The Moon Without Stars - Hardcover

Miller, Chanel

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0593624556 ISBN 13: 9780593624555

Verlag: Philomel Books, 2026

Inhaltsangabe

The New York Times bestselling, Newbery Honor–winning author of Magnolia Wu Unfolds It All explores the way growing up, finding friends, and discovering who you are can be both awkward and empowering in this heartfelt middle school novel.

At the beginning of seventh grade, Luna knows who she is: an observant, quiet girl who loves writing and making zines with her best friend, Scott. But when one of their zines takes off, Luna is somehow swept up into the popular group and learns just how much of herself she's going to have to compromise to stay there. Will she give up her writing? Her best friend? What about her own beliefs about who she is and what she stands for?

Featuring author-illustrator Chanel Miller’s signature line drawings, The Moon Without Stars is a deeply personal and often funny novel about what it means to lose and then find yourself again during the vulnerable, life-changing years of middle school.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Chanel Miller is a writer and artist. Her first children’s book, Magnolia Wu Unfolds It All, was a Newbery Honor winner and an instant New York Times bestseller. It was also a TODAY show Read with Jenna Jr selection, a Good Housekeeping Best Kids’ Book Awards winner, a New York Times for Kids pick, a The Week Junior book club selection, a People magazine summer reading pick, a Junior Library Guild selection, and an Indie Next pick. Her memoir, Know My Name, was a New York Times bestseller, a New York Times Book Review Notable Book, and a winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, the Ridenhour Book Prize, and the California Book Award. It was also a best book of the year in TIME, The Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, NPR, and People, among others. She was named one of the Forbes 30 Under 30 and a Time Next 100 honoree and was a Glamour Woman of the Year honoree. You can visit her online at Chanel-Miller.com or follow her on Instagram @Chanel_Miller.

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PROLOGUE

Most people assume a life-changing event requires summiting a snowcapped mountain, saving someone from a burning building, or winning a bajillion dollars. The reality is you can change your life with a single word. Up until seventh grade, I’d been an introvert with exactly one friend, content with the uneventful. But everything would start to shift, to slip slowly into unexpected joy and catastrophe, all because of the afternoon I chose to say, “Okay.”

It was an overcast day. Bag of grapes, block of cheddar cheese, lukewarm lemonade, and two lawn chairs on a faded yellow blanket. Ten days left of summer. Scott tossed his head back, his mouth agape, trying to catch a Goldfish cracker up in the air. It bounced off his chin and landed near my feet. I brushed my bangs aside, dog-eared a page. A creaking sound, the wheels of a metal wagon. Our heads turned in unison. Poppy’s mom, long face, unruly hair, purple windbreaker, was pulling her wagon with the black karaoke machine up the sidewalk. I knew it wasn't polite to stare and glued my eyes back to my book.

Poppy Lee had been in the grade above me, but died, after a long illness. Passed away, that’s the polite term, but it comes out to the same thing. I guess death is a scary word, the thhh at the end sounds like a tire leaking air and the hard d of death sounds like done, like door. It’s final, shut. After Poppy died, her mom started showing up in the park with this karaoke machine and microphone attached to a long wire. Singing and swaying all day long, eyes closed. Some people complained she sounded like a mosquito. Said, She’s gone off her rocker. Cuckoo bananas. It’s haunting. Like a wailing cat! Poor woman. So melancholy. But nobody intervened, they just let her be.

I heard the wheels come to a stop and glanced up.

“Poppy loved to read,” she said. I looked behind me, made sure I was the one she was addressing.

“So many books at home, and nothing to do with them,” she said. “Would you like them?”

Her eyes burrowed straight into mine. Without moving my head, I slid my pupils to my left toward Scott. I saw the barely perceptible tilt of his head forward, an affirmation.

“Will you take them?” Mrs. Lee said.

“Okay,” I said to her, and that was it, my whole rest of the year hinged on that moment.

“Okay! Smart girl. Poppy will be happy. I’ll have Palmer drop them off later.”

She seemed relieved and began humming as she dragged her wagon away.

***

That evening, a cream-colored minivan pulled up out front. I could hear the engine click off, the crickets chirping outside. The doorbell rang, my dad called out, “Who is it?” And I yelled back, “Just a delivery, I got it!”

