Famous Anonymous

Middle schoolers Gus, Harper, Luke, and Sophie were close friends, until the demands of academics and extracurricular activities pulled them in different directions. Soccer practice leaves Gus with little time to focus on anything else, much less his passion for writing. After her two mothers “noticed her flair for the dramatic,” Harper was enrolled in a series of music and theater lessons. Harper’s autistic brother Luke, meanwhile, prefers to play video games and take apart computers between his occupational therapy appointments. And Gus’s sister Sophie, who has yet to find her niche, feels left out. When the group’s parents leave the tweens alone for the night, they decide to film themselves reenacting scenes from one of Luke’s video games. Upon posting the video on social media, it goes viral, and each of them has conflicting ideas about how to navigate their newfound notoriety. Alternating between the four protagonists’ recognizable perspectives, which are peppered with contemporary slang (“We left no crumbs”), Baden (Buried Secrets) delivers an of-the-moment cautionary tale about the highs and lows of internet fame for kids of the Digital Age. Sophie is described as having brown skin; other characters cue as white. Ages 8–12. (Sept.)