Dear Jackie by Jessixa Bagley, illustrated by Aaron Bagley. Simon & Schuster Books for Young People, 2025. 978-1534496576. 288pp.
Jackie and Milo are nervous about starting middle school, and they’re so close that Jackie’s mother calls Milo Jackie’s “replacement brother.” (Jackie’s real brother, Jabari, has just moved away from home.) Milo is the kind of boy who cries while reading comic books, and Jackie is not at all a girly girl. They’re perfect friends.
At school Milo immediately makes new friends while playing sports, and Jackie doesn’t like them at all. Her locker is below Adelle’s; Adelle wants to give Jackie fashion advice, and isn’t nice about it at all.
As notes start to get passed and kids start pairing off, Jackie deals with her isolation by writing herself notes on a typewriter she finds in Jabari’s room. At first they’re the kind of things she wishes someone would say to her, to give her a boost. But soon, tired of more and more people telling her to act and dress more like a girl, Jackie types herself a note from a secret admirer and sticks it in Adelle’s locker “by mistake.” When Adelle finds it, people are shocked, but they also become nicer to Jackie. As everyone tries to figure out who likes Jackie, the whole situation becomes more and more precarious.
Worth noting: Early in the book, Jackie tries to dye her hair with disastrous results. (It’s pretty funny, too.) And Jabari is the best older sibling ever.
This is the second tween graphic novel by the Bagleys, who also wrote/created/illustrated Duel, the fencing graphic novel with lots of sibling rivalry.
