Raina grew up wishing for a sister to play with and wanting to hang out with her slightly older cousins, but now that she’s in middle school and she actually has a sister, things don’t exactly go according to plan.

This book might seem like it’s about a simple sibling rivalry, but it really gets to the heart of family dynamics. Last year Telgemeier released a companion book to Smile, titled Sisters, which features a young Raina and her family, including her rival of a sister, going on a road trip to a family reunion. It also features some really great young gay male characters, which is something drastically lacking in all-ages media. Like Smile, a large part of the book focuses on being proud of who you are and finding a group of friends who are proud of that person too. This is probably my favorite of her books. Drama is about a middle school girl named Callie who works as the set designer for her school’s musical and tries to deal with both the drama of the theatre onstage and the drama of friends, identity, boys and school dances offstage. It’s a great look at learning to love yourself and stand up for yourself, especially at an age when that kind of stuff can be really hard.Īfter Smile came Drama. We then follow her as she tries to not be self-conscious about her teeth while her so-called friends bully her - sometimes because of her teeth, sometimes for just being herself. The book starts with Raina falling on her face after a Girl Scout meeting, knocking one of her front teeth out and pushing the other up into her gums. Within fifteen minutes of reading this book I was in love with Telgemeier’s work. Telgemeier’s first and, so far, most popular book is Smile, a story about her own experiences as a middle schooler learning to deal with braces, growth and changing friends. The Autostraddle Encyclopedia of Lesbian Cinema.LGBTQ Television Guide: What To Watch Now.

Raina telgemeier all books