Grow Up, Tahlia Wilkins!

Middle school humiliation is the topic of Evans’s lively debut, which follows 12-year-old Tahlia Wilkins, who reads as white, and the series of disasters she experiences in the days following seventh grade graduation. Her first problem? The pimple that’s appeared on her “traitorous chin” just in time for popular Noah Campos’s pool party, where Tahlia hopes to overcome a previous “goggles-and-board-shorts incident,” and prove that she’s gotten cooler over the past year. Next, just after her mother leaves their central Pennsylvania town to attend a work retreat sans phone service, Tahlia gets her first period. She’s too embarrassed to tell her awkward father or 16-year-old twin brothers, but Tahlia and her best friend engage in a series of comic acts. They sneak into a neighbor’s bathroom, for one, and wade into a restaurant fountain to gather quarters for a bathroom dispenser, events that lead to further dilemmas. As Tahlia’s chatty first-person narration conveys her desire of popularity amid her eventful first visit from “The Fairy Godmother of Puberty,” Evans offers some practical tips for young people on the brink of menstruation, ending on a family-oriented upswing—and a note of relief. Ages 8–12. Agent: Jessica Mileo, InkWell. (Apr.)