TikTok star Charli D’Amelio is making her literary debut this fall.
The 16-year-old social media phenomenon, whose dancing videos have made her TikTok’s most followed user, will release her first book, Essentially Charli: The Ultimate Guide to Keeping It Real, in December, People magazine reports.
On a webpage for the book, publisher Abrams writes, “For the first time ever, Charli is ready to share the intimate details of her life: how she navigated challenges and stayed positive in the face of cyberbullying, who she was as a little girl, what family means to her, and how you too can navigate your social media presence and IRL friendships in order to develop a strong and confident identity.”
D’Amelio, a competitive dancer, made her TikTok debut in 2019 and quickly became one of the social media platform’s biggest stars. She’s spoken out against cyberbullying in the past, at one point saying, “Growing up a dancer, if you don’t look the part, and you’re too tall, too skinny, too short, too fat, too muscular — that was my problem, I was too muscular, so I wasn’t a ballerina….So hearing that from hundreds of people online, it hurts.”
Abrams Children’s Books executive editor Anne Heltzel praised D’Amelio’s “infectious confidence” in a news release.
“We loved getting to know her while working on this book—not only as a rare talent, but also as an endlessly interesting young woman—and we know her readers will too,” Heltzel said.
Essentially Charli is slated for publication on Dec. 1.
Michael Schaub is a Texas-based journalist and regular contributor to NPR.
