Invisible Emmie

Invisible Emmie is a book I missed when it came out a few years ago, and I've noticed a few folks reading it so I decided to check it out. It is a look at a couple of disparate 13-year-olds whose lives intersect due to a misplaced note. Emmie is quiet and stressed, going through her school day trying not to be noticed or draw attention to herself. She tends to express herself by drawing. Personally, I found her a very relatable protagonist.

This is the beginning of Emmie's story.

Katie is confident and popular, and she seems to get along with everyone in very positive ways. She is athletic, gets good grades, and finds success with whatever she sets out to do. She is very kind, too, and I found it refreshing that she was not portrayed as a mean girl.

Meet Katie!

As you can see, the ways their stories were told puts them even more in contrast, with Emmie's more introspective, text-heavy in the style of illustrated books like Diary of a Wimpy Kid and Katie's side of things depicted colorfully in comics format.

Both girls are in many classes together, both like the same boy named Tyler, but they do not have many interactions. Tyler asks Katie to be his girlfriend, which puts more of a damper on Emmie. One day, Emmie and the one friend she can be herself with, Brianna, write silly, over-the-top love notes to their crushes to entertain themselves. Somehow, Emmie's note to Tyler falls out of her binder and gets picked up by the class prankster, Joe, who makes sure that lots of people see it. Katie actually jumps in to check in on Emmie, and from there the two young women's lives go through some rapid twists and changes. I won't spoil things, but I found what happened to be quite compelling and interesting, a fun twist on teenage drama.

This book was created by Terri Libenson, a Reuben Award winning cartoonist honored in 2016 for her ongoing strip The Pajama Diaries. In addition to collections of that strip, she has also published two books spinning off from Invisible Emmie, Positively Izzy and Just Jaime, which are also best-sellers. She speaks more about her inspirations for the Emmie books in this interview.

The reviews I have read about this book have been positive. Publishers Weekly wrote, "A well-executed twist will have readers flipping back to see what they missed while cheering the strides made by Libenson’s no-longer-invisible heroine." School Library Journal's verdict was "A highly relatable middle grade drama. Recommended for most collections." Kirkus Reviews was more lukewarm on the book, summing up, "Classic middle school themes come alive, but they fail to really go anywhere."

Invisible Emmie was published by Balzer + Bray, and they offer a sample and more about it here.