My Best Friends and Other Illusions

A heart-warming story about memory, forgiveness, and second chances.

Sometimes thirteen-year-old Charlie Dickson feels like Superman.

Like when she does her aerial tumbles, her cartwheels, or her backflips.

Charlie is a budding acrobat who is desperate join the renowned traveling circus, Circo Circo. But her mom can’t afford the gymnastics camp she needs to attend in order to qualify. Her younger brother Miles decides to raise the funds through online gambling, but that just gets child protective services on his tail. Charlie must earn the money by performing at parties in her small town in upstate New York. All she needs is the perfect partner.

The solution comes from Miles’s crush and confidante Pooja, a call center employee in Bangalore, who helps find Charlie a gymnast on Craigslist. Henry answers the call. He’s the perfect gymnastics partner: athletic, funny, and enthusiastic. There’s just one small thing though…

Henry is Charlie’s childhood imaginary friend – come to life.

And the problem with imaginary friends is that they know things about you. Henry’s familiarity with the Dickson family secrets soon causes a trail of chaos and mayhem that not only jeopardizes her acrobatic dreams but threatens to tear her family apart.

Rights details

USA/Canadian French: Scholastic Canada (February 2020)

• Ages 8 - 12