Shannon hale friends series
![shannon hale friends series shannon hale friends series](https://imagesvc.meredithcorp.io/v3/mm/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fstatic.onecms.io%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2Fsites%2F6%2F2016%2F02%2Ffirst-friends-01.jpg)
The book features a young Shannon, an imaginative but insecure girl who struggles to find a place amongst her group of friends at school: Adrienne, her easygoing and pretty best friend Jenny, the most popular girl in school Jen, the bully with her own problems Wendy, her older sister struggling with her own identity and Zara and Veronica, two cool older girls whom everyone wishes they’d known as kids. Bullies sometimes come in the form of friends and family, and that’s the hardest to deal with. LeUyen Pham: Grade school is tough, and sometimes those places where you should feel safest are the areas you sometimes are the most frightened of being. Maybe that will give them extra hope for themselves. And I thought, maybe it’ll be that much more comforting to my readers to see that I had some tough times at their age, and that I survived and made good. But ultimately I kept coming back to my own daughter, how much it meant to her to read the real stories of. I was really hesitant to try to portray my memories of real people, even though I changed their names. When readers criticize the main character of this book, they’ll be directly criticizing me, and at my most vulnerable! It was a tough decision to dive in and write it as memoir.
![shannon hale friends series shannon hale friends series](https://i5.walmartimages.ca/images/Enlarge/333/178/6000202333178.jpg)
#Shannon hale friends series series#
We talked through possibly using them as a basis for a fictional series of graphic novels. Shannon Hale: In 2014, for the first time in over a decade, I had no book under contract and I gave myself some time to take a breath and ask, what do I want to create next? What do I need to create? And in that breath of space, I found myself drawn to memories of elementary school.Īfter I wrote out lots of different memories I had of my childhood, I consulted with my editor, Connie Hsu, about what to do with them.
![shannon hale friends series shannon hale friends series](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/539c4b33e4b0c64be2195a43/1572000476762-SCU864ZJCN0EKNVMEKAR/best+friends+1.jpg)
Pham and Hale discussed via email "Real Friends," creating stories for young readers and the difficulties of elementary school.Ĭan you share some background on "Real Friends"? What is it about and what kind of characters can readers look forward to? "Real Friends," from First Second Books, is set to be released May 2, 2017. Hale and Pham have previously collaborated on the bestselling " Princess in Black" series for young readers. See the most-read stories in Entertainment this hour » I saw the power in that kind of a book, and I thought maybe there were readers who might feel less alone if they could read and see how alone I had felt at their age too."
![shannon hale friends series shannon hale friends series](https://i2.wp.com/readingmiddlegrade.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/real-friends-book-review.png)
"But my daughter didn’t consider herself a 'reader' until she discovered graphic novel memoirs like 'Smile’ by Raina Telgemeier and 'El Deafo' by Cece Bell. "I often retold events of my childhood to my own kids or to kids at school visits, but never before had I considered writing a memoir," said Hale about the pseudo-memoir. "It’s about a young girl, Shannon, who struggles with her friendships at school and her relations at home, particularly her older sister." "I think almost anyone will find something to relate to with this book," said Pham. And there’s no better way to get into the back-to-school spirit than with new graphic novel “Real Friends,” set on the playgrounds of grade school.Īuthor Shannon Hale and artist LeUyen Pham have teamed up for "Real Friends," a story about tough times in grade school, where kids have to learn to navigate friendships, safe spaces and bullies all set in the retro days of the late ‘70s early ‘80s in Salt Lake City. Summer vacation has come and gone and now kids are back in school.