Writer Shannon Hale and artist LeUyen Pham will follow up Real Friends, Hale’s memoir of her grade school years (a Top 10 BookScan title in 2017, see "Full Year 2017 BookScan – Top 20 Kids Graphic Novels"), with Best Friends, which follows Hale into sixth grade, the oldest grade in her school.

Real Friends dealt with friendship and bullying, and while Hale starts out as one of the popular kids in Best Friends, there is no guarantee that her school life will go smoothly. (The roller coaster on the cover is a clue to what it will really be like.)

Real Friends was named one of the best books of the year by School Library Journal and the best graphic novel of 2017 by Parents Magazine, and it also made the YALSA Great Graphic Novels for Teens list.  Pitched at readers aged 8-11, Best Friends will be published on August 28, 2019 in hardcover at $21.99, and in trade paperback at $12.99.