Real Friends

Real Friends by Shannon Hale, art by LeUyen Pham, 224 pages

In this memoir, Hale presents the story of her not-tragic, not-extraordinary-in-any-way years in grade school in 1980s Salt Lake City. Between Hale's story and Pham's illustrations, the story strikes home for me in a way that few memoirs have. Hale was the middle child in a large Mormon family, I was the only child in a secular family and grew up a decade later. But the awkwardness of childhood is universal — the uneasy ground of new friendships, the worries about making new friends when your first friend moves away, the fear of being too babyish as the group of friends grows up, the cruel ranking of friends in a clique. It's all presented so clearly and honestly here. A wonderful book that I'd recommend to any kid.