Wrong Friend
by Charise Mericle Harper; illus. by Rory Lucey
Intermediate, Middle School    First Second    256 pp.
1/26    9781250851963    $22.99

Charise and Casey, best friends and neighbors, are two years apart. The age difference has never felt significant, but then Casey starts high school and shuts Charise out—suddenly and completely. There’s no explanation except what Charise can piece together: thirteen-year-old high schoolers do not want to be friends with eleven-year-olds. Charise mourns the friendship, hard, while Casey pretends not to see Charise, even when they pass on the sidewalk. When school begins, Charise finds solace in the routine but panics at lunchtime. She’s untethered by her loss, and there are social rules she doesn’t understand but can see in play. It takes months, but slowly she begins to fill the Casey-sized hole in her life with new friends, new experiences, and some hard-learned lessons about tween drama and how to negotiate relationships. There’s also a new dynamic at home: Mémé, her French grandmother, moves in with the family, and she doesn’t speak English. As Charise learns to communicate with her, their developing relationship reveals the ways in which each is learning to be confident in a new version of themself and to be mutually supportive. This fictionalized autobiographical graphic novel is a smooth read, with digitally produced 1970s-vibe-heavy panels and tidbits of wisdom, reflections, and advice scattered throughout. A great addition to the canon of middle-school friendship (and friendship-demise) graphic novels.

From the January/February 2026 issue of The Horn Book Magazine.