Fresh Start

Fresh Start is a funny, colorful middle-grade graphic novel by Gale Galligan about friendship and belonging. It is semi-autobiographical.

Ollie Herisson's father is a diplomat, so her family moves often. She has already lived in Singapore, Korea, France and the United States. Because she knows another move is coming, she never worries about first impressions at a new school: somewhere else she will get a fresh start, a complete reset. It does not matter if classmates think she is odd for pretending to live in the world of an imagined anime, if she makes an enemy of the most popular girl in class, or if she does something hugely embarrassing. Nor does it matter that her mother mostly wants her to be a more proper Thai daughter.

Then the family moves from Germany to Virginia, and Ollie has a mortifying first day at her new school. To her shock, her parents announce that they will buy a house so that she and her sister, Cat, can finish grade school in one place. With nowhere left to run, Ollie has to work out how to be herself and make real friends.