This is a great middle great graphic novel. It touches on friendship, crushes, lgbtq identities, religion, family, coming of age, bodily changes, etc. It really captures that time of life when we all feel a little lost as we figure out who we are and how to present that to the people on our life. The art is terrific and the story was very touching.

This was a good book that looked at bisexual and how a person in these day images deal with modern day situations.

Katie goes to church, she is home schooled, and she loves theater.She is so hoping to be lead in the play Annie, but doesn’t get it. However, she lands the role of one of the orphans, as do the girls she is performing with. There is something so freeing about being part of the theater, something she is not allowed to feel in both church and in the home schooling group she is in.

All her friends keep talking about boys they have crushes on, and Katie can’t join in, because she doesn’ts have these feelings. At least not these feelings for a boy.

The author said she wrote this for all the kids out there who are afraid of what they are feeling, and hide that part of themselves to fit in with the norm. She says she wishes she had had a book like this when she was growing up.

Oh, I know that so well. I also remember all the girls talking about boys they liked, when I, like Katie, had a crush on a girl. You can pretend to be part of the group, but it feels wrong, and that is what Katie feels.

This book does not, of course, solve all the problems of going through puberty and having first crushes, but it does show a way to navigate those waters.

Thanks to Netgalley for making this book available for an honest review. This book is coming out the 29th of October 2024.

Turning Twelve is an incredible graphic novel that all upper MG readers and beyond should read and will absolutely love. The characters are well-developed and easy to connect with, readers will feel for Katie as she navigates the struggles of becoming 12: her best friends are temporarily moving away, she is home-schooled, she gets her period for the first time, and she has her first crush. Katie feels alone and is nervous that liking a girl is wrong. Throughout the book she learns that it's important to be who you are, it's okay to disappoint people, and that being true to yourself should be your top priority. This book is important and needed by so many! I highly recommend it!

This book was so beautifully written! I have never read a book that left me in such happy tears. Everything with the church and the friends was on point with what happens in real life and it was brought this book in such a cute way. I almost wanted to hear more about Katie and Grace!

This graphic novel follows Katie who is turning 12 and learning she has new things in life to worry about: getting her period, having a crush on a girl, losing friends, and questioning God. It is a great book for girls who are entering this age and trying to figure all of these life changes out. Middle school is a hard time for a lot of children so this book can help them explore their feelings regarding these topics.

A great graphic novel to include in classroom libraries.

I felt that this graphic novel tackled sexism and homophobia, particularly in religious circles, very well. Rather than telling the reader outright that homophobia is bad, the dialogue in the graphic novel allows the reader to think about equity and guide them toward their own understanding.

I think this would be a very beneficial read for tweens in similar scenarios.

The MG sequel to Growing Pangs by @kathsby @goodgollyetc
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Katie is so excited for her twelfth birthday pool party, but quickly realizes growing up isn’t all fun and games. One of her friends has to move away for a while, her new babysitting gig is tiring and new year as a seventh grader is looming where Katie will have to deal with crushes, shaving and body changes. And while everyone is crushing on boys, Katie realizes she might have feelings for her new friend, Grace, but is afraid to tell anyone for fear they won’t accept or understand her.
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Honestly time: I haven’t read Growing Pangs yet, but I definitely will now after this graphic novel Katie is such a likable character, as well as relatable. Her OCD issues are ones many kids can connect with. Turning Twelve is our generation’s Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret. Read the author notes! This book releases October 29!

CW: homophobia, mental health issues, OCD, anxiety, religious trauma, sexism

Books like these need to exist, but those looking for a more universal graphic novel might find the specific issues Katie struggles with in regards to religion and sexuality specific and niche.

My daughter read this in a few hours. She is a 5th grader and she couldn’t put it down. It is a great story about figuring out who you are. Middle school is hard, and this book was so relatable.

This is a follow up to Growing Pangs and was an adorable addition to the series. Katie is growing up and entering puberty. I enjoyed watching her character learn more about herself and the world. This story is full of ups and downs and is super relatable. I liked seeing how Katie was exploring her feelings in a healthy way and just trying to understand the expectations from her family, friends, church, and herself. I think this is a great coming of age tale for preteens who are becoming more independent and experiencing new feelings.

Okay, that's it, I'm obsessed!
Turning Twelve is the follow-up novel to Growing Pangs, where readers were introduced to Katie, a middle school girl who finds herself growing apart from her best friend and experiencing more anxiety. In Turning Twelve, Katie is more confident in her friendships and herself. She sees a therapist for her anxiety and OCD. She's trying out for a play during the summer, and watching her friends start to form crushes... And then Katie realizes that she might have a crush on a girl. How does that work, when she goes to church and attends a youth group where she's told that her existence is a temptation for men, and that only men and women can be together (otherwise God cries)?
A perfect, age-appropriate bildungsroman that ends on a happy, hopeful note. Highly recommend.

A very good, honest look at the age. I especially appreciated the author's afterward. We need more books like this.

