Great anti bullying message, and both my 7th graders and 8th graders enjoyed it. A wonderful book introducing the complexities of friendship and making sure each reader knows that they are important, and even if they havent found their people, to keep trying and they will. Highly recommended and will recommend to students and those in the shop looking for something easy but poignant to read.

This wonderful graphic novel is about Shannon, who is trying to figure out if she should stay friends with her best friend Adrienne, who now wants to be friends with Jen, a very popular girl. This is a perfect book for elementary grade students who are trying to navigate the world of friendship as they grow and change.

A must-add title to any collection serving youth. High gloss and colorful pages add to reader engagement. Middle-grade story of finding friendship with out losing yourself.

This book came at the perfect time for my daughter. This semi-autobiographical graphic novel about Hale’s childhood echoes some of the problems my highly anxious child had to deal with. It is honest, and not every problem is easily fixed. Being the kid who doesn’t fit in is hard, and Hale confronts those problems head-on as she takes us through Shannon’s efforts to find true friendship.

Possible objectionable material:
This book hints at mental illness (obsessive compulsive disorder). There is some bullying and exclusion, classic “mean girl” behavior. Young Shannon talks to Jesus—Hale’s Twitter account indicated that some people thought she should keep religion out of it.

Who might like this book:
If you’ve ever felt like you don’t fit in, this book will resonate. Although the protagonist is a girl, many boys will be able to relate to the situations here as well.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for providing the ARC in exchange for my honest review.
This book is also reviewed at https://biblioquacious.blogspot.com/2022/01/a-bundle-of-books-from-one-of-my.html

Friends are hard, and Shannon Hale gets it. This was a little too flashbacky for comfort honestly, and very well dealt with. The protagonist is NOT perfect, and makes some bad decisions, because that's what people do when they're figuring things out! Really love the illustrations.

Brought to you by OBS reviewer Andra

Real Friends is the first graphic novel in the Real Friends series by Shannon Hale and illustrated by LeUyen Pham. I am torn about this title, especially as a learning read for the middle school young girl. I found it both entertaining and disturbing – for very different reasons.

The overall message that not everyone is your friend and that in due time, you will find your group where you fit in and can form true, lasting friendships is good – I found the treatment of Shannon both by a bully named Jen and her sister (her sister no less!!) abhorrent. Why was there not any adult intervention?

I was quite uncomfortable with Shannon getting hit by her sister with no adult reprisal from the parents – my oh my.

When I took the story at face value – that it was to help teach young readers that we do not always need to be liked by everyone – I found the story good. The tenacity of Shannon to try and fit in with Jen’s crowd was a good lesson – do not give up for what you want.

I also found the graphics very good. It showed a lot of depth and I loved the coloring, especially when differentiating between what happened and what Shannon was thinking.

With the violence by the sister being tolerated with no repercussions from the adults in their lives and the fact that the messaging could have been tempered a bit, I am sad to say that I would not read this title to my youngster.

I loved this book! The graphic novel format is perfect for a story to really connect with its middle grade readers and make its points about bullying and staying true to yourself in the end. Highly recommended!

Kudos to Shannon Hale for being brave in sharing this story. I can imagine there were times she contemplated whether she should share all of the things about her family. Girls and their cliques can be so hateful to others! Of course, I expected the update at the end, and knew some of the things would not be included unless they had turned out well. I have to admit that at times I got confused with all of the Jens, Jennys, and Jennifers. Some of the back and forth seemed a bit repetitive-- but that's what bullying is.

I wonder how many of the "girls" portrayed in the book have read it. I have met Shannon Hale in person, and she is wonderfully warm and approachable.

Shannon Hale is one of my all-time favorite authors and I was so happy to finally get to this graphic novel. It's charming and the perfect middle-grade book for kids struggling with friendship and middle school drama. Happy to recommend this often!

A great connection of text and comic, this book will resonate with the middle grade audience. Friendships grow and change all them time, but never more than in middle school

Great story that many middle grade readers will be able to relate to. A great story about the repercussions of bullying and the importance of remaining true to yourself.

