Online reader copies were clogging up my number of emails I had saved. One of those was Wrong Friend by Charise Mericle Harper and Rory Lucey as Illustrator. It came out in January 2026, therefore you can run out and get yourself, or your child more likely, a copy.
And while I enjoyed this fun, easy but not simple, story about friendship and changes, there was no wow factor for me. Things were messy, but then again, friendships are messy. As the adult reading I said that I was not keen on how our main character was acting, but knew I was not really the audience. Maybe the 8 to 13 aged reader could get more out of it.
The story is fairly straightforward: a girl and her best friend are inseparable until the best friend, who is a couple years older than our narrator, goes to high school. And how do you tell you friend you no longer want to be friends? Call, letter, to their face, or ignore them? Well, you read and see what happens. Then our main character goes about trying to make new friends with a lot of bumps in the road, all the while making good grades, doing extracurricular activities and being a kid. Nothing wild, but it works to capture the attention of the reader.
The illustrations are you can judge by the cover. You see the bubbly, colorful, mediumly detailed artwork. Things keep with the lack of wow but are likable. Everything is nice, cozy and accessible. As an adult reader I would pick up other books by author and illustrator, but it might not be my first choice. This is not Harper’s first dive into the writing world, but I wonder how much is based on her this time around as the character and author share the same first name.
For the youngest readers you can read their Just Grace series, for the 10 up crowd the graphic novel Bad Sister and there are several picture books for the to-be-read-too crowd.
