Edie Tells a Lie by Ingrid Laguna

Title: Edie Tells a Lie

Author: Ingrid Laguna

Genre: Contemporary Middle Grade

Publisher: Text Publishing

Published: 1^st July 2025

Format: Paperback

Pages: 176

Price: $16.99

Synopsis: Edie lives with her mum—it’s just the two of them. Her best friend, Bowie, lives right next door, until Bowie moves to the country.

Edie feels alone and forgotten, but she soon meets Aleki, and she’s happy to have a new friend. Aleki has a big family with lots going on all the time. Edie wishes she had a big, interesting family too.

So she invents a story—a lie.

It’s only a small story, but it soon grows, and it lands her in trouble. Suddenly Edie is lonelier than ever.

But then she finds a mysterious letter in an old book. It’s written in Polish, the language of her dad’s family, and Edie discovers she has a famous great aunt who lived a remarkable life with wild animals in a forest in Poland. Edie is proud of her Polish heritage, and she wants to tell her classmates about her amazing auntie.

But, after her lie, will anyone believe her?

Edie Tells a Lie is a heartfelt story about friendship and family, loneliness, and the consequences of making a mistake.

~*~

Ten-year-old Edie’s life is about to change again when her best friend, Bowie moves to the country. For years, it’s just been her and mum since her dad died, and Edie has always had Bowie in her life. She still goes to the Polish markets with mum, but at school, things are different. She feels lost and invisible, like she doesn’t belong. Meeting Aleki changes things – Edie starts making a new friend.

Until a family tree project sparks something. She only has her and her mum on her tree – nobody else, and nothing else about her heritage. Her feelings of loss and invisibility spark something in her – a jealousy, of sorts, as she sees Aleki with her large Samoan family. Edie wants to be seen – so she tells a small lie that grows…until people find out the truth, and then Edie is lonelier than ever.

It’s the mysterious letter she finds in a Polish story her father used to read to her that sparks things for Edie. Her determination to apologise to everyone at school leads her into uncharted territory, uncovering stories about her family that she never knew before – but will her discoveries be enough to bring Aleki and Max back?

Edie Tells a Lie explores themes of friendship, family, heritage, and learning to trust yourself and trust those you know. It touches on what it means to explore your identity, and how it shapes us across generations. And what heritage means – it’s different things for different people, but this book is a reminder that everyone has ancestors and family history, that it is different for everyone and we all have our own histories. Our own families, and our own traditions that inform who we are, and help create our identities. It’s amazing what we can learn about ourselves and our ancestors once we start digging, but this book is also about friendship, and the friends that are part of our family too.

Family is more than just who you are related to. It’s about the people we choose to be in our lives, and how we relate to them. It’s about navigating old and new friendships, and finding ways to connect with friends, to be part of their lives even when they live hours away. And about being there for them and doing whatever we can to help or listen. It may only be in small ways, but it all makes a difference. In the end, we’re just doing what we can for ourselves and each other to create a community and family.

Edie finding out more about her family and connection to someone important in Poland also opens up a discussion about political situations in various countries and immigration. Her discoveries are dealt with sensitively, but give wider context to who she is and where she fits into this diverse story. This feeds back into the family tree plot, and the exploration of identity, and discovery that everyone has their own story. Their own histories and connections that make the world and everyone in it unique. What makes this touching middle grade book special is that the characters are allowed to be messy and make mistakes. They don’t have to be perfect, and they’re allowed to work through things – things that many adults might even find hard. This book is so honest about friendship, feeling lonely and everything that goes with it, that it shines and sings. It brings these issues into being and shows that it’s okay not to be perfect, and to not have all the answers. Because let’s face it – who does have it all together and have all the answers at any given time?

This is a lovely book that is sure to speak to readers and give them the strength to speak up if they need to, or to simply show them that friendship is something that we can work on, and that we can have many friends. And that our identity comes from many different places to make us who we are.