Graphic novels are one of our best circulating collections and this is exactly the type of book that flies off the shelf every time it checks back in. The characters are well fleshed out and the drama that girls especially experience in upper elementary and middle school is realistically portrayed. Shannon's quest to find real friends is a great story and one that girls will readily identify with.

Authentic story will be popular with kids who like Babysitters Club, Sisters, and other realistic graphic novels.

Real Friends is an amazing graphic memoir by author Shannon Hale. There is no sugarcoating of her childhood in this book. Instead, she presents the realities of not fitting in, caving to feel like you belong, and having low self-esteem while also showing how she began understanding and appreciating her own self-worth. By presenting her story as a graphic novel, it allows the reader to feel like they are a part of the story. This is an excellent biography for anyone to read.

Navigating family life and friendships can be incredibly hard for young girls, especially when you think you are alone in your feelings and are plagued by doubts. This wonderful graphic novel brilliantly mirrors the feelings that many of us had as we maneuvered through the social madness of middle school. Shannon's bravery in standing up for herself gives readers the strength and courage to be themselves. Though I do not believe in required reading, this book is an essential read for all young girls. Recommended for 4th-6th grade.

Real Friends is a delight to read. It is a great insight in to Shannon Hale's childhood and upbringing. It also shows a lot readers that you can have negative and positive experiences that shape who you become, but don't define everything about you.

I loved this book. I am a librarian in an elementary school, and my 4th and 5th graders can't get enough of this book. It does a great job of talking about bullying, always a hot topic, and fitting in. Amazingly, both girls and boys can relate to this book, as it is equally checked out. Great portrayal of the often byzantine nature of young friendship.

This book is a great look at middle school years from the perspective of one girl. Through the book she navigates friendships and finding out who she really wants to be. A fantastic book to encourage girls to keep developing who they are regardless of the pressures of others.

In this graphic memoir, author Shannon Hale revisits her elementary school years and her experiences with friendship, cliques, siblings, and bullies.

Sandwiched in the middle between two older and two younger siblings, Shannon just wants to stay home with her mother. But, once Kindergarten begins, Shannon meets Adrienne and her life changes with a best friend. The two girls have lots of fun playing and having all kinds of imaginary adventures together, but Shannon’s possessiveness begins to bother Adrienne by second grade. And then Adrienne moves away and Shannon reluctantly makes another friend.

In third grade, Adrienne suddenly moves back, and she and Shannon continued to be friends, but now, other girls wanted to be friends with Adrienne. A group, referred to as The Group, forms around a girl named Jen, and Adrienne is immediately accepted into their clique, while Shannon is treated like an outside or only reluctantly and occasionally allowed to be part of The Group. Luckily, Jen already had a best friend, Jenny, so she isn’t interested in Adrienne. But Jenny quickly realizes that Shannon as just the kind of girl she can bully. Jealous that Jen and Shannon spend some time together during summer vacation, Jenny ramps up the bullying.

To add to Shannon’s distress, her older sister Wendy, who’s having her own friend problems, takes her anger and frustration out on her younger sister, verbally and physically. Shannon’s unpredictable up and down year becomes so stressful, she begins showing OCD symptoms and having frequent stomach aches.

Shannon’s life doesn’t change much in fourth grade, but when fifth grade starts, everything changes. And what Shannon learns about friendships and real friends is both eye-opening and thought provoking.

Shannon Hale is to be admired for addressing her elementary school years with such painful openness and honesty. Despite everything she experiences, she does not present herself as a victim, rather we see that she was a bit of a crybaby whenever her feelings were hurt, and, as her sister Wendy says, obnoxious at times. And a little on the selfish side as far as her friendship with Adrienne is concerned.

But readers also see that sometimes, elementary school age kids can be really mean - as in Jenny’s behavior, yet Hale makes it clear that Jenny also is dealing with her own tough issues. On the other hand, there is the boy who spits in Shannon’s face for no reason.

Shannon was a daydreamer, and so was I and my Kiddo. I appreciated the way she brought out how she missed things that no one else missed - for example, how did she not know everyone had put in for the same fifth grade class except her. That is exactly the kind of thing I remember happening to me and to my Kiddo. It’s the kind of thing that makes a kid feel even more like an outsider. But, Shannon’s daydreams, as they are presented in the graphics, also really show what a wonderfully vivid imagination she had and the very beginnings of her writing career.

