A pitch-perfect middle-grade graphic memoir about crushes, coming out, and finding the courage to be yourself.Eighth grade isn't off to a great start. Everyone but Rex seems to be coupling up, and he's starting to feel like an outsider... until he meets Charlotte. She's fearless, smart, pretty, and she likes him back. But as great as Charlotte is, there's someone else Rex can't stop thinking about.Drew is Rex's childhood best friend, so when he kisses Rex, ...

A funny, feel-good middle-grade graphic memoir about breaking out, battling puberty, and braving complicated friendships.It's time to face facts!On the first day of seventh grade, Rex encounters a bump in the road -- a big angry pimple right in the center of his forehead. And this is only the beginning of his problems. What follows is a frustrating battle with stubborn acne, body odor, and other embarrassments of puberty. Still struggling with a home life e...

A humorous and heartwarming middle-grade graphic memoir about fitting in, facing bullies, and finding the right pair of glasses.Sixth grade isn't as great as Rex thought it would be. He's the only kid who hasn't had a growth spurt, and the bullies won't let him forget it. His closest friend is unreliable, at best. And there's a cute girl in his class, who may or may not like him back. With so much going on, everything is a blur -- including Rex's vision! So when he...

Winner of the 2020 YALSA Excellence in Nonfiction Award.Instead of giving him lunch money, Rex’s mom has signed him up for free meals. As a poor kid in a wealthy school district, better-off kids crowd impatiently behind him as he tries to explain to the cashier that he’s on the free meal program. The lunch lady is hard of hearing, so Rex has to shout.Free Lunch is the story of Rex’s efforts to navigate his first semester of sixth grade—who to sit w...

A New York Public Library Best Book of 2021The companion to Rex Ogle’s award-winning Free Lunch is a searing account of adolescence in a household torn by domestic violence.Punching Bag is the compelling true story of a high school career defined by poverty and punctuated by outbreaks of domestic abuse. Rex Ogle, who brilliantly mapped his experience of hunger in Free Lunch, here describes his struggle to survive;...

A Printz Award Honor BookA Stonewall Book Award Honor BookHorn Book Fanfare Best Book of the YearA Kirkus Reviews Best Book of the YearA School Library Journal Best Book of the YearAn Amazon Best Book of the YearA Chicago Public Library Best of the Best Book of the YearThis final, es...

**A Finalist for the 2023 YALSA Excellence in Young Adult Nonfiction Award.Rex Ogle’s companion to Free Lunch and Punching Bag weaves humor, heartbreak, and hope into life-affirming poems that honor his grandmother’s legacy.**In his award-winning memoir Free Lunch, Rex Ogle’s abuela features as a source of love and support. In this companion-in-verse, Rex captures and celebrates the powerful presence a woman he could always count on—to give him wa...

**"Monsters have never been so much fun." –Stuart Gibbs, New York Times bestselling author of the Spy School series"Frightening and fun!" –Neil Patrick Harris, New York Times bestselling author of The Magic Misfits**Readers will be scared silly in this spooky and hilarious middle grade series starter about a town chock-full of monsters and the kids who must unravel centuries of secrets to save it.Will Hunter thought his li...

Rex Ogle explores bonds of loyalty and friendship and how they’re tested by drugs and violence in this propulsive novel-in-verse.Diego Benevides works hard. His single mother encourages him to stay focused on school, on getting into college, on getting out of their crumbling neighborhood. That’s why she gave him her car.Diego’s best friend, Lawson, needs a ride—because Lawson is dealing. As long as Diego’s not carrying, not selling, it’s cool. It’s just wee...

Rex Ogle explores bonds of loyalty and friendship and how they’re tested by drugs and violence in this propulsive novel-in-verse.Diego Benevides works hard. His single mother encourages him to stay focused on school, on getting into college, on getting out of their crumbling neighborhood. That’s why she gave him her car.Diego’s best friend, Lawson, needs a ride—because Lawson is dealing. As long as Diego’s not carrying, not selling, it’s cool. It’s just wee...

One hot summer afternoon, Rex Ogle’s sexuality is found out and his father gives him an ultimatum: you can be gay, or you can live here, but not both—and you have twenty-four hours to decide. Rex desperately hopes for a reprieve that doesn’t come, and the following day, he leaves. With no place to go, he drives to New Orleans, where he has the phone number of a man he met briefly and kissed once.This is a story of coming out, a first love that turns to betrayal, assault, and homele...

“Monsters have never been so much fun.” —Stuart Gibbs, New York Times bestselling author of the Spy School series on The Supernatural SocietyWelcome back to East Emerson, a town chock-full of monsters, in this spooky and hilarious middle grade series about three kids who must unravel centuries of secrets to save the day.Will Hunter just wants a quiet day in East Emerson. But instead:A bully won’t leave him al...