From bestselling author Lisa Graff, this important coming-of-age story follows a thirteen-year-old with a mysterious scar on her face—and a big secret she feels pressured to keep.
Fallon Little has a secret—and it’s not how she got the enormous scar that divides her face in two.
Thirteen-year-old Fallon has only ever told one person what really happened on the day she got her scar. Why would she? The truth is dark, and Fallon has much brighter things to focus on, like being cast as the lead in the school play, and hanging out with her two best friends, Trent and Kaia. But when Fallon's uncle Geebie dies, his funeral ignites a wildfire of events that Fallon can't manage to tamp down. The school play is spiraling out of control, Fallon's impossible Aunt Lune comes to live with them, and Trent and Kaia might just be so into each other that there isn't room for Fallon in their friend group any more. And when secrets even worse than the one about Fallon's scar threaten to come to light, Fallon might not have the strength to keep them buried for much longer.
Through unflinching prose and with a pitch-perfect voice, bestselling author Lisa Graff explores the power of confronting the past as a way to heal in the present in this propulsive and absorbing tour de force.---from the publisher
400 pages 978-0316570800 Ages 12 and up
Keywords: coming of age, middle school, school play, performing arts, friendship, uncle, death and dying, aunt, child sexual abuse, dysfunctional family, family secrets, healing, scar, 10 year old, 11 year old, 12 year old, 13 year old, 14 year old, main character female
*****
“Why it’s the Model T Ford, made the trouble
Made the people wanna go, wanna get, wanna get
Wanna get up and go seven, eight, nine, ten, twelve
Fourteen, twenty-two, twenty-three miles to the county seat..”
—one of my lines in a pre-Summer of Love, 6th grade production of The Music Man
“‘There are problems with any play that’s ever been written,’ Fallon,’ Mr. C. said, curling his fingers closed. ‘Especially the ones schools perform, ones that were written a long time ago. Because times change and those plays don’t.’
‘But that doesn’t mean–’
‘You’ve also picked a hell of a time to get upset about all this,’ Mr. C. went on, cutting me off again. ‘Did you know that right now, at this very moment, Mrs. Gasker is fighting three different book bans?’ He waved his hand vaguely in the direction of the library. ‘People are banning books all over the country, trying to decide what kids should read, and think, and know about. They’re stripping away our First Amendment rights, page by page. The courts are getting involved, and the school board is scared speechless. Soon we may not have a library at all.’ You could tell this was an issue Mr. C. was super passionate about. ‘You want to take the entire theater department down with it? Is that what you want to happen?’
‘Of course that’s not what I want,’ I said. And Mr. C. nodded like his point had been made. ‘But just because every play might bother someone doesn’t mean that I shouldn’t speak up about this one. I don’t think books should be banned. I don’t think the library should be shut down, or the theater department, either. But I do think…’ I tried to gather my thoughts. ‘I think it’s my job to speak up when I see something that could hurt someone. And if a bunch of little kids come to this show and learn the lesson that it’s okay for someone to manipulate them–as long as that person is funny and clever about it–well, that’s wrong. And I’m not going to stop saying so just because you don’t agree.’
Mr. C. studied my face for so long, not saying anything at all, that it started to make me uncomfortable. I kicked at a smudge in the linoleum.”
Despite being chosen for the lead in this year’s school play, Hello Dolly, Fallon has come to the conclusion that she has a serious issue with the school performing the play. As we ultimately learn, her concerns and protests come from a very personal place.
“I come to you with all my flaws
With all my beautiful scars
I love you the way that you are
With all my beautiful scars”
– Madonna (2015)
“The first thing anyone ever notices about me is my scar.
Most people don’t usually say it, but they don’t have to speak the words out loud for me to know that’s what they’re noticing.
Sometimes they wince when they see me for the first time, or suck in their breaths real fast, a little hiccup of surprise. Sometimes their eyes go wide, or they cover their mouths, or they let out a squeak of an Oh!
But what people almost never say–not out loud, anyway, not to me–is, ‘Geez, that’s an ugly scar on your face Fallon Little. It almost hurts to look at it.’ Sometimes people say it. A few times, they have. But those are the people who you don’t care what they think anyway. Even if you do sort of appreciate their honesty.
It is ugly, my scar. There’s no hiding that. And there’s no hiding the scar itself–the few times I’ve tried to cover it up with makeup just made it stand out worse. Like it or not, the scar is a part of my face now. A part of my life.
A part of me.”
So begins the profound, poetic, often amusing, and grab-you-by-the-collar intense tale of thirteen-year-old Fallon Little. A SCAR LIKE A RIVER is the winner of the 2026 Boston Globe-Horn Book fiction award–with good reason.
As she debates with Mr. C., and faces challenges with her best two friends, Fallon is hiding secrets. A SCAR LIKE A RIVER plays out like a three-act play, as she slowly reveals what she has been through—from Secret #3 down to #1.
“People always think, when they see my scar, that there’s a single story behind it–one they’re desperate to hear. That part they will say out loud, actually. Not always, but often. How did you get it, Fallon? they’ll ask.Sometimes their voices are concerned, sometimes they’re disgusted, or worried, like they think they might catch it. What happened?
I never tell them. Well, I told my best friend, Trent, last year. But other people? Even my parents don’t know the secret of what happened that day, though they’ve asked plenty.”
Fallon had suffered on her own, all these years, because she has kept the secrets bottled in. When she is befriended by an unlikely schoolmate, she is finally able to confront those closest to her who should have helped her, but failed. She is able to share her pain with a support group, and she finally becomes able to live at peace with her family and friends…
Chapter by chapter, A SCAR LIKE A RIVER reveals why Fallon is so personally troubled about the “gaslighting” that takes place throughout the play. In the process, she stays strong in her character, is able to practice what she believes, convinces others of the importance of what she is advocating, and successfully creates something meaningful and fun for her school.
Fallon’s tale is so well-crafted, that I found it as much fun reading it the second time through, stumbling across all the clues the author drops–like bread crumbs along the trail–that I overlooked or didn’t make sense of the first time around.
Already an award winner, this powerful tale unquestionably belongs in all elementary and middle school collections.
Recommended by: Richie Partington, MLIS, California USA
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