Smile by Raina Telgemeier

Racing with a friend to her front porch after Girl Scouts, 11-year-old Raina trips and falls, knocking out her two front teeth. What follows is the funny, mortifying and charmingly real adventure, not only of Raina’s often-painful physical transformation over the next four years, but also many the pitfalls of adolescence. Originally published as a weekly webcomic on Girlamatic.com, this full-color, lively graphic novel will have the reader at turns cringing and bouncing for joy right along with its heroine. Raina is a likable, regular character and someone for whom you really want things to work out. Fans of fiction like Flipped by Wendelin Van Draanen or one of Gordon Korman’s (admittedly zanier) fish-out-of water stories, such as Schooled,  may well like this one, too.