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A Scar Like a River

Contributors

By Lisa Graff

Formats and Prices

On Sale
Feb 3, 2026
Page Count
272 pages
ISBN-13
9780316570831

Price

$9.99

Price

$12.99 CAD

A coming-of-age story about Fallon Little, a thirteen-year-old with a mysterious scar on her face—and a big secret she feels pressured to keep, by bestselling author Lisa Graff. 

Fallon has a secret—and it’s not how she got the enormous scar that divides her face in two.

Thirteen-year-old Fallon Little 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.

  • "Wit and heart are such disparate things to combine appropriately in the span of a single novel for kids. What Lisa Graff has managed here isn’t merely extraordinary—it’s monumental. A book that somehow straddles the serious and the silly with enviable aplomb.”
    Betsy Bird, author of Long Road to the Circus and creator of the renowned School Library Journal blog Fuse #8
  • “Graff breaks our hearts and heals them, all in one compelling story.”
    Kirby Larson, Newbery Honoree for Hattie Big Sky
  • “Quintessential Lisa Graff. Quirky, funny, timely, and deeply moving.”
    Sarah Weeks, award-winning author of Pie and So B. It
  • “A gentle invitation for kids to feel and speak and heal through all the complicated emotions surrounding the traumas that leave us scarred.”
    Lindsey Stoddard, acclaimed author of Brave Like That

Lisa Graff

About the Author

Lisa Graff is the author of many award-winning novels, including The Thing About Georgie, Umbrella Summer, Absolutely Almost, Lost in the Sun, and A Tangle of Knots, which was nominated for the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature. A graduate of UCLA and a recipient of an MFA in Creative Writing for Children from The New School, Lisa also spent five years as an editor at Farrar, Straus & Giroux Books for Young Readers. She now lives with her family outside Philadelphia, and she invites you to visit her online at lisagraff.com

Learn more about this author