Found: Novel About a 12-Year-Old Girl’s Quest To Save Her Fictional Friend

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Found: Novel About a 12-Year-Old Girl’s Quest To Save Her Fictional Friend

1Starlit_Skies
Modificato: Lug 28, 2022, 3:33 pm

First post here! Anyway, I remember reading this children’s book about a couple years ago that I really enjoyed. Unfortunately, I can’t remember the name of the book. I kinda doubt that someone will be able to identify this book though, as I believe it’s a bit of an obscure book, but it's worth a try. Please note that some things I say may not be exactly correct to the book's plot.

1. I believe this book was published either in 2016 or 2017, but I’m pretty sure it was published in 2016.
2. The main protagonist (I’ll just call her Lillian) had a mother, who, prior to the events of the story, had an animation studio and was the creator of a TV show about a 12-year-old girl hero (I’ll call this character Elise).
3. One day, while Lillian watches an episode of her mom’s show, Elise shouts “Shazam!” and comes out of Lillian’s TV. Elise tells Lillian that the company wants to reboot her show and make her a princess so that they can sell merchandise and asks for her help. Lillian agrees to do so.
4. Each chapter or so, it changes POV between Lillian and Elise.
5. We learn that not only fictional characters can enter into the real world, but people from the real world can also cross into a fictional world too, as later in the novel, Lillian crosses into Elise’s world.
6. We also learn that fictional characters can not only step out of TVs, but also out of computers too. I think they can pretty much walk out of anything that has a screen on it.
7. They basically just go into the company’s office and sabotage all of their work. That’s pretty much it.

Other random stuff I remember from the book:
1. At one point it changes to 3rd person POV to this witch character.
2. There’s a joke about using bathrooms in fictional worlds.
3. Near the end of the novel when Lillian and Elise are about to say goodbye to each other, Elise mentions to her that she’ll always be 12 years old, because, you know, fictional characters don’t age in real time.
4. Book had a Q&A section with the author and one of the questions was something like "If you can bring any fictional character from a book, movie, show, etc., into the real world, who would it be?"

Also forgot to mention that I read this in the US.

2Starlit_Skies
Lug 30, 2022, 2:10 pm

Bump

3Starlit_Skies
Ago 1, 2022, 11:23 pm

Bump

4Starlit_Skies
Ago 5, 2022, 5:04 pm

Bump

5beyondthefourthwall
Ago 5, 2022, 6:01 pm

I thought of Ariel, Zed, and the Secret of Life by Anna Fienberg, but it's much too old.

There's also Still There, Clare by Yvonne Prinz and its sequels, but that's an even longer shot (framed around an imaginary friend).

6RosetheReader
Ago 5, 2022, 8:13 pm

>1 Starlit_Skies: Also a bit of a long shot, but The Other Alice?

7Starlit_Skies
Modificato: Ago 6, 2022, 10:11 pm

>5 beyondthefourthwall: >6 RosetheReader:

It’s neither of those books, sorry. Wow, this book really is obscure as I thought.

I’m gonna wait for a few more responses. If no one else is able to figure out, I might as well try to ask somewhere else. Anyway, here’s a bit more things I remember about it:

1. I think the book cover was blue (maybe turquoise) and green. The book cover also had both main characters illustrated on it, with one of them near the top left corner while the other near the bottom right corner.
2. There’s a mention of the character Donald Duck, I think. I know for sure it mentioned a Disney character.
3. It’s not part of a series of books.

8beyondthefourthwall
Ago 7, 2022, 10:34 am

I'd like to know too - this sounds really interesting!

9Starlit_Skies
Ago 13, 2022, 1:54 pm

Bump!

10Starlit_Skies
Ago 21, 2022, 9:41 pm

Bump

11Starlit_Skies
Set 4, 2022, 6:51 pm

Bump

12Starlit_Skies
Set 28, 2022, 12:27 am

Bump

13Starlit_Skies
Nov 27, 2022, 11:54 am

>8 beyondthefourthwall:
I finally found the book I've been looking for! It's called More Than Magic: Secret Friends to the Rescue by Kathryn Lasky!
I guess I was right about this book being very obscure because even LibraryThings doesn't seem to have it listed at all.

14RosetheReader
Nov 27, 2022, 12:00 pm

15beyondthefourthwall
Nov 27, 2022, 3:32 pm

>13 Starlit_Skies: Wow, I'd never heard of this one in spite of Lasky being so familiar! I'd really like to read it, so noting. Thanks for following up!