• Age: 9 to 12
• Grade: 4 to 7
• Reading age: 9 to 12

Key Selling Points

• In their small coastal town, Addie lives with her mom and little brother...until her mom (who struggles with alcoholism and depression) leaves and Addie is forced to take care of herself and her brother, without anyone finding out.
• Refusing the easy answers, Picture a Girl looks unflinchingly at the life of an 11-year-old girl who has learned to be an adult in her mother's absence and to lie to keep her family together.
• Shows surfing in a less glamorous way, as Addie's mother's only true "happy place" and an obsession that can take precedence over her kids—but also reveals it as a way forward for the family, after she returns and promises to give Addie and Billy regular surfing lessons.
• Jenny Manzer is the author of Save Me, Kurt Cobain , which was nominated for the Bolen Books Children's Book Prize, and My Life as a Diamond , which was nominated for numerous awards and named one of Bank Street College of Education's Best Books of the Year.

Jenny Manzer's profile page

Jenny Manzer is the author of Save Me, Kurt Cobain and My Life as a Diamond, which was shortlisted for numerous awards, including the Diamond Willow Award, Chocolate Lily Award, Victoria Children’s Book Prize and the Silver Birch Award. She has a degree in creative writing and was a finalist for the 2013 CBC Creative Nonfiction Prize, one of Canada’s most prestigious literary competitions. She lives with her family in Victoria, British Columbia.

“This heartbreaking but uplifting middle-grade novel about the power of the stories we tell ourselves and others transports readers to a coastal Canadian town…This is a timeless tale of resilience in the face of not only poverty but substance abuse…Manzer’s writing is crisp but flows like the waves Addie yearns to ride.”

Booklist