky voice (“I get to spend the first month of a whole new school year cosplaying as a pepperoni pizza”). Very little can assuage the humiliation of an unexpected zit, but Wyman’s book reminds young people that they’re not alone.
For lower-income kids, adolescent angst is often amplified by anxieties about not being able to afford brand-name clothes or cool phones; these youngsters will find kindred spirits in the protagonists of Norm Feuti’s graphic novel A Kid Like Me (HarperAlley, Feb. 3). Best friends Ethan and Ricky, who live in a trailer park with their single mothers, will soon be attending a new school with far wealthier kids—a prospect that has both boys hyperaware of their own socioeconomic status. While acknowledging that middle school is indeed a danger zone, Feuti assures readers that there are safe spaces as Ethan finds solace in an extracurricular club.
Though middle graders are the intended audience for these titles, I hope adults pick them up, too. Young people often frustrate their parents and teachers, but as Miller noted in her talk, kids have it hard; they can’t start new jobs or move when life gets complicated. These novels will empower struggling adolescents. They’ll also remind adults that growing up is tougher than it looks.
Mahnaz Dar is a young readers’ editor.
