Kyle’s Little Sister

Brown-haired, green-eyed gamer Grace Bailey is finally starting sixth grade at local school Elington. The only problem is, her older brother Kyle is an eighth grader there, and Grace is unenthused to once again fall under the popular basketball player’s shadow. Still, Grace has her two best friends—blue-eyed K-pop enthusiast Amy Stewart and diplomatic card gamer Jay, who is Black—by her side. That is, until Amy oversteps and aggressively meddles with Jay’s crush on Kyle, causing a rift in the trio and leading Grace to lose faith in Amy’s friendship (“I’m only friends with you ’cos of our brothers anyway”). Unwilling to forgive and forget, Grace begins spending her days alone, until popular blonde classmate Cam befriends her. Things start to look up again, but Cam’s bullying of Amy begins to bother Grace, while Cam’s own motives for friendship grow murky. With a soft color palette and stylized faces, bouncy illustrations interplay seamlessly with denser speech bubbles, making this ideal for intermediate graphic novel readers. Jeong delivers an endearing portrayal of friendship and sibling bonds (“Why? ‘Cos you’re my sister. Duh”) in this accessible, appealing debut. Ages 8–12. [em](June) [/em]