By Emily R. Zarevich, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
I don’t want to fail this pepperoni test. So my sad fingers peel off each pepperoni.
And I hear Kinsley say, “Yay, Cheese Girl. For just today.”
Third time’s the charm (and the first, and the second). On August 18, 2026, Burlington-based children’s book author Lana Button, teaming up with Orca Book Publishers, will release the highly anticipated third installment of the adventures of Brianna Banana, a fiery young girl with a sassy mouth and a big heart who navigates the school life that sometimes cannot contain her wild spirit. Hitting the shelves is Brianna Banana: New Cheese Girl, a title with half a grocery list and plenty of entertaining lessons for middle-grade readers.
Brianna is nine years old and is in the third grade. She’s got a strong personality and is still in the process of learning emotional regulation. Fiercely temperamental, she frequently gets in trouble at school for telling off the staff and drumming up trouble with the other kids. Fearful of being singled out, she doesn’t like the “unique learning plan” that’s being set up for her by the school, her doctor, and her family. Her big, bad, grumpy streak doesn’t win her a lot of friends. She’s also too proud to admit she’s struggling and would really like a better school experience.
But then something spectacular happens to her. She’s chosen by her teacher, Mrs. Newberry, as the Helper of the Day! It’s a prestigious role with a lot of responsibility, not to mention a lot of social credit. Suddenly, everyone wants to be her best friend, because the Helper of the Day gets to pick another student to accompany her on a thrilling trip upstairs to the mysterious second-floor library to pick up books for the class. And not only that, the most popular clique in the grade, the Cheese Girls, wants her to join their royal-esque ranks. But are they really her friends, or are they just using her?
Brianna Banana’s character arc in this Button tale is all about emotional maturity and learning to recognize the difference between a healthy friendship and a toxic, manipulative one. Elementary school mean-girl politics are, unfortunately, a common and traumatizing rite of passage for a young girl who’s just trying to fit in. Brianna has to learn how to protect herself and identify a real friend. Button’s prose is also realistically compassionate in how it depicts a young person dealing with the possibility that they might have a learning disability. Brianna is, understandably, resistant at first to the changes this possibility brings and is anxious at the prospect of being “othered” among her peers.
Brianna Banana: New Cheese Girl includes fun newspaper comic-style illustrations done by Suharu Ogawa that give the characters a lot of personality. The illustrations mark key moments in Brianna’s social interactions, like an encounter with her school archenemy Markus and her various initiations into the Cheese Girls by the queen bee, Kinsley. It also visualizes some silly scenes from Brianna’s very active imagination, such as her fantasy about starting a popular YouTube series doing tricks with her Nanny’s cat. Button’s narrative and Ogawa’s aesthetic make a good match.
The book launch for Brianna Banana: New Cheese Girl is set to take place at A Different Drummer Books, located at 513 Locust Street, on September 13, 2026, at 1:00 p.m. Lana Button is also scheduled to make an appearance at the next annual Telling Tales Festival, which will take place on October 3 and 4, 2026.
The first two installments of Button’s series, Brianna Banana: Helper of the Day and Brianna Banana: Worst Surprise Ever, are also available for purchase. For beginner readers, Button also came out with a picture book with Owlkids earlier this year, in March 2026: Time to Leave, Laverne! Beautifully illustrated by Yong Ling Kang, this stand-alone publication tackles themes similar to those in the Brianna Banana series, following a young girl learning how to control her volatile emotions.