Poppy’s older brother, Palmer, sixteen, stood in the doorframe, swoopy haired, tall and narrow as a palm tree. I’d put on my best sweater. Not to impress him or anything, it was just the first time a boy, other than Scott, had come over. But Scott didn’t count; I’ve known him since I had a consciousness, feel neutral toward him like I would toward a penguin.

“Come in,” I said. Palmer’s lanky arms were wrapped around a cardboard box, the hard edges pressing red lines into his forearms. So began the quiet rhythm of Palmer setting boxes down, one by one, with a subtle exhale. The shushing sound of boxes sliding over the carpet and into my room, heat generated from the friction. Palmer’s forehead began to shimmer. I rushed to the fridge to see if I could get him a cold drink, but we only had soy milk.

“I think that’s it,” he said.

I held out a handful of White Rabbit candies from the kitchen drawer. He hesitated, then reached out and took one.

“Thank you,” I said. “The inside wrapper is just sticky rice paper—you don’t have to peel it off. You can eat it.”

He nodded. “Noted.” He perched himself on the arm of the couch, signifying he had no intention of staying, just needed to rest.

“So you think you’re going to read all of them?” he said.

I nodded, so firmly my chin touched my chest.

“Okay, good. She loved those things, read them while she was sick, called them her ‘little companions.’ So don’t—don’t waste them.”

***

Late at night, I sat alone in my room, the cardboard boxes staring at me like a herd of sheep that’d gotten lost and wandered into the wrong meadow. I worried it was bad luck to have accepted them, thinking about how the last hours of Poppy’s life had been spent turning these pages. I vowed to make good use of them. So I said, “Thank you, Poppy!” out loud into the air, in case she could hear me. And then I said it one more time, a little louder. I don’t believe in ghosts, but I do believe in not being a bumhole. I tore the first box open.

***

Over the next ten days I downed them, one after the other, like potato chips. I read every genre, but what broke my mind open was nonfiction—memoirs, which I’d always assumed were just old people going through sad things. Poppy had highlighted entire passages until they glowed yellow, drew tiny hearts and exclamation points and scribbled, Do this. It turns out people were also conducting big lives in places that were not here. Destructive, adventurous, willy-nilly lives. And no one was asking petty questions like, What grade did you get? How do you think you did on that test?

Characters in books were feeling everything; angst, heartbreak, elation, rejection, awe. I was realizing I hadn’t felt nearly as much. In fact, of all the things to feel in a lifetime, I’d collected maybe two and a half important feelings. It was slightly embarrassing, how little my life had been. How I’d never stirred the pot, wouldn’t even have the spoon to do it.

Truth is, I’d always assumed life would begin later, when I was older, my real life. That middle school was just the part I had to get through. Poppy’s books were nudging me to pay attention, because life was already happening and I should be ready to feel everything.

CHAPTER ONE: OKUBO COMETS MIDDLE SCHOOL

On the first day of seventh grade, our mascot, a comet, stood at the entrance waving to kids, looking like a happy meatball on fire. I watched cars line up, classmates hopping out, crisp collared, hair brushed, teeth brushed, wearing smooth-nosed sneakers. This was a fresh start, a clean slate. The purity of a beginning, when all of us were perfect and guilty of nothing.

I watched girls flock over to June; I swear she swallowed a magnet when she was a baby, the way people were pulled toward her. Everyone found their herds while I rocked on my heels waiting for Scott Mango. Scott, with his wire-rimmed glasses like bent paper clips. Scott, who always wears a rust-colored hoodie, sleeves dangling past his hands. Scott, who peels oranges when he’s anxious, gunky citrus permanently wedged beneath his fingernails. Scott, who is naturally smart like he took all these classes in a past life. He jogged over, thumped a thick paperback on top of my head.

“Hey, Luna . . . Luna balloona, Luna bafoona, Luny tuny,” he said.

“Hey, Scott . . . Scotty potty, Scotty bugatti, Scotty with a body,” I said.

I flicked him in the ear as hard as I could, which was like a hug, since we don’t hug. He kneeled on the pavement and picked up my limp shoelaces.

“Get it together, lady,” he said, turning the lines...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Philomel Books
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2026
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0593624556
• ISBN 13: 9780593624555
• Einband: Gebundene Ausgabe
• Anzahl der Seiten: 256
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Philomel; https://www.timetex.com/de-de/; ; 1745 BROADWAY Attn: Madison Forwander; NEW YORK; NY; 10019; USA
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar