In Goodbye Stranger, three girls who’ve promised to always be friends navigate their way into seventh grade. An honest story with discomfiting moments, deftly balanced by all the reasons we keep going, even when stuff’s complicated. In The Stone Girl’s Story, in the years following their sculptor/father’s death, his statues grow more weathered, and the marks that animate them are dangerously faded. Before they go still, his final masterpiece, a stone girl named Mayka, decides to travel into the city below their mountain home to find a sculptor to recarve their stories and save their lives. In Nothing Ever Happens Here, Izzy is thrilled to land a part in her school’s upcoming production of Guys and Dolls, but the very same day she carries home the wonderful news, her dad steals the limelight by making a shocking announcement. He’s always been a she … and needs the whole family’s support while going through transition.
C. J. Milbrandt 