11 yr old Raina is in 6th Grade (Year 7 NZ), loves hanging out with her friends at school, and at Girl Scouts. Racing her friends from the car after Girl Scouts one night, she trips and lands on her face, knocking her two front teeth out. An emergency trip to the orthodontist soon has her teeth back where they belong. After a while at home, she’s back to school, but too scared to smile at anyone.

For anyone in Year 7, this is tricky. Especially when surrounded by friends or trying to get a cute boy to notice you. She’s keen to get her teeth back to normal, but she knows something is still wrong. Back to the dentist, who shows her the damage to her front teeth and gums. Her teeth have been knocked right up into her top jaw.

Dr Golden tries something else, and Raina ends up with braces. She can’t believe a fall has caused all this trouble, and can’t imagine how she will get to know the cute boy in her orchestra class. But he has a surprise for her, which makes things not quite so awkward.

School carries on as normal, but her friend group seem to be breaking away without her, using her as the target of jokes. Raina laughs it off as much as she can like always, but their jibes are beginning to hurt.

With homework, school dances, another crush, and even more dental work to be done, Raina is struggling. Her confidence is taking a beating as she is always worrying how her smile looks to other people. Add rubber bands and night time head gear and painful gum scraping, and Raina has had enough.

Looking forward to High School, she hopes the braces will be off soon and she can finally be normal. But still, her old friends group fall into their old patterns of targeting Raina, pulling the worst trick yet in front of everyone at High School. Raina has had enough and walks away from the so called friends that don’t respect her.

It’s not long before she finds new friends that appreciate and praise her for her arts skills and herself. Then even more so for her tentative new smile when the braces finally come off.

This is a huge hit among 10 -12 yr old girls, as are the follow up graphic novels, Sisters & Guts.

This is autobiographical, outlining the terrible time the author had after an accident which knocked out her two front teeth. School, friends, and crushes on boys are all hard to navigate at the best of times, but add years of orthodontal work, painful treatments and wobbly self confidence, and middle school (intermediate) is even tougher.

This author shares it all realistically with humour in this graphic novel.

Author – Raina Telgemeier

Age – 10+

Graphic Novel

(2010, Scholastic, Middle School, Self Confidence, Friends, Relationships, Teasing, Jokes, Set ups, Hurtful, Toxic, Teeth, Braces, Root Canals, Orthodontist, Dentist, Gums, Family, Siblings, Graphic Novel, Tripping, Fall, Knock out teeth, Growing Up, High School, Art Work, Humour, Crushes, Embarrassment)