The thing I especially liked about this book is that Hale makes it clear that she wasn’t only kid in her school who was on this roller coaster ride of family and social relationships. And her reason for writing such an open, honest look at those painful years: so that readers, young and old, who have had similar feelings and experiences, will know they weren’t the only one.

A word about the graphics: LeUyen Pham has really captured the essence of the early 1980s, when this story takes place. The colors, hairstyles, clothes are all so realistic (and I know, I remember). The colors are bold, and her images reflect the variety of emotions in recognizable facial expressions and body language throughout the book.

Despite its 1980s setting, Real Friends is a book that resonates in today's world and for that reason, I would recommend to young readers, as well as their parents and teachers.

This book is recommended for readers age 8+

Real Friends is probably the best title you can come up for this story, but unfortunately, it has very little to do with real friends. Maybe more in line with finding real friends or even figuring out who to spot real friends, but then you’d never be able to find the title for the story. My point is, don’t think that you’re going to read a happy story about “real friends” finding each other and going on great adventures. Not that this story isn’t happy, but it’s a lot like life in that everything comes in waves.

The story is autobiographical and follows author Shannon Hale through her first childhood friendships. What’s particularly great about this true story is that Hale acknowledges that it’s the truth to the best of her memory and that others may have a different story because everyone’s memory is different. After all, it’s set in elementary, and I would be hard pressed to remember this many details about those years myself and so my hats off to anyone that can remember this many details and structure it as a cohesive story.

As for the story, well it’s a familiar one in that it might have happened to you. Shannon makes friends with a girl named Adrienne, her first and best friend. Life pulls them apart, but luck brings them back together. A new school year begins, and Adrienne is friends with a girl named Jen from church, and so now Shannon finds herself in the precarious situation of having to share her friend. Eventually, a group forms and you’re either in the group or out. Jen is the leader of this group, but as the story goes on, it becomes clear that this is kind of a position that’s forced upon her due to her popularity with the other girls.

Shannon goes through a lot of ups and downs with the group, from not understanding her role in the group to being ousted for having too much fun with Jen. Shannon encounters bullies at school, but then also at home with her older sister. The sibling relationship is an interesting part of Real Friends because it shows how siblings can affect each other how that carries over to their friendships.

Without sugarcoating it the story is more sad than happy, but it does an incredible job of capturing the isolated feeling of loneliness that school seems to create. There’s no other experience that I can think of that can put you in emotional pain day in and day out, with no real way of fixing things. You almost need someone else to pull you out of despair or the courage to talk to someone about what you’re going through, and frankly, when you’re a kid, neither of those seems like viable options.

There are two great things about this story. The first is that it stars all female characters and never once delves into romance. The subject matter is friendship, and that’s where the focus stays. For that reason, it’s a great story for young girls to read and relate to, especially at an early age. The other great thing though, is that it’s so well-written and the experiences are universal that anyone can read this story and relate to it.

Bringing Hale’s story to life is LeUyen Pham’s wonderful illustrations. Pham’s artwork provides the tone of the book, and she does a wonderful job of bringing out emotions from the characters with facial expressions. You will truly feel Shannon’s loneliness, her job, her despair. More importantly, though, you’ll feel. You’ll be feeling the entire time, but you’ll root for Shannon, and a lot of that comes from Phan’s artwork. It’s clean, not overly detailed and perfect for the story. It’s great cartooning in that it’s complex in what details are added and subtracted. I’ll probably never find the words to describe that properly, but it’s something that hopefully makes sense when you see the artwork.

If you’re a parent of a young child that’s maybe not old enough to know the concept of friends, then this book might scare the crap out of you. It did for me because it made me remember what my childhood was like and realize that it’s a cycle that keeps ongoing and that my son could likely experience something similar. At least now I have a tool at my disposal to show him a better way to deal with things and let him know that it’s okay to talk about it.

Real Friends is a book all kids should read, but even more so a story that all parents should read with their kids. Which isn’t to say that no one else will enjoy Real Friends, quite the opposite. If you were a child once, which were you, then you’ll find that this is universally relatable and an entertaining story for all.