Noah’s best friend, Lewis, was killed in a car accident several months ago. Noah and Lewis were only out as trans to each other–not their families or at school, where Noah is Nora and Lewis was Ella. Noah, autistic, has not only lost his best friend but the essential sense of being known, seen, and understood. Lewis was deeply imaginative and determined, and for the sixth-grade science fair had planned to find proof of the existence of Mothman, a legendary cryptid in their region. Noah hadn't been interested in the project, but is now determined to carry it out. He starts with writing letters to Mothman. In them, Noah expresses his grief and loneliness, something he suspects Mothman understands. Leaving the notebook with the letters out near the edge of his yard, Noah (white) sees evidence each morning that Mothman is reading them. This tender, lovely novel in verse follows Noah from isolation and grief to an emerging sense of belonging and healing. His journey is helped by a connection with three other kind, imaginative kids at school: Molly, Alice, and especially Hanna. They are the first people beyond Lewis to whom Noah comes out, his trust well placed, and Noah is slowly able to broaden that circle to his parents and teacher. Supernatural elements are given space to exist in a way that allows readers to decide for themselves how to make sense of this aspect of a quietly captivating story. (Ages 9-12)

Poet and author Robin Gow’s moving middle-grade novel in verse Dear Mothman is about a young trans boy dealing with the loss of his friend by writing to his favorite cryptid.

Halfway through sixth grade, Noah’s best friend and the only other trans boy in his school, Lewis, passed away in a car accident. Adventurous and curious, Lewis was always bringing a new paranormal story to share with Noah. Together they daydreamed about cryptids and shared discovering their genders and names.

After Lewis’s death, lonely and yearning for someone who could understand him like Lewis once did, Noah starts writing letters to Mothman, wondering if he would understand how Noah feels and also looking for evidence of Mothman’s existence in the vast woods surrounding his small Poconos town. Noah becomes determined to make his science fair project about Mothman, despite his teachers and parents urging him to make a project about something “real.”

Meanwhile, as Noah tries to find Mothman, he also starts to make friends with a group of girls in his grade, Hanna, Molly, and Alice, with whom he’d been friendly, but never close to. Now, they welcome him, and he starts to open up to each of them, especially Hanna, whom Noah has a crush on. But as strange things start to happen and Noah becomes sure of Mothman’s existence, his parents and teachers don’t believe him. Noah decides it’s up to him to risk everything, trek into the woods, and find Mothman himself.