Aimee Lucido's hybrid middle grade novel explores the fraught relationship between sisters as they navigate their differences and their parents' divorce-beautifully told in words and comic panels.
Olive collects words. Rare words, common words, fancy words, funny words. She expresses herself through definitions, poetry, and crossword puzzles that she creates.
Her sister, Mattie, could not be more opposite. Mattie struggles with words and prefers pictures instead, expressing herself through cartoons and sketches.
Despite their differences, the two girls are inseparable. Or at least they were. After their dad moves to Durham, North Carolina, where he works as a professor during the week, and Olive develops a crush on Max Tucker and begins making friends other than Mattie, the sisters' dynamic changes. With their dad gone and acting suspiciously when he's home, their mom hovering over them about grades, and their own relationship fracturing, Olive and Mattie, through crossword puzzles and sketches, definitions and doodles, come to realize that love doesn't always look how we envision and it and that sometimes letting someone go is the best way to show you love them.
| ISBN: | 9780358729914 |
| Publication date: | 6th November 2025 |
| Author: | Aimee Lucido |
| Illustrator: | Phillippa Corcutt, Rachael Corcutt |
| Publisher: | Versify an imprint of HarperCollins |
| Format: | Paperback |
| Pagination: | 400 pages |
| Genres: |
Children’s / Teenage general interest: Girls and women PSHE: Divorce PSHE: Siblings Children’s / Teenage personal and social topics: First / new experiences and growing up / coming of age PSHE: Self-Awareness, Self-Esteem and Wellbeing PSHE: Family Issues Children’s / Teenage fiction: General, modern and contemporary fiction Stories about Family and Friends |