Turning Twelve is a fantastic sequel to Growing Pangs. The story will resonate with middle school readers who also are exploring new friendships and new relationships. Everyone will find something to relate to. Highly recommended for middle school collections.

I really loved this follow up to Growing Pangs. It was cute and fun, but also very realistic and didn't offer easy solutions to friends moving away, dealing with religious homophobia while coming to understanding your own sexuality, or realizing sometimes friends turn on you and you never get an explanation why. It felt very true to real life in that people often experience a situation and never get to confront an antagonist or have everything neatly solved, they just move forward with the new knowledge. It's one of the things I like best about this book and the first. It also made reference to being in therapy to get a better handle on OCD symptoms.

This surprisingly was one of the few areas I felt a bit let down. The first book, Growing Pangs, did a phenomenal job of depicting OCD compulsions and the "buzzing thoughts" but it took a major backseat in this one. We're told at the beginning that the thoughts had quieted down some recently but weren't gone, so I did think it made sense we weren't seeing them at first. But when things start becoming difficult we don't really see the resurgence depicted either despite the narrative asserting there is one. We're told "the thoughts are getting loud" and see one instance of a compulsion followed by a mention to the therapist that the thoughts had gotten worse again, but that's pretty much it. It felt very tell, not show this time around.

I loved how we saw the crush develop and the way friends become pen pals and the importance of having community spaces where you feel you can be yourself. I'd definitely enjoy another installment if one ever comes along.

In this sequel we follow Katie at the end of her sixth grade summer and the start of seventh grade. Set in the early 2000"s we see how Katie handles bullies, friends moving away, her OCD, and getting her period to name a few things. The focus of this novel really is Katie realizing that she might not just have crushes on boys but also on girls. This is very distressing for Katie because she is heavily involved in church life. Her church teaches that queerness is a sin, purity is necessary, and modesty is to be taken seriously. While I cannot personally speak to all the things Katie experiences in this book, I can say the author did an amazing job at conveying what it was like growing up in the purity culture of the 2000's painfully accurately. This graphic novel handles all of these situations with the right balance of seriousness and humor. It pulled at my heart strings for sure. While the book doesn't wrap everything up in a pretty bow (because life doesn't work like that anyway), it ends on a beautifully hopeful note of what the future could hold for Katie.

The author's note at both the beginning and end of the story also do a wonderful job of explaining her experiences and what she hopes the reader will take away from Katie's story.

As an aside, if the reader does not have the experience of being raised in what would be described as a, traditional conservative American christian church environment, they might struggle to connect with some of the content. That is because that particular upbringing is what fosters Katie distress and response of her discovering more about herself.


Thank you Net Galley and Random House Children's for early access in exchange for an honest review.

A quick read tackling a tough topic! Watching Katie wrestle with the realization of her queerness was very true to life. A great book to give to kids of all identities - windows and mirrors!

I loved Growing Pangs, so I was thrilled to see that Kathryn Ormsbee was returning to Katie's universe with "Turning Twelve." I think Turning Twelve will be powerful for certain audiences, but as someone who identifies as non-religious, many of the parts of the book that dealt with the double standards and casual sexism that Katie faced at church as well as the messages of the "evils" of same-sex marriage did not resonate with me. I do not doubt that this story will be so important and so affirming for some of my students, but I don't think it will have the same universal appeal to our library of readers as "Growing Pangs" did. I am so thankful that Random House Children's is publishing middle-grade literature that will push families and communities to have critical conversations around feminism, sexism, and same-sex marriage. It would be easy in the current political climate to shy away from these topics, but it is more important now than it ever has been for quality literature to make its way into the hands of our kids!

Special thanks to NetGalley and Random House Children's for providing an Advanced Reader's Copy in exchange for an unbiased review.

I don't love the art style of this series, which I think is why I never picked up Growing Pangs, but Turning Twelve was a very pleasant surprise. This will satisfy my fourth- and fifth-grade patrons who hunger for tales of first periods and first crushes. Any current or former theater kid will definitely see themselves in this story. Adding this to my pre-order list for the fall!

Many thanks to the creators, publisher, and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review!

In this sequel to Growing Pangs, Katie is dealing with the fact that her two best friends have to go visit a sick relative for a long time, and she has to go to her church group by herself, where she doesn't feel very comfortable. She does have a job babysitting, which is a challenge she enjoys. She also likes going to the local theater group, where she tries out for the lead role in ANNIE. She doesn't get it, but makes friends with Grace. Katie is not a fan of all of the trappings of puberty, especially when talk at church turns rather sexist and judgemental about girls and women, and especially about the "evils" of same sex relationships. Since she starts to recognize that her feelings for Grace are more of a crush, what does this mean?

This is a good choice for readers who like the tween angst in graphic novels like Miller's Curlfriends, Hale's Best Friends, Johnson's Twins, Gros' Jo, or Knisley's Stepping Stones. It's similar to Dee's Star Crossed, but set in the 1990s.

This graphic novel captures well the pre-teen years of changing bodies, friendships, and crushes, while also trying to stay true to yourself.