Weird Sad and Silent
by Alison McGhee
Intermediate    Rocky Pond/Penguin    192 pp.
5/25    9780593859674    $17.99
e-book ed.  9780593859681    $10.99

Daisy Jackson understands why her bullies have nicknamed her “Weird Sad and Silent”: her only friends are adults or books; she spends most of her time in public alone; she has a habit of counting on her fingers, sometimes in Roman numerals. But this is the routine that the ten-year-old prefers, as we learn through her alert, introspective narration: having few friends allows her to “invisibilize” herself and observe others’ lives from the sidelines; her isolation gives her time to “futurize” her plan to domesticate Rumble Paws, the feral cat who lurks behind her apartment building; and she likes numbers because, unlike people, they don’t change. Each of these idiosyncrasies is gradually revealed to be a coping mechanism: Daisy and her mother may be several years removed from living with the latter’s physically abusive boyfriend, but the trauma lingers. Daisy’s solitude is disrupted by an equally observant new classmate, Austin, who sees Daisy despite her “invisibilizing” and whose terse confidence in the face of bullying inspires the protagonist to liberate herself from its intimidation. McGhee’s story is full of positive adult role models (including school librarian Marimba), empathy for others (Daisy learns that “everyone walks around with a stone in their shoe,” even the classmates who bully her), and optimism to persevere through the “weird,” “sad” silence that may fall in the wake of trauma.

From the July/August 2025 issue of The Horn Book Magazine.