Jess Callans
A Stonewall Book Award Honor Book!
A 2026 Rise: A Feminist Book Project Top Ten Title
A 2026 Rainbow Round Table Top Ten Pick for Young Readers
A 2026 Lone Star Reading List Selection
An Indie's Introduce Pick
A NYPL Best Book of 2025
A 2026 Bank Street Best Book of the Year
"A vital read that celebrates the power of true authenticity."
-School Library Journal (starred)
"Clear echoes of Judy Blume."
-Booklist, starred review
In his debut, Jess Callans delivers a tender, queer coming of age story about finding your voice and choosing to live authentically, even when it’s easier to blend in.
Puberty, AKA the ultimate biological predator, is driving a wedge between soon-to-be 13 year old Ollie Thompson and their lifelong friends. Too much of a girl for their neighborhood hockey team, but not girly enough for their boy-crazed BFF, Ollie doesn’t know where they fit. And their usual ability to camouflage? Woefully disrupted by all the changes around them.
When a school project asks them to write an essay on what it means to be a woman (if anyone’s got an answer, that’d be great), and one of their new friends is the target of bullying, Ollie is caught between the safety of fleeing from their own differences or confronting the risks of fighting to take their own path forward.
Praise for Ollie In Between:
“...An empathetic exploration of identity that will resonate with young readers carving out their own definition of self. Infused with equal amounts serious, topical conversation, and gently humorous observation, Ollie in Between is a middle grade classic in the making. ” —A. J. Sass, award-winning author of Ellen Outside the Lines and Ana on the Edge
"Debut author Callans’ confiding tone leans into Ollie’s flummoxed first-person ruminations with rhetorical questions that probe moments of deep vulnerability and hope . . . . Clear echoes of Judy Blume couple with themes of social adaptation that rely a bit heavily on analogies to the animal kingdom, but a range of readers should relate to Ollie’s sense of otherness. As Ollie puts it, 'Being yourself can hurt,' but awkward and self-aware stories like Ollie’s can help more tweens 'just be.' "
-- Booklist, starred review
“As endearing as it is hilarious, Ollie in Between is Jess Callans’ laugh-out-loud debut about surviving the chaos of growing up and finding the courage to speak up for others, and, most importantly, yourself. This tender, queer coming-of-age tale shows how sometimes the only way to survive is to embrace your weird and choose your own path.”
--Aiden Thomas, New York Times-bestselling author of Cemetery Boys
